City Hall has agreed to collectively pay $57,371 to 11 mostly former city Finance Department employees who alleged they were forced to work overtime without being paid.

Including lawyer’s fees, the proposed $350,000 settlement of the nearly 2-year-old federal lawsuit was filed March 10 in U.S. District Court in Richmond. The agreement only needs the approval of Judge Robert E. Payne to go into effect.

According to the agreement, the payments will range from $1,178.75 to $7,580.87 for each of the 11 people who participated in the complaint filed in May 2019 by two former employees, Tyrus Yerby and Adrienne Webster.

Kevin Burton is the only one of the 11 plaintiffs still listed as a city employee in the city’s online directory.

Mr. Yerby and Ms. Webster also are to receive an additional $1,000 each for serving as lead plaintiffs.

Other plaintiffs in the case include Catherine Badley, Malcolm Bradford, Tasha Branch, Sheron Gary-Morris, Marlon Strain, Carolyn Tyson-Harsh, Aida Vasquez and Deanna Walcott.

A memo on the settlement states that the 11 people agreed to accept 50 percent to 75 percent of the unpaid overtime they would have been due had the case gone to trial and they had prevailed.

The agreement also includes a payment of $292,629 to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Nichole Buck Vanderslice and Butler Curwood PLC.

The memo states that the payment for plaintiffs’ legal services is far below the estimated $750,000 worth of time the attorneys spent on the case.

In the suit, the plaintiffs alleged their assignments frequently required them to work more than 40 hours a week, but they claimed they were only allowed to file the standard eight hours of work daily in the city’s payroll system. Their suit alleged that now former Finance Director John B. Wack barred staff from recording extra time he did not personally pre-approve.

Three lawyers with the City Attorney’s Office led by Richard E. Hill Jr. argued the employees had been fully compensated. However, Judge Payne rejected their effort to have the case dismissed.

The agreement was worked out after two rounds of settlement talks overseen by U.S. Magistrate Judge Roderick C. Young, the memo states.

The suit is the latest the city has faced in the past 10 years over failure to pay overtime as required. Since 2012, the city has paid more than $12 million to compensate police officers and other employees who alleged they had been shortchanged due to the city’s failure to abide by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.