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 deadline to submit prepare for large-scale layoffs

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

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Buyout program less vulnerable to legal difficulty

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

March 11 (Reuters) – Multiple federal government firms are turning to early retirement programs to minimize headcount as they scramble to meet President Donald Trump’s Thursday deadline for them to send strategies 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 firms which have offered lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to workers who accept leave their tasks.

The buyout uses, integrated with another program that eases eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being embraced as a lower-friction way to assist meet the Thursday due date, human resource specialists at a number of federal firms informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has been grappling with myriad suits after it fired countless probationary employees in a first wave of mass layoffs and took apart entire departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian aid company, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans against deceitful loan providers.

All U.S. government firms have been purchased to come up with large-scale layoff strategies by Thursday as part of Trump’s unmatched campaign to revamp 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 manages the government’s property portfolio, is likewise seeking approval to offer the buyout payments to employees, according to an e-mail sent by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The Securities and Exchange Commission has currently used bonus offers of approximately $50,000, Reuters reported.

Personnel and public governance professionals said the appeal of the buyout program, called voluntary separation reward payments, is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal difficulties. It also needs workers who have actually accepted the offer to repay the money if they take another federal government job within five years.

“If your strategy is to get as lots of people out the door voluntarily, that minimizes the threat of court orders and opposition to you in the long run,” said 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 employees they prepare to cut in the 2nd stage of layoffs. They include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is intending to cut more than 80,000 employees, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 personnel.

Despite the looming due date, no company has actually yet sent its job-cutting strategy to OPM, the federal government’s human resources department that is collecting the information, an individual familiar with the matter told Reuters. to comment.

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

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

“I motivate each of you to consider your alternatives as we move on,” 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 performance and high-value outcomes.”

On March 10, the HR department of the Food and Drug Administration sent out an email to all its 19,000 staff members revealing a Friday, March 14, deadline to decide into a VSIP. Those who accept would need 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 including that employees accepting it would get 2 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 employees, said the Trump administration was using “a legitimate program to additional damage the capabilities of companies to complete their mission.”

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