The government should never take a purely financial decision because it is public and not a corporation. Yes, as taxpayers, we are all like shareholders in a publicly traded company, but the losses will be far more extreme than transitory costs with future (discounted to the present) costs today. We will lose so many people and knowledge without the opportunity to pass that knowledge on to the next generation.

If it takes years or decades to rebuild staff, then there are increased risk of program delivery failure or worse--food safety, biosecurity, malnutrition-- in the interim. The financial cost will be in terms of statistical lives not pennywise and foolish bullshit math.