The Rome Lab/Rome Research Site facility at Griffiss park is being closed to all but mission-essential employees from noon Tuesday until the end of the day Dec. 15, due to COVID-19 cases.

The total on-site presence is being “reduced to approximately 3% of normal operating personnel numbers,” according to information Tuesday from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, which is headquarters for the overall Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Rome Lab is formally known as the AFRL Information Directorate.

“Only mission-essential employees will be allowed on site, therefore, employees will maximize the use of telework to continue mission operations,” said the Wright-Patterson information. It added that the two-week duration of the action was “due to the current local status of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

As of last weekend, the Information Directorate was informed that another four employees had tested positive for COVID-19, according to the information. It added that “out of an abundance of caution,” Rome Lab director Col. Timothy Lawrence has closed the site “to protect all personnel.”

Prior to that move, about 30% of the workforce was coming on-site each week on a rotating schedule or as needed, according to Wright-Patterson. Rome Lab’s total employment for fiscal 2019 has been reported as 816 civilian and military employees, plus 403 on-site contractors under Air Force contracts.

The current “mission-essential posture” which includes Rome Lab plus the neighboring Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) among other tenants is “similar to the posture taken on March 20,” said Wright-Patterson.

In March the on-site presence at Rome Lab had been reduced to about 3% of the workforce because of COVID-19, and after that it rose gradually to the 30% level by summer. The local lab “leads the Air Force and nation in Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) and cyber science, technology, research, and development,” Wright-Patterson has said.

At nearby Rome DFAS, which has a lease with the Air Force for its facility, most of the approximately 960 employees have already been continuing to work remotely since the onset of the pandemic, said Edward Abounader, president of the DFAS union local. Abounader, also president of the American Federation of Government Employees/DFAS National Council, said Tuesday that over 90% of employees are on remote telework arrangements.

The format has worked out “extremely well with labor and management,” Abounader commented. Throughout DFAS including Rome plus other sites, the productivity and customer satisfaction ratings are equal to or higher than when employees were on-site, he noted. The primarily telework arrangements are projected to continue at least until the resolution of the pandemic, he added.

Much of the Rome DFAS work has involved processing Army financial accounts including payroll, vendor payments and travel.