In his memo to federal agencies providing guidance just prior to the funding lapse, then-Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney wrote that furloughed workers shouldn’t do any work-related activities over the weekend. On Monday, they should report to work only for the “no more than three or four hours” needed to tie up loose ends and wind down their projects, he wrote.

At that point in 2018, there still wasn’t agreement on Capitol Hill on the stopgap bill’s duration. If there’s a deal in place on the spending bill this week with a reasonable expectation that it has the votes to pass, OMB can hold any shutdown orders for up to 24 hours, under longstanding agency guidance.

Furlough notices would still need to be sent out to affected workers, likely on Sunday. But as in 2018 that can be pulled back quickly after final appropriations are signed into law.

In a review of past government funding gaps, the Congressional Research Service grouped the severity of shutdown into categories, classifying “brief” lapses as anything lasting three days or fewer.

“Notably, many of the funding gaps do not appear to have resulted in a ‘shutdown,'” the CRS wrote. Some of those gaps “did not result in a completion of shutdown operations due to both the funding gap’s short duration and an expectation that appropriations would soon be enacted.”

After funding for agencies covered by the first six fiscal 2024 spending bills cleared the Senate the evening of March 8, Biden was at his home in Wilmington, Del. Due to the late hour and the time it took to get the bill to him for signing, funding technically lapsed overnight and into Saturday morning. But OMB held any shutdown implementation procedures, knowing it would all be over shortly.

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(Peter Cohn contributed to this report.)

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