State workers hit by shutdown waiting for word on furlough pay

Bill OK’d by Congress had provision for compensation

Thousands of furloughed Arizona employees whose salaries are fully or partially paid with federal funds were waiting Thursday for word on whether they would be paid for their two weeks off during the government shutdown.

Federal employees will be paid for furloughed time, and the legislation Congress passed Wednesday night to end the 16-day shutdown seemed to indicate that impacted state employees would, as well.

State and federal employees were back to work Thursday.

In Arizona, furloughed state employees included 1,391 military and 188 civilian Arizona National Guard employees, 452 people whose jobs are funded by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, 246 Department of Economic Security workers and nine employees in the state’s Office of Employment and Population Statistics.

Section 116 of the congressional bill says that furloughed state employees whose compensation is paid in whole or part by the federal government will be compensated for their furlough time and that the state will be reimbursed for expenses that would have been paid by the federal government during the shutdown, including the cost of compensating furloughed employees.

Chuck Loveless, director of federal government affairs for the national American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said this clause was a priority for the public employee union.

“We didn’t want certain governors cheating furloughed workers out of back wages,” he said. “If the money was appropriated, it should go for the workers it was intended to go to.”

Arizona department heads on Thursday were still trying to determine what exactly that means for workers here.

“There’s no reason to believe they won’t be paid back,” said Andrew Wilder, Gov. Jan Brewer’s spokesman, but he added late Thursday that he was still trying to confirm that with the Arizona Department of Administration.

Sgt. Adrian Borunda, an Arizona National Guard spokesman, said the agency was still awaiting word about back pay.

Tasya Peterson, a spokeswoman for the DES, also said her agency was awaiting word from the Department of Administration about reimbursing its employees. “It’s too soon to tell,” Peterson said.

ADOA spokesman Alan Ecker said late Thursday that he did not have an answer on whether the state will re- imburse the employees.

Federal workers pushed to get federal parks and forests opened.

“We opened this morning,” Pamela Baltimore with the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests said Thursday morning. “We invite people to come back up and see the great colors with the fall foliage up here in the high country.”

Baltimore said she expects all forests will be fully operational by next week at the latest.

Tonto National Forest officials issued a statement saying their sites would be open by 8 a.m. this morning.

Most federally funded state programs were not impacted by the shutdown, as officials had said they had enough money on hand to cover expenses at least through October.

This included food boxes for low-income seniors, food assistance for young children and the early education Head Start programs.

Programs that rely on federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families were put on hold, including the $9.6 million Jobs Program, designed to help parents on welfare find work; $3.7 million in emergency-services funding, which helps people make onetime payments for things such as rent and utilities; and a refugee-resettlement program.

It wasn’t clear Thursday whether those programs would receive full funding, including the shutdown period.

Arizona also temporarily halted welfare payments to about 3,200 low-income families. Arizona was believed to be the only state to stop payments under Temporary Assistance to Needy Families during the shutdown. After pressure from Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups, Brewer ordered the DES to find about $650,000 to make the October payments to all eligible families.

Wilder said the state had not yet heard when it will start receiving federal payments.

“The governor is very relieved that the federal government has reopened and they’ll start paying their bills again,” he said.

Brewer is still waiting to find out if Arizona will be reimbursed for the $465,000 it paid to keep the Grand Canyon open for five days. Wilder said repayments to states that funded parks operations during the shutdown were originally part of the congressional bill but were stripped out. He said Brewer was talking to Arizona’s congressional delegation in hopes of passing a bill to reimburse the states.

“But we’re dealing with Congress here,” Wilder said.