Funding Flexibility Needed, Inel Manager Says Lab Considers Options, Including Asking Workers For Voluntary Layoffs

The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory has a $34 million budget problem, and a site manager says if they had more flexibility in shifting money between accounts, it could stave off the possibility that up to 375 jobs would be lost by June.

“We need some flexibility to move site dollars around between programs,” John Denson said Wednesday after discussing INEL’s tightening budget with community leaders in Pocatello.

Denson is president of site manager Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies Co.

The crunch is prompting INEL officials to analyze how to best distribute the site’s worker skill mix and whether they’ll need to ask up to 375 INEL employees to voluntarily quit their jobs.

“We have a $34 million problem,” Denson said.

A recent decline in federal dollars to INEL has in effect created a $34 million shortfall of indirect account money that can’t be charged to direct INEL accounts.

Direct account money is spent on specific work, such as moving spent nuclear fuel from an old storage building into a new one.

Indirect accounts are money spent to support several programs simultaneously such as public affairs, business management, buses and security.

Denson said Congress doesn’t allow contractors to shift money from direct accounts to indirect accounts when funding is cut. Legislators say that’s to guarantee that congressional intent will be carried out when money is appropriated.

During testimony last week to the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee, lawmakers asked Denson how Congress can make environmental programs at Department of Energy sites more efficient.

Denson said site budgets should be stabilized, to help with planning; site contractors should have the flexibility to move money between accounts and reinvestment of federal money should be allowed.