Call it a belated Christmas present or early New Year’s gift.

Regardless, the Ironton Police Department employees will have something to celebrate Thursday when they receive back overtime pay for hours worked during the past two months. The city implemented a special payroll to pay the officers what was owed.

Ironton City Council met in a 15-minute special session Tuesday to adopt a final 2004 budget revision that will pay the dispatchers the balance owed. Council approved last week a revision that paid the police officers and most of the dispatcher's overtime but a balance of $650 remained.

IPD Capt. Jerry Leach said the officers are happy to put this issue behind them.

Before these two recent changes, the police officers were owed $7,339 dollars in overtime worked during four pay periods in November and December. Dispatchers were owed $2,665 for two pay periods in December.

Overtime was caused by officers covering for sick days, vacation days, comp time, the presidential visit, injury leave, floods and more. The city initially allocated $53,000 in the 2004 budget but had to revise it several times.

City leaders had emphasized that the employees would all be paid but that sufficient funds had not been transferred from the general fund to the overtime line item. The reason for this issue was disputed: some of council contended the officers should not have been called out until the money was available while others blame the problem on not transferring money soon enough.

The delay in pay was a violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and of the local union contract but the employees did not press the issue.

According to the final revision, the city's carryover ended at $369,804 -approximately $100,000 more than the $257,400 projected in the original 2004 budget, said Finance Director Cindy Anderson.

The added funds come from conservative budgeting, higher than anticipated tax collections and expense cuts, Anderson said.