Budget Impasse Likely to Close Some Agencies : Government: About 260,000 workers may be sent home. Only departments without funding will be affected.

WASHINGTON — For about 260,000 federal workers, this morning brings a familiar, if decidedly peculiar, message: You may be sent home from work because there is no money to pay you. But don’t fret either, because you will be paid anyway for the time off.

For the second time in three weeks, part of the federal government is expected to close its doors for regular business, caught in a high-stakes political battle between congressional Republicans and President Clinton.

Negotiations late Sunday to avert a shutdown produced no agreement. The White House said the president will call congressional leaders today to discuss how to arrange to fund the government agencies until a budget deal can be reached.

Unless the call produces quick results, civilian employees deemed “nonessential” at agencies including the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Interior and Justice will be sent home this morning.

The absence of a deal was announced Sunday evening by Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) to the Senate, which was in session on the chance an agreement could be reached.

“The zoo is closed, but the Senate is open. That ought to tell you something,” Dole said. He said he sympathized with federal workers “who have become the pawns in this exercise” and with tourists who are unable to visit the national monuments and sites.

“If the zoo is closed, maybe this [Senate chamber] is the next best choice,” he said.

Republican leaders have refused to pass temporary spending bills to keep the agencies operating, hoping to force Clinton into a long-term deal to balance the federal budget. Clinton has refused to accept the GOP’s terms, saying the spending reductions and tax cuts it wants would cut too deeply into Medicare, Medicaid and other programs.

Unlike the six-day shutdown in November, which was ended with a temporary funding agreement, many federal agencies will remain open this time. Their annual appropriation bills have since been passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.

They include the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Transportation and the Treasury, along with the U.S. Postal Service. These agencies will be open for business as usual.

However, a long list of agencies is still without funding, and these services plan to shut down for all but emergency or essential operations. They include the departments of Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, Labor, State and Veterans Affairs.

Those 260,000 workers who are deemed “nonessential” amount to about one-eighth of the total federal civilian work force. Republican leaders said the workers should not suffer for the stalemate, guaranteeing that all will be paid in full for the lost time after a deal is reached.

The closing of the Washington Monument and the museums of the Smithsonian Institution along the Mall often draws attention as the most visible symbol of the government shutdown. In other affected operations, passport offices will be closed. The offices of the Veterans Affairs Department and Social Security will be open, but operating at reduced levels.

House and Senate Democrats spent Sunday in the Capitol conferring among themselves, hoping to draft a new balanced-budget plan that liberals and conservatives could unite behind. They broke up into groups to discuss Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and taxes, and expect to have a new proposal later this week.

“This is really an effort to basically hold Democrats together in an offer we would make, a new offer that protects our priorities and balances the budget,” said White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta after meeting with congressional Democrats.

The effort could help Clinton keep conservative Democrats in the party fold, in the face of aggressive wooing by Republicans. House Republican leaders have been meeting with so-called Blue Dog conservative Democrats to see what changes could be made in the GOP budget to win their support.

With no progress in the negotiations apparent, Republican and Democratic leaders took to the airwaves to direct at each other the growing public disgust at the stalemate.

House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich of Ohio, one of the Republican budget strategists, said he believed a deal could be reached expeditiously if the White House would agree to base a balanced-budget plan on the more conservative economic assumptions of the Congressional Budget Office. He charged that the White House has reneged on previous pledges by declining to do so.

“They’re cooking the books. They’re using goofy math,” he said on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley.” He said Clinton’s latest proposal would reduce spending somewhat, but still leave an annual deficit of $115 billion in fiscal year 2002.

But Panetta said that the Republicans are trying to make radical changes in policy in the guise of long-term budget balancing.

“This is not just a numbers game. This is a question about fundamental differences on policy . . . whether it’s Medicare, Medicaid, student loans, agriculture, veterans,” Panetta said.

Leaving church services Sunday morning, Clinton said he hoped the good cheer of the holiday season might somehow infect the tenor of the budget talks.

“I very much hope that in the spirit of the season we can resume these talks in good faith,” Clinton told reporters after attending services at the Foundry United Methodist Church.