By Karl Johnson
‘Fireworks’
courtesy of ‘kimberlyfaye’
THIS JUST IN: OPM has made the call you’ve all been waiting on. The federal government in the DC area will be closed tomorrow! REJOICE!
The Washington Post reports on the decision here. Approximate cost to taxpayers is around $100m per day closed. But go ahead and enjoy that snow day anyway. In other news, it looks like the OPM.gov is actually down from too much traffic. OPM is also a trending topic on Twitter in DC.
By Tom Bridge
”
courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’
Tomorrow just got a whole lot more interesting. The Federal Government has announced that they’ve closed all agencies and offices tomorrow:
Federal agencies in the Washington, DC, area are closed. Nonemergency employees (including employees on pre-approved leave) will be granted excused absence for the number of hours they were scheduled to work. This does not apply to employees on leave without pay, leave without pay for military duty, workers’ compensation, suspension, or in another nonpay status.
Emergency employees are expected to report for work on time.
Employees on alternative work schedules are not entitled to another AWS day off in lieu of the workday on which the agency is closed.
So, enjoy your snow day, DC! It’s gonna be a good one.
Update 5:50pm: Arlington County has also closed offices and services for Monday.
Update 6:26pm: George Mason University will open at Noon
Update 6:46pm: Falls Church City Government will open at 10am
By Don
‘Stuck’
courtesy of ‘Samer Farha’
WTOP has an interesting article on how the DC government is using ZipCar’s auto management technology to increase efficiency in their auto pool. I’m all in favor of the government reducing its number of cars on the road and it’s hard to argue with a projected $1M+ a year savings, but the article somewhat glosses a significant fact. The vehicles continue to be owned and maintained by the DC government, meaning that sharing vehicles in the auto pool isn’t something they couldn’t have already been doing on their own – this is just a licensed, managed solution they’re utilizing, and at an ongoing cost.
WTOP states that the fleet has been reduced by 17%, 360 cars. That works out to an original pool size of 2,117 vehicles, which reduced by 360 means 1,757 now. The article cites a monthly price of $65 to $90 per vehicle, so averaged that’s $77.50/vehicle/month, or $136,167/month for the whole fleet, $1,634,010 per year.
Ongoing.
It would be interesting to what it would have cost to get a solution custom-built and run by a local firm.