Photo by LGography.

Should the District’s early-out/easy-out retirement payments be considered a “bonus”? This is the debate in the latest chapter of the overarching tiff between the Fenty administration and the D.C. Council. The Examiner’s Michael Neibauer reports today that four District employees have been denied such exit payments by the Department of Human Resources, after the Council approved a 2010 budget which outlaws all “bonuses and special payments” to District employees.

Employees enrolling in D.C.’s retirement severance program are offered an incentive of 50% of their salary up to $25,000, paid in installments — in exchange, employees taking the payment can not be reemployed or hired as a sole source consultant or personal services contractor within the District government for five years. Not surprisingly, the five-year rule has had compliance issues in the past.

But specifics aside, the story should be familiar to all of us by now: the Council (in this case, Ward 3’s Mary Cheh and Chair Vincent Gray) claim that the administration didn’t understand what they meant, and District attorney general Peter Nickles basically tells the body to stop making the city’s agencies read their minds. 58 similar applications for early-out/easy-out bonuses were processed before October 15, when the new 2010 budget went into effect — so, obviously, plenty of District employees considering retirement interpreted the ruling the same way that Nickles has. But with emergency legislation currently being written by Cheh likely to settle matters, it’s just another episode of our newest favorite soap opera. Who knows what next week will bring? Now all we have to do know is figure out a good title. As the Wilson Building Turns? Chehs of our Lives? The Old and the Disagreeable?