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Last updated on Wednesday, February 1, 2017
(CRANE) - Tuesday, the Office of Management and Budget released a Memorandum providing Federal Civilian Hiring Freeze Guidance.
Among the exemptions listed are Term employees.
"Crane Army Ammunition Activity appreciates that our hard-working, Hoosier Term employees will be able to continue the mission of supporting the Warfighter," says Tom Peske Congressional and Public Affairs Crane Army Ammunition Activity. "We are awaiting word from Army Civilian Personnel Office on its implementation."
For more details about all the exemptions, please follow the following link for the Memo: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/31/federal-civilian-hiring-freeze-guidance
Earlier - President Donald Trump's 90-day federal hiring freeze could put some 130 employees from the Crane Army Ammunition Activity facility out of a job.
Crane hires civilian workers on one- to three-year contracts, and even if they're keeping the same employees, they're considered new hires when their contracts are renewed. About 130 such contracts will be up at various times over the next 90 days.
In the Oval Office on Monday, Trump signed a memorandum to the heads of all executive departments and agencies ordering "a freeze on the hiring of federal civilian employees to be applied across the board in the executive branch." Trump said as he signed the document: "Except for the military, except for the military."
Trump also ordered that Office of Personnel Management recommend within 90 days a long-term plan to reduce the size of the federal government's workforce through attrition. "Once the plan was submitted, the hiring freeze would end," the memo said.
The memo stated, "As part of this freeze, no vacant positions existing at noon on January 22, 2017, may be filled and no new positions may be created, except in limited circumstances."
"This order does not include or apply to military personnel," the memo said, and "the head of any executive department or agency may exempt from the hiring freeze any positions that it deems necessary to meet national security or public safety responsibilities."
"In addition, the director of the Office of Personnel Management may grant exemptions from this freeze where those exemptions are otherwise necessary," the memo said.
Trump's presidential memorandum excludes military personnel; however, the Crane jobs are considered civilian positions.
Thomas Peske, a spokesman for Crane Army Ammunition Activity, says they are still trying to figure out if the freeze will apply to them, since the memorandum states that the head of any executive department can grant exemptions deems necessary to meet national security or public safety responsibilities Peske says he's confident things will get worked out and they'll be able to extend the contracts.
Indiana's US Senators Republican Todd Young and Democrat Joe Donnelly both sent letters to the Secretary of Defense last week, asking for Crane to be exempt from the order.
Meanwhile, Peske says they are giving employees all the information they have on the situation and are trying to keep the workers focused on their jobs.
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