As the partial government shutdown continues, Southeastern has yet to see significant impacts despite the stagnation in Washington D.C.
The partial shutdown, which involves only 17 percent of the federal government, is a result of congressional gridlock in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Neither chamber can agree on a stopgap budget, formally known as a Continuing Resolution, to fund federal agencies and set spending priorities.
But, according to Executive Director of Public and Governmental Affairs Erin Cowser, the partial shutdown is having little to no effects on the university directly.
“These impacts are slight and the university experience has not been altered,” said Cowser.
On financial aid services, Cowser said students can still apply for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, but that one minor issue involving technical support is apparent.
“At this time, students are able to complete the FAFSA and are also able to request a Tax Return Transcript,” said Cowser. “We are able to send and receive files on a daily basis but if we have any issues, technical support is not available.”
Other areas such as veteran’s tuition assistance will only be slightly impacted if the partial shutdown continues for a long period of time according to Cowser.
“If there is a continued lengthy shutdown, it will impact veterans who sign up for a Term 2 class; tuition will not be paid for the Term 2 class if the class was not on the student’s schedule at the beginning of the semester,” said Cowser.
Cowser said the university’s regional processing office and state liaison were all on furlough due to the partial shutdown, but that it would only impact students who are attempting to contact the Veterans Affairs office with questions regarding their benefits or payments.
Drawdowns regarding federal funds and financial aid are not affected by the partial shutdown according to Cowser. This in particular is where the university draws down financial aid such as Pell Grants and direct loans.
However, the university is unable to draw down National Science Foundation grant funds and cannot submit its final related Recovery and Reinvestment Act report. But these issues are not affecting the university as of right now.
“At this time, it has no impact but could result in issues should the shutdown continue,” said Cowser.
Specific international services functions pertaining to international student workers have been altered because of the partial shutdown.
“Students that need to apply for a social security number who currently do not have one and who are hired as a student worker for the first time will be unable to receive a Social Security Number,” said Cowser.  “All SSN offices are closed during the shutdown.”
But the university has not experienced problems with the temporary international services alteration so far, according to Cowser.
University departments interested in hiring an international faculty or staff member who need to change their status will not be able to do so. Cowser said this is mainly because the “Department of Labor is unable to fulfill the functions necessary to complete the first part of that process.”
This is also not affecting any employee at the moment, according to Cowser.
“As of now, we have no departments who are in the process of hiring an employee that needs an application sent to the Department of Labor,” said Cowser. “Other than this, all international faculty and staff will not be affected.”
The Office of Sponsored Research and Grants, according to Cowser, like other departments, is only seeing insignificant and potential impacts because of the partial shutdown.
For instance, grant proposal submissions for students on Grants.gov or Research.gov are currently operating, but with a reduced support staff and annual and final reports are not being reported at the moment.
Also, if awards were not fully processed before the partial shutdown, the university cannot modify or amend those, while invoicing, billing or drawing down against awards where funds were not previously obligated, appropriated or approved for carryover could see possible inabilities.
And the university is not the only entity that has come out safe under the partial shutdown. Head Start is a federally funded program under the Department of Health and Human Services dedicated to providing education and health services to children in low-income families.
Southeastern’s branch of the Head Start program has, through a stroke of luck, similarly not been affected at all.
Executive Director of the Regina Coeli Child Development Center Dr. Susan Spring said that because their grant funds begin June 1 and end in May 2014, the program has not been affected.
“Well the good news is that our program has not been affected,” said Spring. “And the reason is because our grant year started June 1. And that was, at the time, and still is 2013 funding.”
Because the program’s funding is not cohering to 2014 funds, it is entirely unaltered, which Spring described as a “luck of the draw.”
Only a handful of Head Start programs that began receiving their grant funding on Oct. 1 were shut down, according to spring, but many of those have been reopened because of other resources.
“Head Start programs that begin receiving there grant year Oct. 1 were the only programs affected by the partial shutdown,” said Spring. “But some of them are linked to school systems, so the school systems have helped support the programs.”
Approximately 10 small funding bills, passed by the house, sit in the senate and are expected to fail, with recent negotiations between the house, senate and White House involving talks of the debt-ceiling, sequestration cuts and entitlement reform.
U.S. military personnel, the postal service, unemployment benefits, federal retirees, the Federal Reserve, border patrol agents and the Internal Revenue Service are just a small portion of units that have remained unaffected during the partial shutdown.
As of publication the shutdown has lasted 15 days and so far no agreement has been reached by lawmakers in Washington to end it.