Civilian Furlough Time Reduced from 22 to 14 Days

The Pentagon announced plans to drastically cut the number of unpaid furlough days that civilian employees would be forced to take over the next several months. The initial plan of 22 days was reduced to 14, defense officials said Wednesday in a Pentagon news conference. 

This initiative will reduce the impact of automatic budget cuts for an estimated 700,000 civilian employees. 

According to a Stars and Stripes news report, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made the decision Wednesday, as military service chiefs and defense leaders continued to work through the details, trying to prioritize how they will allocate the more than $10 billion that Congress, in an attempt to take some of the sting out of the across-the-board budget cuts, shifted to operations and maintenance accounts.

Read the rest of the yahoo news report from Reuters here.