The United Stated Office of Personnel Management or OPM has posted on their website that they will close on Monday, February 08, 2010 because of the heavy snowstorm that strikes the region. According to John Berry, the director of the OPM, he decided to close the federal government on this day for the safety of the employees who will have difficulties to travel. The announcement will cover all Federal Agencies around the Washington D.C. area. However, not are all affected with this announcement because there are still some employees that are required to go to work.

Employees who are considered as emergency employees will have to report on their respected agency but those who are considered as nonemergency employees they will be granted an excused of absence. The announcement can be viewed on their official website http://www.opm.gov for more information.

The temporary closure of the OPM on this date will cause the countries taxpayers with 100 million dollar lost productivity according to John Berry, which has greatly affected his decision. He thought that with this lost they ought not to close their operation but since it will bring danger for most of the employees and other individual as well he decided to close on this day. Before making this decision he consulted first the state and local government through a conference call, February 7, 2010, Sunday afternoon.

With the temporary closure of the federal government some transaction will be put on hold that can affect some of the agencies operation. The estimated lost on the regions productivity will also affect the country. Snowstorm has caused a lot of damage not only on the federal agencies but also to the residents of the region. Before the scheduled Monday closure there have been emergency leaves and if the snowstorm continue there are a lot to follow, which is a bad news to the federal government.