Furlough Far From Home
At any given time, thousands of federal workers are on official travel. Many are visiting Washington on business even as feds from here are checking up on field offices, attending conferences or conducting business somewhere else.</br></br>Here's a tip for anyone who expects to be sent out of town on or about Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year and the time when nonessential operations may be shut down for lack of a federal budget agreement.</br></br>To avoid being sleepless in Seattle, down-and-out in Ottawa or buffaloed in Buffalo, check to see if you are an "excepted" employee before you get on an airplane.</br></br>In the event of a shutdown, federal workers will be designated one of two things: excepted or nonexcepted.</br></br>Excepted types would keep working -- because of the essential nature of their jobs -- and would be paid once their agency budgets are approved. Agencies have until Sept. 6 to decide which functions are essential and which employees get the excepted designation.