With the U.S. House of Representatives poised to vote on an end to the longest-ever government shutdown, Kansas City’s roughly 30,000 federal workers are still facing an uncertain future – professionally and personally.
On Monday, the U.S. Senate passed a continuing resolution that would reopen the government, and the House vote could come as soon as Wednesday.
Meanwhile, federal employees are still struggling, whether they’re furloughed or still working through the shutdown.
Brittany Melugin works in customer service at the Internal Revenue Service in Kansas City. Melugin continues to come to the office with about half of her colleagues, and said she struggles with feelings of guilt and worry about her colleagues who got furloughed.
“It has been very different from anything I’ve experienced. Even [during] the COVID-era half staff, there wasn’t quite the same level of tension that there is now,” Melugin told KCUR’s Kansas City Today in an interview. “It’s a different atmosphere.”
On top of that, Melugin said, many federal workers are forced to take a furlough for an entire two-week pay period if they need to take time off for medical reasons.
It’s a policy that’s been applied inconsistently – she was able to take time off to follow up on the results of a recent mammogram, but other coworkers have found it difficult to go to doctor’s appointments or take care of family.
“I needed to go and have that scanned again. And that’s not something you want to put off at the whim of politicians,” Melugin said. “That’s not something you want to put off because you’re worried that you’ll get fired.”
The following interview highlights have been condensed and edited for clarity.
Interview highlightsOn the atmosphere at the IRS during the shutdown
When the office was first furloughed, half of the people left. Those of us who are exempt or excepted showed up on Monday, and it was like walking through a graveyard. The atmosphere is incredibly dismal.
I saw people that I normally see doing their little walk during break, but they had tears in their eyes. I saw this guy looking like he was going to start crying any moment, and I empathized with that very much. I made it to my desk first, but that was as far as I got.
Carlos Moreno
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KCUR 89.3
The Internal Revenue Service building on Pershing Road. Photo taken Feb. 19, 2025.
On morale among her coworkers
It’s bad. It’s not great at all. The whole year has been stressful and so morale was already taking a real hit, but now that we’ve got about half of our friends gone, and we ourselves are constantly worried that that will be us.
I think a lot of us are so stressed and so close to the end of our ropes that we would almost welcome that furlough experience. And that is a guilt trip because you see your friends struggling, going to food banks and trying to get hired on to temporary other jobs that they could work, so that they can just make ends meet during the furlough.
Being on the inside and feeling all of that weight and tension from the management from the higher ups, just sort of sliding right down onto your shoulders, it’s a lot.
I had nightmares when the furlough started. And I’m so glad I spoke out, because in my friend group, we have a chat and I wasn’t the only one. Most of us were going through that, whether we were furloughed or not. That was pretty intense to find out, that we were having the same kind of anxiety dreams about people going missing.
On why she decided to work for the federal government
I wanted a career that I felt like I could grow with, and I wanted something that I felt like gave back. And I wanted to be able to have a career, to really make a career out of something. And so I thought, this is someplace where I can be useful, I can help people. I can be a helpful part of society. And so that’s what I was aiming for, and I don’t regret it at all.
They will pry this job from my cold, dead fingers because I love being a civil servant. I had no idea, really, that I would love it this much, and it means a lot to me.
On the Trump administration’s attitude toward federal workers
The current administration has really let us down as employees, I think. Not everybody appreciates what a federal employee does, and that’s OK.
There are times when I know people are not going to want to support somebody who takes taxes or is part of that system, and I’m not personally offended by it because I feel like the rest of the government has our back.
On taking medical leave during the shutdown
We’re being told now that if we take more than a single day or eight hours of leave, we’re going to go into a furlough status ourselves for the rest of the pay period – a pay period for us is two weeks. And we’re supposed to come back out of furlough at the end of that, and be able to work, but there seems to be some question of whether that’s universal.
And there seems to be an at-will furloughing of those of us at the IRS. I don’t think this necessarily applies to other agencies, but it’s like, we have to be perfectly healthy. Our families have to be perfectly healthy. Everything has to go well.
Even if you have a doctor’s appointment, there are times when they are trying to basically charge you an entire day of leave, even if you just want to take a few hours to go to a doctor.
I was lucky because I’m currently positioned under a manager who was able to fight for my ability to go to see my doctor. But it’s strange, it’s not universal, it’s not across the board, and people don’t know if they’re going to have their job.
And so many people that I talk to are so terrified about being furloughed because they’re worried that that will put them in position to be fired.
If you’re a current or federal worker and want to talk about your experiences, email nomin@kcur.org.