DENVER — The U.S. House is expected to vote on the Senate-passed funding bill that would end the longest government shutdown in our country's history Wednesday evening.
President Donald Trump has signaled he will sign the bill to reopen the government, according to ABC News.
Should the government reopen after more than 40 days, experts tell Denver7 some of the front-facing services provided by federal workers across the country and Colorado should return to normal by Monday at the latest.
"Technically, our federal employees should return to work after President Trump signs this new bill, that will happen immediately," said Robert Preuhs, a professor and chair of political science at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
In Colorado, thousands of federal workers are either furloughed or working without pay during the government shutdown. More than 2,100 of them filed an unemployment claim with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), since the start of the shutdown.
Denver7 reached out to the department for information on what federal claimants need to know should the government reopen. A spokesperson for CDLE provided the following statement:
Federal law requires back pay for the time federal workers are furloughed. Once they receive their back pay, federal workers are responsible for paying back any unemployment benefits they received during the shutdown.
We will be communicating directly with federal claimants with instructions for their next steps once the shutdown ends.
Denver7 asked Professor Preuhs when he expects the thousands of federal employees who've been working without pay to receive paychecks.
"It probably depends on the exact pay schedule, but certainly by the next pay period, they should see a full paycheck and then the process of getting the back pay put together, probably around that same time as well," he said. "A lot of it depends on how the system, how the situation works out within the administrative side, just actually the process of managing payrolls."
When it comes to November's SNAP payments for the roughly 568,000 Colorado beneficiaries whose EBT cards weren't reloaded before the back-and-forth Friday between the U.S. Supreme Court and states, Preuhs said recipients should get that money quickly, once the government does reopen.
"SNAP benefits are a little bit easier. It's just a matter of making sure those transactions are turned back on. We should see that happen within days," Professor Preuhs told Denver7. "It should really only take a few days once this process is there."
Earlier this week, the Colorado Department of Human Services announced that Coloradans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help purchase healthy food would begin receiving partial payments for the month of November 2025.
It's website added that if current guidance holds, Coloradans EBT cards would be reloaded by the end of the week.
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