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 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 vulnerable to legal obstacle

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

March 11 (Reuters) – Multiple federal government firms are turning to early retirement programs to reduce headcount as they scramble to satisfy President Donald Trump’s Thursday deadline 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 Fda, are among the agencies which have actually used lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to workers who consent to leave their jobs.

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

The Trump administration has been coming to grips with myriad suits after it fired thousands of probationary workers in a very first wave of mass layoffs and dismantled whole departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian aid company, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which secures Americans versus unethical loan providers.

All U.S. federal government companies have been ordered to come up with massive layoff strategies by Thursday as part of Trump’s extraordinary campaign to upgrade the government. Among his leading consultants, the tech billionaire Elon Musk, is leading that effort with his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

The General Services Administration, which manages the federal government’s property portfolio, is also seeking approval to provide the buyout payments to workers, according to an email sent by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already used benefits of up to $50,000, Reuters reported.

Human resource and public governance experts stated 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 employees who have accepted the deal to repay the cash if they take another federal government task within 5 years.

“If your strategy is to get as many individuals 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 companies have actually telegraphed by means of media leakages how numerous staff members they plan to cut in the second phase of layoffs. They include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 employees, 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 government’s personnels department that is collecting the information, a person familiar with the matter informed Reuters. OPM declined to comment.

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

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

“I motivate each of you to consider your alternatives as we progress,” 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 results.”

On March 10, the HR department of the Food and Drug Administration sent an e-mail to all its 19,000 workers revealing 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, examined 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 deal by adding that workers accepting it would get two months of full pay in addition to the bonus offer, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters.

Steve Lenkart, executive director of the National of Federal Employees, a union which represents 110,000 government workers, said the Trump administration was using “a genuine program to further damage the abilities of firms to finish 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)