Tagged: Sequestration

About 13,000 civilian employees at Wright Patterson Air Force Base will be forced to take 11 days of unpaid leave beginning in July.

Col. Cassie Barlow, commander of the 88th Air Base Wing, made that announcement yesterday.

Each of the 13,000 civilian employees will be on one day of furlough per week beginning July 8 until they reach 11 total days. The unpaid leave is the result of automatic defense budget cuts.

Barlow says the development is "good news" because the Department of Defense's 800,000 civilian employees had originally faced 22 days of furlough.

Head Start is an early childhood education program that serves low-income and at-risk families and families that have children with disabilities. The recent sequestration is requiring Head Start programs across the state to cut their funding by 5.3 percent and that could mean big changes to the services it provides. Barbara Haxton is the Executive Director of the Ohio Head Start Association. She says that next year the Miami Valley could lose as many as 300 slots for children in local Head Start programs.