Civilian Air Force employees, who were furloughed during the government shutdown, have been authorized to return to work Oct. 17.

Civilians, including those who returned to work earlier this month, will be retroactively paid but are urged not to access the pay system, as mass amounts of website logins could potentially crash the system.

Limiting access to the Time and Attendance website to only timekeepers and certifiers allows the Air Force to quickly update the system so all civilian Airmen can get paid in full.

“We want to ensure we don’t have individuals access the system because we only have a very narrow window to update the system,” said Bob Corsi, the assistant deputy chief of staff of Manpower Personnel and Services.  “Our goal is to make everyone whole in their pay from Oct. 1 in the next pay cycle.”

As the Air Force works quickly to make these updates during this narrow window, they’re prioritizing updates by regions.

“We’re working on a game plan to phase the updates by time zone, so we don’t crash the system with tens of thousands of people updating at the same time,” Corsi said. 

All Air Force civilians officially went back to work today after a 16-day government shutdown.  This return to employment comes as a result of President Barack Obama signing a continuing resolution last night that funds the government through Jan. 15, 2014.  Currently, the Air Force is operating under fiscal 2013 sequester funding levels. 

More information will be provided as it becomes available.