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

March 13 is deadline to send prepare for massive layoffs

Workers would get buyout payment of approximately $25,000

*

Buyout program less susceptible to legal challenge

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

March 11 (Reuters) - Multiple federal government agencies are turning to early retirement programs to decrease headcount as they rush to satisfy President Donald Trump's Thursday deadline for them to send prepare for a second round of mass layoffs.

The Office of Personnel Management, the Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Food and Drug Administration, are among the firms which have actually offered lump-sum payments of as much as $25,000 before tax to workers who agree to leave their jobs.

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

The Trump administration has been grappling with myriad claims after it fired countless probationary workers in a first wave of mass layoffs and dismantled entire departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian aid agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which secures Americans versus unethical loan providers.

All U.S. federal government agencies have been purchased to come up with massive layoff strategies by Thursday as part of Trump's extraordinary project to revamp the federal government. One of 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 handles the federal government's property portfolio, is likewise looking for approval to use the buyout payments to employees, according to an e-mail 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 as much as $50,000, Reuters reported.

Human resource and public governance specialists said the appeal of the buyout program, called voluntary separation incentive payments, is that it is voluntary and less susceptible to legal obstacles. It likewise requires workers who have actually accepted the deal to pay back the cash if they take another government task within five years.

"If your strategy is to get as lots of people out the door willingly, that minimizes 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 agencies have telegraphed through media leakages how many staff members they plan to cut in the second stage of layoffs. They include 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 firm has actually yet submitted its job-cutting strategy to OPM, the federal government's human resources department that is collecting the information, a person familiar with the matter informed Reuters. OPM declined to comment.

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

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

"I motivate each of you to consider your options 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 efficient and laser-focused on effectiveness and high-value outcomes."

On March 10, the HR department of the Food and Drug Administration sent an email to all its 19,000 staff members 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," 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 prior VSIP deal by including that workers accepting it would get 2 months of complete pay in addition to the bonus, 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, stated the Trump administration was utilizing "a legitimate program to further damage the abilities 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)