More than 500 private security guards last month remained at their posts at more than a dozen area federal facilities despite not receiving pay or benefits from their now-defunct employer, according to testimony received Thursday during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

The employees of D.C.-based Startech International Security, which held five contracts with the Federal Protective Service to guard 14 buildings in D.C. and Maryland, went without salary from May 4 through the beginning of June. It was only then that the Department of Homeland Security declared Startech in default and shifted the contracts to another firm. Yet during that month, no more than a handful of guards left their posts in protest.