Active-duty Coast Guard personnel have been paid through the partial government shutdown but the standoff is affecting civilian employees, recruiting, maintenance and non-emergency operations, the service’s vice commandant said Wednesday.
According to Adm. Thomas Allan, civilian workers have not received a paycheck since Feb. 14, and the service has stopped processing merchant mariner credentials, affecting 16,000 applications. It has failed to pay 5,000 utility bills and it is not paying the vendors who feed recruits at the service’s Cape May, New Jersey, training center.
It has also halted fisheries enforcement operations and routine maritime patrols. And families are operating under a “grim uncertainty” as to whether they will receive their April 1 paycheck — the third time in 176 days Coast Guard personnel have been affected by a shutdown, Allan told members of the House Homeland Security Committee.
“From our tactical boarding teams executing counter-narcotics missions to our rescue swimmers deploying from helicopters into rough seas, our crews should not have to worry about if their families will be able to pay rent or buy groceries,” Allan said.
According to Allan, even if the shutdown were to have ended Wednesday, the service will take until July 3 to catch up with payments and affected operations because it takes “two and a half days to recover every day we are in a shutdown.”
He estimated that the service has incurred more than $200 million in unpaid bills.
“What we worry about is that’s not only a near-term impact, but as we bid for these contracts with these companies in the future, they’re not going to come to the Coast Guard. They’ll go to the Navy, they’ll go to the Marines, they’ll go to the others,” Allan said.
The most recent partial government shutdown began Feb. 14 when Congressional Republicans and Democrats hit a stalemate in funding the Department of Homeland Security. The impasse stems from the uproar over federal immigration enforcement, including the deaths of two American citizens — Renee Good and Veterans Affairs intensive care nurse Alex Pretti — at the hands of federal immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis in January.
The agencies involved in the killings — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — continue to receive funding and paychecks under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed last July.
But other critical agencies, including Transportation and Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency and others are not being funded.
Senate Republicans sent a proposal Tuesday to fund the entire department except for some portions of ICE, with Democrats offering a counteroffer on Wednesday. Senate GOP leaders rejected that proposal over details that included a ban on the use of masks by ICE agents.
Active-duty Coast Guard personnel and activated Reserve members have received paychecks during the shutdown, although the service has not responded to questions regarding the funding source or how long the paychecks will continue.
Coast Guard officials referred all questions regarding the shutdown to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Military Times.
The Coast Guard received a record $25 billion in funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for investment in infrastructure, military assets and modernization.
Allan said the shutdown is beginning to hurt the service’s efforts to increase the size of its force, resulting in a delay in getting recruits to Cape May. He expressed concern that potential Coasties will begin looking at other options.
“Now we are dealing with ‘If you go to other services, Hey, you will get paid.’ At DHS it continues to be a question,” Allan said.
During the contentious hearing, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said they wanted to pass legislation to fund the witnesses’ agencies, including the Coast Guard. But they blamed each other for the quagmire.
“The shutdown is not a game, and frankly I’m tired of it being treated like one. The stakes are too high,” Committee Chairman Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., said. “We owe it to the American people to stop the political games, to fund DHS, and to get back to regular order.”
“Democrats want to ensure that before we give even more money to ICE and CBP, which is already flush with cash, by the way, that we rein in the deadly abuses we saw in Minneapolis. We owe Renee Good and Alex Pretti that much,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
Allan said Coast Guard men and women will continue to work but the shutdown is eroding the “sacred trust” service members have in the government.
“The Coast Guard will continue to serve because that is what our people have sworn to do. But a crew should never question whether the nation they protect will stand behind them and their families,” Allan said.
Patricia Kime is a senior writer covering military and veterans health care, medicine and personnel issues.
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