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

March 13 is due date to submit prepare for large-scale layoffs

Workers would receive buyout payment of approximately $25,000

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Buyout program less vulnerable to legal challenge

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

March 11 (Reuters) - Multiple government companies are turning to early retirement programs to lower headcount as they rush to fulfill 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 Food and Drug Administration, are amongst the companies which have used lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to employees who accept leave their jobs.

The buyout offers, combined with another program that relieves eligibility requirements for early retirement, are being accepted as a lower-friction way to help meet the Thursday due date, personnel professionals at a number of federal companies told Reuters.

The Trump administration has actually been coming to grips with myriad suits after it fired countless probationary workers in a first wave of mass layoffs and took apart entire departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian help agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which safeguards Americans against unscrupulous loan providers.

All U.S. federal 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 top advisers, 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 residential or commercial property portfolio, is likewise looking for approval to offer 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 actually currently offered bonus offers of as much as $50,000, Reuters reported.

Personnel and public governance experts said the appeal of the buyout program, called voluntary separation incentive payments, is that it is voluntary and less vulnerable to legal obstacles. It also requires workers who have actually accepted the deal to repay the cash if they take another government job within 5 years.

"If your strategy is to get as numerous people out the door willingly, that minimizes the danger of court orders and opposition to you in the long run," stated Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan.

OPM STILL WAITING FOR PLANS

Only a couple of firms have actually telegraphed through media leaks 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 workers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is preparing to cut 1,029 staff.

Despite the looming due date, no agency has yet sent its job-cutting strategy to OPM, the federal government's personnels department that is collating the data, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. OPM declined to comment.

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

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

"I motivate each of you to consider your options 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 performance 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 employees revealing a Friday, March 14, deadline to decide into a VSIP. Those who accept would have to retire by April 19.

"There will be no extensions," mentions the email, evaluated by Reuters and signed by Tania Tse, director of the FDA's Office of Human Capital Management.

Late on Monday, HHS sweetened its offer by adding that workers 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 employees, said the Trump administration was utilizing "a genuine program to more damage the abilities of agencies to finish their objective."

OPM declined to react to Lenkart's comments. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Tim Reid, Marisa Taylor and Nathan Layne