REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. (WHNT) — It’s official, the government shutdown will stretch into another week.
Thursday afternoon, the Senate adjourned until Monday, meaning the next vote to reopen the government won’t happen until then.
News 19 spoke to two Redstone Arsenal workers on furlough.
Rese Meikus, an obsolescence engineer at the Arsenal, told News 19, “I am ready to go back to work.”
Meikus says for the last three weeks she’s been keeping busy by decorating the yard for Halloween and cleaning the house.
“Once I run out of things to deep clean, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said.
Like thousands of other furloughed federal employees on Redstone Arsenal, she’s patiently waiting for the shutdown to end. She’s asking folks in Washington to make it happen sooner, rather than later.
“Their job is to compromise and work together, and that’s what they should be doing, so that we’re not feeling the impacts,” she said.
The American Federation of Government Employees Local 1858 chapter estimates that most of the 22,000 civilian employees on Redstone Arsenal are furloughed.
That’s a lot of people who aren’t getting a paycheck.
Meikus says she’s thinking about people in our community who are impacted the most by this.
“There are families that had a stay-at-home spouse and a single income, and they have nothing, you had double incomes coming from the government and they have nothing, and then the younger ones that are a couple years out of college and dealing with this,” she said.
Meikus said her family is managing right now, thanks to savings and her husband’s income, but she thinks back to a decade ago when she wasn’t prepared to take a financial hit.
“I don’t know what we would’ve done. We would’ve survived, but I don’t know how,” she said.
Other Redstone Arsenal employees are starting to feel it as well.
“It’s starting to hit home right now,” said Bryan Preer.
Preer spent more than 25 years in the military and now works as an acquisition and business analyst on the Arsenal.
“Even though I have a retirement check, and my wife has a check, we’re still being impacted,” he said.
Preer said he’s ready to get back to work and says those in leadership positions need to step up.
He said he thinks back to how he made decisions when he was in the military.
“My leadership didn’t have a political side to it. As a leader, you have to make the best decision at that moment for whatever mission you have,” he said.
He said lawmakers need to prepare better in the future to avoid another shutdown.
“You know this thing is going to happen, it’s going to be a challenge, allow more time to solve these issues,” he said.
The U.S. Senate will reconvene at 3 p.m. on Monday. The next vote on a measure to end the government shutdown won’t happen until then.
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