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

March 13 is due date to submit strategies for massive layoffs

Workers would receive buyout payment of as much as $25,000

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Buyout program less susceptible to legal obstacle

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

March 11 (Reuters) - Multiple government companies are turning to early retirement programs to decrease headcount as they scramble to satisfy President Donald Trump's Thursday deadline for them to submit 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 agencies which have actually offered lump-sum payments of approximately $25,000 before tax to workers who concur to leave their jobs.

The buyout uses, integrated with another program that alleviates eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being embraced as a lower-friction method to help meet the Thursday due date, personnel professionals at a number of federal agencies informed Reuters.

The Trump administration has been grappling with myriad suits after it fired countless probationary workers in a very first wave of mass layoffs and took apart whole departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian help firm, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which safeguards Americans versus dishonest lending institutions.

All U.S. federal government agencies have been bought to come up with massive layoff plans by Thursday as part of Trump's unprecedented campaign to upgrade the government. One of his top advisors, 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 likewise seeking approval to offer the buyout payments to workers, according to an email sent by its acting head to personnel on Monday and seen by . The Securities and Exchange Commission has already used rewards 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 challenges. It likewise needs employees who have accepted the offer to repay the money if they take another federal government job 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," 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 numerous workers they plan to cut in the second stage of layoffs. They include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is planning to cut 1,029 personnel.

Despite the looming deadline, no company has yet sent its job-cutting strategy to OPM, the federal government's human resources department that is looking at the data, a person acquainted 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 understanding of the matter. Employees were given until March 12 to react.

At the General Services Administration, employees were notified on Monday that OPM had greenlit a plan to offer 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 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 e-mail to all its 19,000 employees revealing a Friday, March 14, deadline to choose into a VSIP. Those who accept would need to retire by April 19.

"There will be no extensions," mentions 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 2 months of complete pay in addition to the reward, 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 employees, stated the Trump administration was utilizing "a legitimate program to additional damage the abilities of agencies to finish 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)