Almost $11 million has been paid to almost 6000 firefighting staff to make up for breaches of holiday and shift pay rules.
Fire and Emergency faced a bill of $10.8m. Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
Thousands of organisations are having to pay arrears, some of them huge, since mass breaches of the convoluted Holidays Act came to light in 2016.
Fire and Emergency faced a bill of $10.8m for 5783 current and former staff.
It is still to pay out another $300,000 this year to about half the former employees, and casuals, but has paid back all current staff.
It has also spent $2.7m fixing its payroll system.
"The project has almost been fully completed," Brendan Nally, deputy chief executive (people) said in a statement.
"Our payroll and rostering systems have been reconfigured."
It will be another year at least before the government brings in promised changes to the Holidays Act.