efaardvark
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Got some (probably) bad news today at work. According to Laurie Leshin, JPL's director, next year's budget for NASA - and therefor the lab's - will be around 10% less than expected. One of NASA's flagship missions, the Mars Sample Return has had its budget for next year slashed to around $300M from $800M to $900M. Ouch. Other missions are in a similar predicament. "It is also becoming more likely that there will be JPL workforce impacts in the form of layoffs, and the way such JPL workforce actions are implemented means that the impact would not be limited to MSR", according to an email Leshin sent to the Lab's employees this afternoon.
I say "probably" because all this is due to the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed a few months ago by the US Congress and the management is still recalculating and rearranging the budgets for FY 2024 and 2025 based on the mandates contained therein. We don't know the details yet, but the broad outline is pretty clear. Some layoffs have already happened. Others are likely as the details are worked out.
Happy New Year!
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I found out today that the day after that email came out the lab did actually let about 100 contractors go. Very abruptly from the sound of things.
Meanwhile the "leaders" in Congress are complaining that NASA should have waited for... something. Waiting for Congress to deliver a final budget is a non-starter because they'll no doubt argue until the last minute. (Or later! And if they can't agree then across-the-board cuts automatically kick in that would be even deeper than what's been proposed.) When you're told next year's budget will be between 30 and 90% of what you had planned for then you need to get started NOW. The FRA passed in July. Since then all Congress has done is go on break for the holidays. What's NASA management supposed to do?
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