Here’s a Look at Federal Agencies’ Shutdown Contingency Plans—and Why They Matter to Contractors
Stephanie Wright’s Federal News Network synthesis of agency-by-agency shutdown contingency plans (Sept. 30, 2025) arrives at the exact moment contractors most need clarity: as appropriations lapse and the government pivots to legally required minimal operations. For federal contractors, this compilation functions as a practical map of which missions continue, which pause, and where contracting activity—and your revenue, staffing, and performance risk—will be most immediately affected.
The plans underscore a core truth of shutdown management: continuity is uneven by statute and mission. National security, law enforcement, and protection-of-life and property obligations remain excepted, while a variety of administrative, policy, and grant-making functions are curtailed. For contractors, that asymmetry translates into contract-by-contract risk that hinges on the contracting agency’s designation of work as “excepted,” the availability of obligated funding, and whether government oversight personnel (especially CORs) are working. Understanding that distribution across agencies is essential to anticipating stop-work orders, access constraints, and invoicing delays.
The article reports, for example, that the Department of Homeland Security expects the vast majority of its workforce to be exempt or excepted, reflecting the continuity of border, maritime, and protective operations; that pattern signals relatively greater operational continuity for associated contractor support. By contrast, NASA anticipates furloughing the bulk of its civil service employees, while preserving International Space Station, satellite, and Artemis safety and operations—suggesting mission-critical flight and safety support will proceed, but many program management and administrative activities may not. The Department of Veterans Affairs expects most personnel to be exempt or excepted, with medical care and benefits operations continuing; contractors tied to VHA clinical support, IT uptime, and benefits processing may thus see comparatively limited disruption, even as some ancillary tasks slow. The Department of Education projects substantial furloughs yet continuation of student aid disbursements; contractors supporting grants administration may confront pauses in new awards or modifications even as legacy disbursement systems run. Similar agency-specific nuances pervade the compilation and should immediately inform a contractor’s portfolio triage.
Crucially, the piece highlights that OMB is not centrally re-hosting plans this cycle and has directed stakeholders to individual agency sites. That decision elevates the importance of directly consulting the relevant agency plan for your contract, rather than relying on generic shutdown lore. It also means capture teams and contract managers should monitor agency updates closely; plans are living documents, and small revisions (e.g., a program newly deemed excepted or a clarified funding caveat) can change operational posture overnight.
Wright’s coverage also references the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that roughly 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed each day at a daily compensation cost of about $400 million. For contractors, that figure is not merely macroeconomics; it foreshadows real constraints in approvals, inspections, property administration, security processing, and acceptance—choke points that can stall deliverables even when a task itself is excepted or pre-funded. Contractors should be prepared to document constructive suspensions, confirm the status of government-furnished resources, and align invoice timing to acceptance realities during periods of thin federal staffing.
In practical terms, the compilation is significant because it enables granular, contract-level risk assessment. Contractors can map each active award to the responsible agency’s contingency plan; identify whether performance is likely to continue, pause, or proceed with limitations; and pre-draft communications to contracting officers requesting written direction. It also supports workforce planning—who to retain on billable work, who to reassign, and where to plan for leave or furlough—and cash flow modeling, including potential drawdowns on lines of credit and prioritization of programs with obligated funding and continuing COR availability. For business development teams, the plans provide early signals of which new obligations, options, and deobligations may stall and where to recalibrate forecasted awards.
Ultimately, the value of this report is that it distills, at speed, the disparate legal and operational choices each agency has made and places them within reach of program managers, capture leads, and CFOs who must act today. In a shutdown, informed agility is a competitive advantage. This compilation helps create it by telling contractors where the federal government will keep moving—and where it will not.
Disclaimer of accuracy: This post summarizes third-party reporting and publicly available agency materials as of October 1, 2025. It is provided for informational purposes only, does not constitute legal or financial advice, and may not reflect subsequent updates or agency-specific directives. Contractors should consult their contracting officers and official agency guidance.