Trump offers all federal workers an 8-month buyout to resign

President Trump continued his crusade to thin out the federal bureaucracy by offering all 2 million federal workers eight months’ salary in exchange for resigning from their positions.

Under the deal, employees who resign by Feb. 6 would receive severance paid through Sept. 30, an unprecedented buyout for the federal government.

White House officials say the move could entice 5% to 10% of the federal workforce to quit, resulting in a savings of around $100 billion. Any government employee is eligible for the buyout, though military personnel are exempt.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said American taxpayers deserve federal employees “who actually show up to work in our wonderful federal buildings, also paid for by taxpayers.”

“If they don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again, then they are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump administration will provide a very generous payout of 8 months,” she said in a statement.

The Trump administration did not guarantee that workers who don’t accept the buyout would keep their jobs.

An email from the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources department, said it could not give workers “full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency.”

“Should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions,” the email said.

The email included a sample resignation letter for federal employees.

“If you chose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to our country and you will be provided with a dignified fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program.”

Federal workers and unions decried the buyouts as part of a larger plan to eliminate civil servants.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal workers union, opposed the move.

“This offer should not be viewed as voluntary. Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

Of the 3 million federal workers, roughly 374,000 or 12%, work in the Washington metropolitan area, which includes the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and parts of West Virginia, according to data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

The largest percentage of federal workers are employed outside the nation’s capital.

Federal workers account for the 15th largest workforce in the nation, and their average tenure is 11.8 years, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Office of Personnel Management data.

The number of federal workers has increased steadily for decades. In November 2000, federal employment, excluding the Postal Service, stood at nearly 1.9 million. That number has grown by roughly 1% each year, Pew Research said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs employs more than 486,000 people, the largest payroll of the 18 Cabinet-level agencies, according to Pew. Most of the employees work for the Veterans Health Administration, which operates the VA’s network of hospitals, clinics and nursing homes.

The smallest Cabinet-level agency is the Department of Education, which Mr. Trump has pledged to abolish, with 4,245 workers. 

Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia Democrat, took to the Senate floor Tuesday evening to warn federal employees against accepting the “sweetheart offers,” saying Mr. Trump doesn’t have the budgetary authority to offer severance packages and will renege on them anyway, as the senator said he had when he was a real-estate and casino tycoon.

“Don’t be fooled. He’s tricked hundreds of people with that offer. If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you just like he stiffed the contractors” he’d worked with, Mr. Kaine said.

Mr. Trump’s directive builds on a campaign promise to reduce the size of the federal workforce and reshape the federal bureaucracy. He has long argued that unelected bureaucrats are making decisions that harm everyday Americans and weaponize the government against him.

Hours after his inauguration, Mr. Trump ordered federal agencies to require workers to return to work full-time. He signed an executive order eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion offices in federal agencies and ending such practices in hiring and federal contracting.

On Monday, Mr. Trump announced plans to make it easier to fire certain federal workers by rescheduling them into a new classification that removes their civil service protections.

In a memorandum to all federal agencies, the Office of Personnel Management released guidance called “Schedule Career/Policy,” a rebranded version of his move reclassifying workers as Schedule F at the end of his first term.

The memo accompanies an executive order directing federal agencies to review positions that might fit into the new classification.