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Home to 80k federal workers, this Virginia county feels the shutdown's impact

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Let's turn to a community that roughly 80,000 federal employees call home. Fairfax County is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C., and Jeffrey McKay chairs the Fairfax Board of Supervisors there. Welcome to the program, sir.

JEFFREY MCKAY: Thank you. Good morning.

INSKEEP: Must be hard to summarize, but what are some of the kinds of things those 80,000 constituents of yours do for the public?

MCKAY: Oh, well, they do everything. They're air traffic controllers. They are scientists doing medical research. They are law enforcement officers, military personnel, you name it. When you have 80,000 people, they're playing about every role in the federal government you can imagine.

INSKEEP: And I just want to note another thing - Fairfax County is suburban. There's expensive housing. There's less expensive housing, but I'm thinking generally cheaper than dead center Washington, D.C., because a federal worker is not making the absolute maximum money here.

MCKAY: That's right, which, of course, increases the vulnerability. The people that we're talking about that are being laid off are the ones that, you know, are struggling already to afford to live in an expensive region.

INSKEEP: OK. Let's talk this through. And you have plenty of experience with shutdowns in Fairfax County. Are many of your constituents being told to stay home at this point?

MCKAY: Yes, they are. And, you know, of course, what we're all concerned about, to your point, having been through this before is how long this will last. And so right now, we're hearing about people staying home, and what I'm hearing from people is just anger and frustration and, of course, fear. But the real fear will come if this shutdown lasts for a prolonged period of time, which we all hope it won't.

INSKEEP: What number of days would be prolonged in your mind?

MCKAY: Well, there's two numbers in my mind. One is, you know, two weeks for federal employees without pay is a long time when you're struggling to pay your mortgage. So two weeks for me is a long time for my constituents. For county operations, we're kind of paying attention to a different target, which is about 45 days. We know after about 45 days, we're going to see some major challenges economically with processing benefits for people and some of the things that we do as county government. And so you know, I'm kind of watching on behalf of my constituents and then also watching on behalf of county operations.

INSKEEP: When you said the number 45 days, I became a little alarmed, but I guess it's not impossible. The last one was well over 30 days, wasn't it?

MCKAY: It was. And we started to get, you know, started hitting the panic button right around 30 days, right around when things went back to normal. And so we're hoping that that doesn't happen. But, you know, every county has an exposure amount where they can continue to cover and help and provide assistance to people. But once that federal funding runs out, you know, obviously, then you're looking at a whole different problem on your hands. And so, for us, you know, we've looked at what that is, and we think anything over 45 days is - will just be - have a terrible effect on families.

INSKEEP: And I'm just thinking this through. I mean, there are people in America, all across America, who live effectively paycheck to paycheck. So after a couple of weeks, you're missing a paycheck, you've got an issue. What specific things are you able to do to prop people up if you need to?

MCKAY: Well, we have a coordinated services planning line, CSP, in Fairfax County. We set this up. It became a nationwide model during the COVID pandemic, where people can call to get assistance for, you know, from our nonprofit partners directly from the county. We know that people who are having challenges, either if they're SNAP or TANF beneficiaries or WIC beneficiaries, they can call through that number and get assistance.

What we have done is set up a one phone number to make it easy on people. If you need help paying your utilities, you know, you need help with child care, the types of things that really affect real families, they can call in on that one line, and what we will do, is, you know, set them up with the appropriate resources, whether they're direct county, whether they're federal pass-through programs, or whether they are, you know, partners with our nonprofits that provide food support and emergency services that people can call that number for that type of support. Then we have other...

INSKEEP: Let me ask about one thing - yeah, let me ask about...

MCKAY: Yeah, sure.

INSKEEP: ...Briefly one other aspect of this because Russ Vought is talking about laying people off. The administration has made it clear that they will target their fellow Americans if they're perceived to be Democrats or in blue states. In a few seconds, how seriously do you take that threat?

MCKAY: I - based on what they've been doing, I take it very seriously. It's alarming. It should be alarming to any American. This should not be about politics. The people that we're talking about are performing vital services for people across this country. And the idea that they're being held hostage for a political fight is unacceptable.

INSKEEP: Jeffrey McKay chairs the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. Thanks very much for your time this morning.

MCKAY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Steve Inskeep is a host of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.