Most of the hundreds of employees at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management Retirement Operations Center in Boyers will continue to be paid during the partial government shutdown.

An article in Tuesday's Butler Eagle cited an employee who said employees were not getting paid during the shutdown, which began Dec. 22.

The article caught the attention of officials at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the Boyers facility.

Laura Goulding, OPM public affairs director, said OPM is shut down, but part of the office including the Boyers facility is operating and 99 percent of employees are working their required schedules, and will be paid.

“The vast majority of employees working for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in Boyers belong to a portion of OPM not affected by the current lapse in funding, which means they have not and will not experience any break in pay during the shutdown,” Goulding said in a statement.

Debbie Young, an employee at the Boyers facility who lives in Sugarcreek Township in Armstrong County, said Monday that employees are required to show up for work, but were not going to get paid during the shutdown.

On Tuesday, she said that was an assumption based on media reports about the shutdown. She said employees were not told they would continue to be paid.

“I feel bad. I'm sick,” Young said Tuesday. “I didn't understand they were gong to pay us. I can't believe I didn't know they were going to pay us. They didn't tell us.”

The center processes retirement and health and life insurance claims from retired federal employees.

Young said she has contacted the offices of U.S. Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., to encourage them to work to end the shutdown. Casey's staff said he supports ending the shutdown, and Toomey's staff responded with a statement from the senator.

“This is a disappointing situation for all parties involved, especially for affected federal employees,” Toomey's statement read. “However, there is a deal to be made, but it requires the White House to negotiate with the speaker of the house and the senate minority leader. This should not be an impossible feat, given that Democrats have voted in the past for a wall. In 2013, every Senate Democrat supported legislation to spend $46 billion on border security and a wall. Now, many of these same lawmakers are balking about a bill that puts $5 billion toward border security. For that reason, I am hopeful this impasse can be resolved soon.”

The shutdown began after President Donald Trump and Congress couldn't agree on an appropriations bill to fund government operations in the 2019 fiscal year. The dispute resulted from Congress refusing to provide the $5 billion Trump wanted to continue building the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

About 400,000 federal employees are expected to be furloughed until the impasse is resolved.