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

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

March 13 is due date to send strategies for massive layoffs

Workers would get buyout payment of as much as $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 government agencies are turning to early retirement programs to decrease headcount as they scramble to fulfill President Donald Trump’s Thursday due date for them to submit prepare 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 offered lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to employees who accept leave their tasks.

The buyout provides, combined with another program that reduces eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being embraced as a lower-friction way to help satisfy the Thursday deadline, personnel professionals at several federal firms informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has been facing myriad claims after it fired thousands of probationary employees in a first wave of mass layoffs and took apart whole departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian aid firm, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans versus unethical lenders.

All U.S. federal government agencies have actually been ordered to come up with large-scale layoff strategies by Thursday as part of Trump’s unmatched project to revamp the federal 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 looking for approval to provide the buyout payments to employees, according to an email sent out by its acting head to personnel on Monday and seen by Reuters. The Securities and Exchange Commission has already offered benefits 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 susceptible to legal challenges. It likewise needs workers who have accepted the deal to pay back the cash if they take another government task within 5 years.

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

OPM STILL WAITING FOR PLANS

Only a number of companies have actually telegraphed via media leakages how many staff members they plan to cut in the second stage of layoffs. They consist of 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 personnel.

Despite the looming due date, no firm has yet submitted its job-cutting plan to OPM, the federal government’s personnels department that is collecting the information, a person knowledgeable about the matter told Reuters. OPM decreased to comment.

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

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

“I motivate each of you to consider your alternatives as we move on,” 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 Fda sent out an email to all its 19,000 workers announcing a Friday, March 14, due date to choose into a VSIP. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

“There will be no extensions,” states the email, 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 employees 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 government employees, said the Trump administration was utilizing “a genuine program to further damage the capabilities of firms to complete their objective.”

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