Delayed surgeries and bologna sandwiches: US workers’ family budgets hit the wall

The federal government shutdown has forced workers for the federal government, including Jose Lau (left), Samantha Strack and Ed Canales, all employees at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, to make tough choices to make ends meet. less The federal government shutdown has forced workers for the federal government, including Jose Lau (left), Samantha Strack and Ed Canales, all employees at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, to make ... more Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 19 Caption Close Delayed surgeries and bologna sandwiches: US workers’ family budgets hit the wall 1 / 19 Back to Gallery

Samantha Strack, a correctional officer at the federal prison in Dublin, is eating bologna sandwiches.

Her fellow officer Sue Canales can’t afford to get her daughter’s wisdom teeth pulled.

And Bethany Dreyfus, a lawyer with the Environmental Protection Agency, doesn’t know how she’s going to pay for her daughter’s day care.

That’s what happens when the paychecks stop and the federal government folds its tents. It’s called a “partial” government shutdown, but there’s nothing partial about the number zero, which is what Strack, Canales and Dreyfus will be paid on Friday. That’s the day of their first missed paychecks.

Strack, said it’s bologna sandwiches for her and bologna sandwiches for her daughter Kaitlyn, 17, too. Strack said the $2.75 a day she pays for Kaitlyn’s lunch in the high school cafeteria is out of the question, for now.

“This is outrageous,” she said. “I explained it to my kids, and they understand. But our family is being held hostage.”

About 800,000 other federal employees are being squeezed, too, with few options for short-term relief. The shutdown, a dispute over funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, began Dec. 22. The president and Congress seem more divided than whatever could be kept apart by a concrete wall.

Strack said she has worked 20 years at the prison in Dublin and, before that, served nine years as a sergeant in the Army, including two tours of Iraq. After the bologna sandwich phase of her relationship with the government began, she canceled Christmas, gave up restaurant meals and began running up credit card bills at 25 percent interest.

For the first time, she’s shopping for food at the dollar store. She also called off a family vacation to San Diego.

“The government doesn’t care, or they wouldn’t be doing this to us,” she said.

Fellow officer Canales said she has postponed having two of her daughter’s wisdom teeth pulled.

Her daughter, Skyllar, 22, has been in pain for more than a week, but Canales does not know whether the government has stopped paying her dental insurance premiums. No one seems to know whether she’s covered, she said, and she cannot afford to pay a $2,000 dental bill on her own. So Skyllar is making do with painkillers.

“I don’t have $2,000,” she said. “On Friday, I won’t have anything.”

Bethany Dreyfus, the EPA lawyer, said that while her paychecks stop Friday, the child care bill for her 10-year-old daughter doesn’t.

“We can’t cancel her child care just because the government canceled my paycheck,” she said.

Dreyfus spends her days overseeing the cleanup at toxic Superfund sites. The Superfund sites are nearly as toxic as the mess in Washington, D.C., that has kept the fate of 800,000 people in limbo for 20 days and counting. The president has said the government could be shut for “months or years.”

“We’re being used as pawns,” she said. “All for Trump’s wall. Which has nothing to do with the work we’re doing, or supposed to be doing.”

Dreyfus said she has some savings, and the family can live on that for a while. But the daily stress is taking its toll.

It’s taking its toll on civilian Coast Guard consultant Phillip Miedema, too. He was supposed to be retiring Dec. 31 after 17 years of helping the Coast Guard operate its facility at Alameda. But the shutdown is holding up his retirement paperwork and his vacation pay. Miedema, 68, had to put everything on hold — including a trip to Hawaii and two scheduled knee-replacement surgeries.

His knees are bone-on-bone, he said, and the pain is “excruciating.”

“But I can’t afford the co-pay,” he said. “It’s $2,000 per knee.”

Like everything else having to do with the federal government, Miedema’s life is in suspended animation.

“I don’t know if I’m retired or not retired,” he said. “I don’t know if I can apply for unemployment or I can’t. This is all Trump. He said he owns the shutdown. And he does. He’s made a horrible, horrible mess for so many people.”

As for the president’s claim that federal workers are backing the government shutdown, the Coast Guard consultant, the EPA lawyer and the Dublin correctional officers all said that was another White House lie.

“He says anything,” Canales said.

She said she and her husband, Ed, a fellow correctional officer, both voted for President Trump.

“Would I do it again?” Ed said. “No. He’s untruthful, and he has failed to hear us.”

Financial relief for the workers during the shutdown is hard to come by. Some lenders are flexible, for a price. Raphael Hall, a furloughed civilian purchasing agent for the Coast Guard in Alameda, said his car loan servicer is extending his terms, meaning he has to pay even more in interest at the tail end of his loan to cover the missed payments.

“I guess they’re doing me a favor, but they’re really doing a favor for themselves,” he said.

Some furloughed workers are applying for unemployment benefits, but getting them can take weeks or longer. And unemployment benefits must be repaid once a furloughed employee receives back pay. Federal union officials say their ability to provide loans or furlough benefits is extremely limited, and that traditional strike fund benefits would not apply for furloughs.

Sue Canales said there’s one thing she really wants, even more than money.

“When this is all over, I want Trump to apologize,” she said. “This didn’t have to happen. None of it.”

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF