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

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

March 13 is due date to submit strategies for large-scale layoffs

Workers would get buyout payment of as much as $25,000

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Buyout program less susceptible to legal challenge

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

March 11 (Reuters) – Multiple federal government companies are turning to early retirement programs to decrease 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 amongst the agencies which have provided lump-sum payments of approximately $25,000 before tax to workers who concur to leave their tasks.

The buyout uses, integrated with another program that reduces eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being accepted as a lower-friction method to assist satisfy the Thursday deadline, personnel specialists at several federal companies informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has been facing myriad claims after it fired thousands of probationary workers in a first wave of mass layoffs and took apart whole departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian aid agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which secures Americans against dishonest loan providers.

All U.S. federal government companies have actually been bought to come up with massive layoff strategies by Thursday as part of Trump’s unprecedented campaign to revamp the government. Among his leading 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 federal government’s residential or commercial property portfolio, is likewise 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 currently provided bonus offers of approximately $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 susceptible to legal difficulties. It also requires employees who have accepted the deal to pay back the cash if they take another government job within 5 years.

“If your method is to get as many individuals out the door willingly, that lowers the threat of court orders and opposition to you in the long run,” stated Don Moynihan, a public law teacher at the University of Michigan.

OPM STILL WAITING FOR PLANS

Only a number of firms have telegraphed via media leakages how many staff members they prepare to cut in the second 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 agency has yet sent its job-cutting plan to OPM, the federal government’s personnels department that is collecting the information, 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. were provided up until March 12 to respond.

At the General Services Administration, employees were notified on Monday that OPM had actually greenlit a strategy to use an early retirement program to all qualified employees.

“I encourage each of you to consider your alternatives as we move forward,” GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian wrote in an e-mail seen by Reuters. “The brand-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 out an e-mail to all its 19,000 staff members revealing a Friday, March 14, deadline to opt into a VSIP. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

“There will be no extensions,” specifies the e-mail, examined 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 workers accepting it would get two months of full pay in addition to the benefit, according to a copy of the e-mail 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 complete their objective.”

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