Budget Cuts Result in Devastating
Consequences at Fermilab

The spending bill recently passed by Congress is resulting in an unfortunate layoff of 10% of jobs at Fermilab in this coming year. 203 current lab employees living in Naperville now have to face the possibility of losing a job.

Fermilab relies on Congress to invest millions yearly to fund the numerous projects and supply payment to the many workers that the lab employs. However, this year Fermilab’s expected budget of $372 million fell to only $320 million.  This loss in funding is creating a $52 million deficit.

Pier Oddone, Fermilab’s Director says “There’s great concern for the future of the laboratory and we hope that this was not a malicious act but something inadvertent.”

The cuts will surely have their consequences in the present.  Such consequences include layoffs of 200 full time jobs out of the 1,940 employed by April or May of this year.  Employees who do not lose jobs will still suffer pay cuts. 

These layoffs are necessary in order to provide the funding needed for the construction of the Linear Collider and experiments involving the Nova projects currently underway.  However, even these projects will momentarily come to a halt for the time being until new solutions to solve the funding problems are created.

“This is an accident that needs to be fixed if we are going to be competitive in the world, ” Oddone said.

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