Effects of government shutdown start to reach Mercer County, New Jersey, could prove to be catastrophic

TRENTON — While President Barack Obama and legislators continue talks to fund the federal budget, Mercer County is feeling the effects of across-the-board furloughs and funding cuts caused by the government shutdown.

Those effects could become catastrophic if the shutdown continues much longer, especially at the Trenton-Mercer Airport, where pilots and passengers again face the prospect of flying without an active control tower.

Seven employees man the airport’s air traffic control tower, paid for by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Federal Contract Tower program that staffs 255 towers across the country.

Ron Taylor, president of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization Local 81, which represents the Trenton-Mercer air traffic controllers, said the entire Federal Contract Tower program will come to a halt on Nov. 1 if there isn’t a resolution. Their present contract runs out Oct. 31.

Unlike some federal employees who have continued to work without being paid, promised reimbursement upon a Congressional resolution, the controllers won’t work without a contract, Taylor said.

“This has reached out to the real world now. The people in mainstream America, the federal employees, they have their own rules,” Taylor said. “But these guys aren’t public employees. They’re contractors and, if they don’t get paid by the FAA, they don’t go to work.”

The tower was also in danger of closing earlier this year, when the FAA announced it would stop funding more than 150 towers at small airports, including Trenton-Mercer, as a result of federal spending cuts. The decision was reversed less than one month later.

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