FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: CHRIS GALLEGOS
SEPTEMBER 6, 2007 (202) 224-7082
DOMENICI STATEMENT ON FY2008 FUNDING, POSSIBLE LAYOFF OUTLOOK FOR N.M. NATIONAL LABORATORIES
WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Pete Domenici today issued the following statement in relation to "all hands" meetings called at Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories Thursday to review the FY2008 funding outlook for DOE National Nuclear Security Administration and its laboratories, based on the House-passed FY2008 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill.
"With the new fiscal year set to begin October 1, the lab management teams are acting prudently and responsibly to alert their employees to the likelihood of layoffs or reductions in force because of the House-passed bill. At the same time, it is important to realize that FY2008 spending levels-either in a final Energy and Water Appropriations Bill or a continuing resolution that includes the labs' funding-has not been established.
"I will not deal in any specificity on the possible layoff levels within the DOE weapons complex at this point, but clearly the House-passed bill would mean very substantial layoffs at Sandia, Los Alamos and other sites across the complex.
"I will fight as much as I can for the funding levels in the Senate's FY2008 plan, current levels or even the president's budget request as the appropriations cycle grinds on this month. If we prevail, the projected layoffs would be much less severe than what would occur under the House plan."
Domenici is ranking member on the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee and is working with Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to have the Senate take up its committee-passed FY2008 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill as soon as possible. Senate passage would send the bill to a conference committee where the substantial differences in the Senate and House-passed versions would have to be reconciled.
The Senate is currently working to approve as many FY2008 appropriations bills as possible prior to the Oct. 1 start of the federal FY2008 fiscal year. The Senate has only passed two of the 12 annual appropriations bills, but neither has been signed into law.
27 comments:
double dippers please stand by..... ready for detatchment...
Along with about 2,400 other LANL staff, +/-.
Cna somebody please inform CHRIS GALLEGOS regarding the proper spelling of September?
"and New Mexico came to be like a 3rd-world country....."
Um, have you seen the rest of the state?
:-)
Where is Udall's statement? Still thumbing through his thesaurus for alternative expressions of flop sweat?
What Udall statement?
He already made his speech: LANL should diversify.
LANL didn't diversify. Therefore LANL gets to RIF lots of people.
If this helps to get rid of some of the aparteid/hiel Hitler crowd that call Los. Alamos home it'll be well worth it. As far as NM becoming like a third world country, is that supposed to be bad? Does that mean we can separate ouselves from the Idiot Nation? And so the bad news is what?
Oh my God! No more double-dipping? How about no more milking the system for all it's worth? Of course, that would require shutting down the whole damn place. Now wouldn' THAT be a tax savings!
4:27, does double-dipping include more than those currently drawing UC retirement? How about military and other non-UC retirees currently drawing a pension and working at LANL?
Maybe it's time for the Nanos solution. RIF everyone and shut the place down for a few months while rehiring from scratch.
7:48:
No, this particular insecure, self-centered little prick has a particular hard-on against just those double dippers who put in their time at LANL, and then were invited to come back to do more work.
Presumably, all other double-dippers are A-ok.
Anastascio said that LANL has seen fewer retirements this year than they expected. No shit, Jack! The NNSA set up the transition so that the 'old folks' had no reasons to leave LANL. They can take their ultra-save UCRP retirement while still getting a big match on their new 401k. They'll stay around until they get RIF'ed, at which time they'll be treated to a very generous severance pay package plus a chance for unemployment insurance. It's a very sweet deal!
Tom Udall deserves an award as political "Moron of the Year". What did he think would happen when he voted with his friends to help drastically cut LANL's budget?
I hope a good Democrat decides to challenge him in the '08 primaries and whips his sorry ass!
3 months? Try the three years that anyone should have seen this coming. Probably still not enough time for you, fossil-boy.
"They'll stay around until they get RIF'ed, at which time they'll be treated to a very generous severance pay package plus a chance for unemployment insurance."
At LLNL, there are two employment categories - "Indefinite Career" and "Flexible Term". Those in Flex Term positions get 30-days notice or pay in lieu of notice. Those in Indefinite Career positions get 1 week of pay for every year of UC/LLNS combined service. Flex Term employees with many years of service credit WILL NOT receive a generous pay package compared to many of their co-workers.
At LANL, severance pay can max out at around 45 weeks of paid severance. If you're a LANL "fossil", being laid off can result in a very generous good-bye handshake. Of course, LANS could always decide to suddenly change the severance policy to minimize payouts during the upcoming RIF. Lots of policies have been changing of late.
8:33 PM Anonymous said...
3 months? Try the three years that anyone should have seen this coming. Probably still not enough time for you, fossil-boy.
Yeah, at the fossils have some security in terms of seniorty. I am thinking if I were a new early career TSM with an ego and self-entitlement complex the size of Montana I would be afraid, very afraid and I would start kissing some major ass.
If I were a new TSM, I'd bolt. A sinking ship is no place for a young person. Of course, LANL has not been any place for a bright young person for 4-5 years.
(Maybe a young, clueless person. Wait, maybe that's the problem).
I just got hired in the past year and I am bolting - gots me a job lined up at Argonne. Good thing they hired away Sattleberger - LANL is ripe for the picking and all the good people are leaving. I know lots of people in my division that are leaving. LANL is losing the best 2,500 first and will be left with the mice terds. Thanks Mike for making it easy!
Poster 10:05 PM has it right. There are still lots of excellent paying jobs at the other DOE labs for the picking if you're good. Having a DOE Q clearance certainly doesn't hurt, either.
LANL is going to be picked clean of it's best TSMs in no time at all. Of course, we won't need many TSMs once the Pit Factory is up and running in a few more years.
but it's the SSMs on support side who will take the biggest hit in a RIF, not the TSMs. The economy of NM will be in the shitter if this happens since we (LANL and SNL) will all end up in jobs that pay half what we make now.
The entire NM congressional delegation has failed us, but it's the entire state that will suffer, not just LANL/SNL employees.
10:30,
It's completely irrelevant to me whether there are good jobs elsewhere. With the Los Alamos housing market officially dead as of 2:15 yesterday, the real market value of my house is now far less than the balance on my mortgage. I'm trapped here.
8:18 AM, you are more than just trapped. If you are now laid off with a mortgage on a Los Alamos home, you will be both trapped and financially bankrupted by the situation. It's what happened to some staff who were laid off during the '94 RIF.
8:18 AM needs to go into the forest on a windy night and start a fire.
9/6/07 10:05 PM, I seriously believe that someone is having smoke blown up their @ss here.
"8:18 AM needs to go into the forest on a windy night and start a fire." - 9/7/07 12:53 PM
Poster 12:53 PM, as someone who lives in Los Alamos and had all their treasured possessions and their home burned by the Cerro Grande fire, I find your comments in extremely poor taste. It rates right up there with jokes about people dieing of cancer.
"I seriously believe that someone is having smoke blown up their @ss here."
More like someone breathed in too much aqua regia.
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