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

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

March 13 is deadline to send prepare for large-scale layoffs

Workers would get buyout payment of up to $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 firms are turning to early retirement programs to lower headcount as they scramble to meet President Donald Trump’s Thursday deadline for them to send prepare for a 2nd 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 amongst the companies which have offered lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to employees 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 method to assist fulfill the Thursday due date, human resource professionals at numerous federal agencies informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has been facing myriad suits after it fired thousands of probationary employees in a very first wave of mass layoffs and dismantled entire departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian aid company, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which secures Americans against deceitful lenders.

All U.S. government agencies have actually been purchased to come up with large-scale layoff plans by Thursday as part of Trump’s extraordinary campaign to upgrade 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 government’s home portfolio, is also looking for approval to use 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 currently offered 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 reward payments, is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal obstacles. It also needs workers who have accepted the offer 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 decreases the danger 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 couple of agencies have actually telegraphed through media leaks the number of workers they prepare 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 deadline, no agency has actually yet submitted its job-cutting strategy to OPM, the government’s human resources department that is looking at the information, an individual familiar with the matter informed Reuters. OPM decreased to comment.

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

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

« I encourage each of you to consider your options as we progress, » GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian composed in an email seen by Reuters. « The new GSA will be slimmer, more effective and laser-focused on efficiency and high-value results. »

On March 10, the HR department of the Fda sent out an e-mail to all its 19,000 workers announcing 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, » mentions 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 offer by adding that employees accepting it would get 2 months of full pay in addition to the bonus offer, 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 workers, stated the Trump administration was using « a genuine program to further damage the abilities of firms to complete their objective. »

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