Civilian Furloughs

Senior defense officials have again lowered their estimate of how many days civilian employees will be furloughed. The latest guess is seven days. Earlier they said 22 days, then cut that to 14 days. The officials told the Associated Press, it's possible no furloughs will be required because of sequestration. That's because the 2013 spending bill enacted in March gives the Defense Department the flexibility it needs to avoid them. The Navy was the first of the armed services to say it would try to skip furloughs entirely. But the Pentagon wants any furloughs to fall equally across all defense components.