Employees at the IRS and Customs and Border Protection should get at least some shutdown-related back pay at soon as tomorrow, senior leaders at the two agencies said today.
“You will receive your back and regular pay a full four days earlier than Oct. 28, the day most people would receive pay,” Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in an email to employees. In a similar note, Assistant CBP Commissioner Eugene Schied said that employees there should see retroactive salary payments show up “as early as Thursday.”
The two agencies, whose combined workforces total almost 150,000, are both paid through the Agriculture Department’s National Finance Center.
The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents workers at both IRS and CBP, is “grateful” that agency leaders “made this a priority and that employees at the agency and at the payment centers worked diligently to get this done,” Colleen Kelley, the union’s president, said in a statement. As early as tomorrow, CBP workers should receive back pay for Pay Period 19, which includes the first week of the shutdown, Kelley said, while a deposit for Pay Period 20 should follow on Monday, Oct. 28.
