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

March 13 is deadline to submit plans for massive layoffs

Workers would get buyout payment of up to $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 scramble to fulfill President Donald Trump's Thursday deadline for them to send strategies 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 agencies which have provided lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to employees who concur to leave their tasks.

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

The Trump administration has been grappling with myriad claims after it fired thousands of probationary workers in a very first wave of mass layoffs and dismantled entire departments like USAID, the U.S. humanitarian aid agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which safeguards Americans against unethical lending institutions.

All U.S. government companies have been bought to come up with massive layoff strategies by Thursday as part of Trump's unprecedented project to overhaul the 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 manages the federal government's home portfolio, is also looking for approval to offer the buyout payments to employees, according to an email sent out by its acting head to staff on Monday and seen by Reuters. The Securities and Exchange Commission has actually already offered bonuses of up to $50,000, Reuters reported.

Personnel and public governance experts stated the appeal of the buyout program, called voluntary separation reward payments, is that it is voluntary and less susceptible to legal difficulties. It also needs workers who have accepted the deal to repay the money if they take another federal government task within 5 years.

"If your strategy is to get as lots of people out the door voluntarily, that decreases the threat of court orders and opposition to you in the long run," said Don Moynihan, a public law professor at the University of Michigan.

OPM STILL WAITING FOR PLANS

Only a number of agencies have telegraphed by means of media leakages how many staff members they plan to cut in the 2nd 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 company has yet sent its job-cutting strategy to OPM, the government's human resources department that is collecting the data, an individual familiar with the matter informed Reuters. OPM declined to comment.

OPM itself has provided lump-sum payments to some 650 OPM employees, according to another person with knowledge of the matter. Employees were given up until March 12 to react.

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

"I encourage each of you to consider your choices 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 efficiency and high-value results."

On March 10, the HR department of the Fda sent out an email to all its 19,000 employees 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," 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 deal by adding that workers accepting it would get 2 months of full pay in addition to the bonus, according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters.

Steve Lenkart, executive director of the Federation of Federal Employees, a union which represents 110,000 government workers, said the Trump administration was using "a genuine program to additional damage the abilities of companies to finish their objective."

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