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

Agencies using lump-sum payments, early retirement program to cut federal workers

March 13 is deadline to submit prepare for massive layoffs

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

*

Buyout program less vulnerable to legal difficulty

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 satisfy President Donald Trump’s Thursday due date for them to send plans for a second 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 as much as $25,000 before tax to workers who consent to leave their jobs.

The buyout uses, combined with another program that eases eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being welcomed as a to assist satisfy the Thursday due date, human resource specialists at several federal agencies informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has actually been coming to grips with myriad claims after it fired countless probationary workers in a very first wave of mass layoffs and took apart whole departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian help company, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which secures Americans versus unethical lenders.

All U.S. federal government agencies have been bought to come up with large-scale layoff plans by Thursday as part of Trump’s unprecedented campaign to overhaul the government. One of his top advisors, 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 also looking for approval to use the buyout payments to employees, according to an email sent out by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already provided rewards of as much as $50,000, Reuters reported.

Human resource and public governance professionals said the appeal of the buyout program, called voluntary separation incentive payments, is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal obstacles. It also needs workers who have accepted the offer to repay the cash if they take another government task within five years.

„If your technique is to get as lots of people out the door willingly, that reduces the danger of court orders and opposition to you in the long run,“ said Don Moynihan, a public law professor at the University of Michigan.

OPM STILL WAITING FOR PLANS

Only a couple of agencies have telegraphed through media leakages how numerous employees they prepare to cut in the 2nd phase of layoffs. They consist of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is intending to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is preparing to cut 1,029 staff.

Despite the looming deadline, no firm has actually yet sent its job-cutting plan to OPM, the federal government’s human resources department that is collating the data, a person knowledgeable about the matter informed Reuters. OPM declined to comment.

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

At the General Services Administration, staff members were notified on Monday that OPM had greenlit a plan to offer an early retirement program to all qualified staff members.

„I encourage each of you to consider your options as we move forward,“ GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian wrote in an email seen by Reuters. „The brand-new GSA will be slimmer, more efficient and laser-focused on effectiveness and high-value outcomes.“

On March 10, the HR department of the Food and Drug Administration sent an e-mail to all its 19,000 staff members announcing a Friday, March 14, deadline to decide into a VSIP. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

„There will be no extensions,“ states the email, evaluated by Reuters and signed by Tania Tse, director of the FDA’s Office of Human Capital Management.

Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its prior VSIP offer by including that workers accepting it would get 2 months of full pay in addition to the bonus, 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 employees, said the Trump administration was utilizing „a legitimate program to further damage the abilities of agencies to finish their objective.“

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)