US Agencies Offer Staff new Buyouts Ahead Of Trump’s Layoff Deadline

Agencies utilizing lump-sum payments, early retirement program to cut federal employees

March 13 is due date to submit plans for massive layoffs

Workers would receive buyout payment of up to $25,000

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Buyout program less vulnerable to legal challenge

By Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid, Marisa Taylor and Nathan Layne

March 11 (Reuters) – Multiple federal government agencies are turning to early retirement programs to lower headcount as they scramble to fulfill President Donald Trump’s Thursday deadline for them to submit prepare for a 2nd round of mass layoffs.

The Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Food and Drug Administration, are among the companies which have provided lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to workers who consent to leave their jobs.

The buyout offers, combined with another program that eases eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being welcomed as a lower-friction way to assist satisfy the Thursday due date, personnel experts at several federal companies told Reuters.

The Trump administration has been facing myriad lawsuits after it fired countless probationary employees in a very first wave of mass layoffs and dismantled entire departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian help agency, and the Consumer Financial Bureau, which protects Americans against unscrupulous loan providers.

All U.S. government firms have been bought to come up with massive layoff plans by Thursday as part of Trump’s unprecedented project to upgrade the government. One of his leading advisers, the tech billionaire Elon Musk, is leading that effort with his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

The General Services Administration, which handles the government’s residential or commercial property portfolio, is likewise seeking approval to use the buyout payments to employees, according to an email sent by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The Securities and Exchange Commission has actually currently offered rewards of up to $50,000, Reuters reported.

Personnel and public governance professionals stated the appeal of the buyout program, called voluntary separation reward payments, is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal challenges. It also requires workers who have accepted the offer to repay the cash if they take another federal government task within 5 years.

“If your strategy is to get as lots of people out the door willingly, that decreases the risk of court orders and opposition to you in the long run,” stated Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan.

OPM STILL WAITING FOR PLANS

Only a number of agencies have telegraphed by means of media leaks the number of workers they plan to cut in the second stage of layoffs. They include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is intending to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 staff.

Despite the looming deadline, no agency has actually yet sent its job-cutting plan to OPM, the federal government’s personnels department that is collecting the information, an individual familiar with the matter told Reuters. OPM decreased to comment.

OPM itself has actually used lump-sum payments to some 650 OPM employees, according to another individual with understanding of the matter. Employees were given till March 12 to respond.

At the General Services Administration, workers were informed on Monday that OPM had greenlit a plan to use an early retirement program to all eligible employees.

“I motivate each of you to consider your alternatives as we move on,” GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian composed in an email seen by Reuters. “The new GSA will be slimmer, more effective and laser-focused on effectiveness and high-value outcomes.”

On March 10, the HR department of the Fda sent an email to all its 19,000 employees announcing a Friday, March 14, due date to opt into a VSIP. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

“There will be no extensions,” specifies the e-mail, reviewed by Reuters and signed by Tania Tse, director of the FDA’s Office of Human Capital Management.

Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its previous VSIP deal by adding that employees accepting it would get two months of complete pay in addition to the benefit, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters.

Steve Lenkart, executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union which represents 110,000 federal government workers, said the Trump administration was using “a genuine program to more damage the capabilities of companies to complete their mission.”

OPM decreased to react to Lenkart’s comments. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid, Marisa Taylor and Nathan Layne; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis)