Thousands of District employees who were forced to accept furlough days during the 2011 fiscal year will receive back pay for those days beginning on Tuesday.
Faced with a $188 budget shortfall in February 2011, city leaders ordered converted four paid holidays to unpaid days. Ultimately, the District ended up with a $240 million surplus, and District officials decided earlier this summer to pay workers for the furlough days.
"We asked our employees to sacrifice an amount of income that was significant to many of them in order to help close what was then expected to be a budget gap," Mayor Vincent Gray said in a statement. "Instead, efficient management of government and unanticipated tax revenues gave us a surplus, and it's only right that we pay back our hard-working employees."
Gray's office said Wednesday that a batch of 22,000 employees will receive one-time, lump sum payments on Aug. 21. Because of differing pay schedules, other employees will receive their extra cash on Aug. 24 or Aug. 31.