Congress votes to compensate furloughed DOT employees

Last night, Congress voted to provide compensation to the nearly 2,000 DOT employees furloughed last month when the Highway Trust Fund extension was held up.

The provision was part of a larger bill Congress passed pushing back the deadline to file for extended unemployment benefits. I am thankful that President Obama quickly signed it into law.

Over the nearly 15 months that I have been Secretary of Transportation, I have seen nothing but dedicated, hardworking folks doing the work of the American people. It was unfortunate that they had to pay the price for a legislative impasse, and I was glad to see those who were furloughed return to work after only a short time.

Today, I am glad they have finally been made whole.

This is truly great news for DOT employees around the country. I thank Congress for doing the right thing and President Obama for signing the bill into law.

And I thank the faithful DOT employees whose commitment to ensuring Americans' safety and keeping critical programs moving remained strong.

Comments

[Shelby]

This is great news to the DOT and all of its employees effected by the hold up.

[Charles]

Thanks for taking the time to write thoughtfully about your work. I wish all Agency heads (or the top Deputy) would blog. A few use Twitter (thinking EPA) but that's really a rather shallow offering, including no real insights.

[Marlene Mahoney]

How long exactly were these federal employees "furloughed" for? Based on www.datauniverse.com the salaries are quite impressive and I'm sure us NJ State employees who have worked less than 10 yrs don't make that salary. Please don't misquote my comments and don't think for a second these career highly professional DOT employees don't earn every bit of their average 123K salaries. What I am stating is that I was under the impression the "recession" was a " national" problem. It appears the recession has not yet hit our Nation's Capital or Crum Lynne, Pa or residents in Maryland.BTW,if I'm a NJ State worker and a NJ homeowner, does that mean I'm semi self employed?

Gotta love the averages.

[Savannah Rocco]

Hopefully, we will not see more people on the unemployment rolls, and the extension of benefits passed...SOON!