Monday was the first day all staff was back on the job at the Ocmulgee National Monument following the government shutdown, but they arrived to an unpleasant surprise.
Bills pilled up for the 34 days parks service employees were furloughed.
Park superintendent Jim David says he spent at least four hours a day at the park for the past five weeks to make sure nothing happened to it.
“To me it was important to have someone on site each day to make sure very thing was okay,” said David. “Unfortunately some kids slammed in [and] literally jumped onto our Mississippian house."
During the first week of the shutdown, the teens destroyed half of the wooden structure.
David said the person who made the wooden structure is sick and can't make a new one, but the rest of the park appears to be in good shape.
“We're all glad to see one another again because we enjoy doing what we do,” said David.
According to the Committee for Responsible Federal Budgets, they say during a government shutdown, non-essential government employees are the ones who are sent home. That includes food and environmental inspections groups, like the FDA and the EPA, Medicare and Medicaid, the IRS, health and human services, and the National Park Service.
Those employees are back, for now.
“We are fully aware we are only funded for the next three weeks so we don't know what's going to happen at the end of the next three weeks or if we'll go and shut down three weeks from now,” said David.
David says some employees told him they were strained not knowing when they would get their next paycheck.
They caught up on their last five weeks of payroll on Monday morning, but were told the government would process it as soon as possible. He doesn’t know when that will be.