By Paul Merrion

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will start laying off about 140 scientists and other employees in the next few weeks, fewer than expected after its federal funding was slashed late last year.

But the reduced number of layoffs is due to recent retirements and resignations, the physics research center said on its Web site Thursday, not any improvement in its budget crisis.

The Batavia-based national lab initially had planned to lay off 10% of its 1,960 employees. About 50 workers decided to retire or resign, a spokeswoman says.

Congress cut this year’s expected funding for the lab by $52 million in late December, bringing it to $320 million, after the lab had operated for three months of the federal fiscal year at the expected level. That magnified the impact of the cuts in the remaining part of the year.

Last year’s budget was $344 million. Both the House and Senate had approved the $372-million spending level, but lawmakers made last-minute cuts in several programs to bring total federal spending down to a level that President George W. Bush would accept.

Fermilab, which normally has an annual payroll of about $150 million, also has started temporary unpaid furloughs of employees on a rotating basis to save the equivalent of one month’s operating costs, according to the lab.

The layoffs are not expected before the week of May 19, the lab says, pending final approval of the workforce restructuring plan by the U.S. Department of Energy.

U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., is attempting to restore Fermilab’s budget by adding $350 million in science funds to the emergency supplemental Iraq war funding bill now pending in Congress, but the Bush administration is opposing all but a few non-defense spending items.

At this point, a quick congressional remedy is a long shot. “In the short term, I’m afraid there’s not good news,” said Rep. William Foster, D-Geneva, a former Fermilab physicist whose district includes the lab. While the House bill comes up for a vote next week, it’s expected to fund a few non-defense items, he says, but science “will not be included in that.”

Senate action has been delayed a week, too, but Mr. Durbin, a member of the Senate appropriations committee, says he may offer an amendment in committee or on the floor to add science funding. Ultimately, to avoid a filibuster over the issue “we need 60 votes,” he said in a brief interview Thursday. “I think we can build a coalition for 60 votes.”

While the Bush administration has proposed a big increase in the lab’s fiscal 2009 budget, which starts Oct. 1, Congress is not expected to pass any other appropriations bills before this fall’s election, which means the reduced funding level will continue well into next year.

Aside from the layoffs, the real impact of the cuts is that all spending on new projects at Fermilab was eliminated, “leaving us without an anchor to windward,” a spokeswoman notes.