KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas Citians who have been furloughed from their federal jobs amid the government shutdown voiced their concerns to U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids at a roundtable event on Thursday.
"I'm so anxious all the time," Daniel Scharpenburg, a furloughed IRS worker, said.
Scharpenburg said federal employees are "real people suffering and being hurt by what's going on in Washington."
“I’m not sleeping at night and it’s really, really hard," he said. "I have a 15-year-old boy at home, and I don’t know if you know anything about teenage boys, but they eat a lot. So, it’s hard, it’s going to be increasingly hard to keep food in my house.”
Other roundtable participants included Jeff Suchman, president of Local 1748. He represents U.S. Department of Labor employees from Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa. He said about 75% of his union, including himself, has been furloughed.
“Very, very disorienting to not know when your next day of work is and when your next paycheck is," he said.
He voiced his concern about Oct. 24, the next payday for his union workers, approaching and no end to the shutdown in sight.
“At that point, I am fully expecting about 30,000 federal employees in the Kansas City area to start running out of money," he said.
According to Davids, there are about 30,000 federal employees in the Kansas City area.
“A government shutdown is catastrophic when it happens," she said. "It is also completely avoidable.”
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KSHB 41 reporter Lily O’Shea Becker covers Franklin and Douglas counties in Kansas. Share your story idea with Lily.
