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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowFederal employees have until 11:59 p.m. Thursday to decide whether they will take up the Trump administration’s offer to resign and be paid through the end of September.
The offer—the administration’s most sweeping effort so far to remake and shrink the federal workforce—has sent shock waves through the federal government and beyond, with some employees scrambling to make up their minds about the proposal while others urge colleagues to reject a deal they consider a trap.
Three unions that represent more than 800,000 federal workers, meanwhile, filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the deadline, calling the offer an “arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum,” and a federal judge scheduled a hearing for Thursday at 1 p.m. to consider whether to take urgent action.
Employees had just nine full days to respond after they received an email Jan. 28 from the Office of Personnel Management. With the subject line “Fork in the Road,” the email outlined the administration’s intent to “reform” the federal workforce and started the decision-making clock for the “deferred resignation program.”
More than 40,000 people had accepted the offer as of Wednesday evening, a person familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the figure publicly.
According to the White House, most of the 2.3 million federal workers are eligible for the buyout. Agency heads may make exceptions, and military personnel, U.S. Postal Service employees, and people working in immigration enforcement and national security are exempt, according to the OPM.
Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have demanded that President Donald Trump rescind the offer, calling it a “scam” that could “decimate our civil service and cause immeasurable harm to the American public.”
As federal workers weighed their options, agencies sent messages outlining more details of the program.
One email with the subject line “Final Day: Fork in the Road” landed in staffers inboxes around 1 a.m. Thursday. “There will NOT be an extension of this program,” it said. (Employees who miss the deadline because of an approved absence may request an extension, according to the OPM website.)
To pursue the deferred resignation offer, according to OPM instructions, eligible federal employees need to reply from their government account with the word “resign.” But on Wednesday, National Park Service employees received a cautionary message suggesting there would be more steps to take.
“Please be aware there is more to the process,” said the email, reviewed by The Washington Post. “Employees who accept the offer are not immediately approved to start their leave; the National Park Service (NPS) still needs to accept their resignation/retirement.”
Layoffs are “likely” if too few employees choose to quit, a supervisor at the General Services Administration told staff members early this week, according to an email obtained by The Post.
Employees have received upbeat communications touting the program’s benefits, and Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” has characterized the program as an opportunity to loaf.
“Can take the vacation you always wanted, or just watch movies and chill, while receiving your full government pay and benefits,” a post from the DOGE account on Musk’s social media platform X said last week.
The OPM has tried to reassure workers about the offer’s legitimacy. On Tuesday, the agency issued a memo that said separation agreements would be legally binding and that concerns about legality were “misplaced.”
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so, what are the odds the 40,000 who took the offer are the lowest performing emloyees, the ones who can’t find employment outside the federal government, the ones people are always complaining about providing poor service.
Or do you think the best and brightest are taking the offer? The ones who can move quickly to a job in the private sector, folks whom the private sector has been trying to hire anyway?
And maybe, just maybe, those taking the offer will come back as consultants, doing something like their old job, but at a much higher cost.
I’ve not seen the separation agreement (and I suspect few employees to whom the offer has been made have seen it), but if it lets me be “employed” until September 30 and drawing full pay and benefits, and allows me to work a new job, then I suspect we’ll see the best and brightest out the door.
I see a federal judge has entered an injuction against the whole program until Monday, at which time a preliminary injunction may issue.
Fortunately for Truck and Mumps, the government doesn’t have a profit and loss statement, so we won’t be able to guage whether this program has the same effect upon the government as it had on Twitter.