All the people who got fired and offered to be rehired should agree to refuse unless their salary is doubled - if only because decent employers don't play with people's livelihoods like that, to teach them a lesson.
They should, but government positions are to a PayScale. You get hired "as" a GS-9 or whatever. You can go and lookup what the location pay adjustment is for your city if you're curious.
Contractors are generally paid at least double digit percentages more for the same job but can be fired/not renewed much easier. In theory.
The tradeoff was that it's pretty hard to fire a full time employee without cause, and the pension / student loan forgiveness / etc.
While that sounds nice, that's not going to happen. It simply isn't in the budget. They might be able to get a 10-15% raise, or a one time bonus to make up for lost wages. But I wouldn't expect more than that.
It’s… one of the worst sites I’ve ever come across. Everything about it is shit and suggests a lack of credibility, but I am constantly surprised by the number of times they have articles I initially wanted to read.