[One more update: Public Policy Professor Don Moynihan has posted a must read on this topic. I’ll try to summarize it in a future post. In the meantime, I suggest everyone who is curious to learn more about this topic read it.]
Yesterday, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent Federal workers in the Executive Branch an email that everyone had been expecting since Inauguration Day. Entitled “Fork in the Road,” the email (posted in its entirety on the OPM site) After laying out the “Four Pillars” of the workforce under President Trump (Return to Office, Performance culture, More streamlined and flexible workforce, and Enhanced standards of conduct*), it then provides all workers who receive it with a choice: Agree to work under these new standards (which really boils down to “Return to Office”) or accept a deferred resignation:
If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program. This program begins effective January 28 and is available to all federal employees until February 6. If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason). The details of this separation plan can be found below.
So if you decide to resign by the end of next week, does that mean you are getting nine months (ish) of pay for doing nothing? According to an accompanying FAQ that the OPM has posted, maybe:
Am I expected to work during the deferred resignation period?
No. Except in rare cases determined by your agency, you are not expected to work.
Is anyone willing to bet on how “rare” those cases will be? According to the FAQ, this order applied to a very wide range of Executive Branch workers:
Deferred resignation is available to all 2 Million full-time federal Executive-branch employees except for military personnel of the armed forces, employees of the U.S. Postal Service, those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and those in other positions specifically excluded by your employing agency.
Given the breadth of people who can take this opportunity and the fact that, taken at their word, this is potentially a nine-month (ish) buyout for doing nothing, we may be about to see a huge exodus of government workers, many of whom are mid-project.
I’ve read through the FAQs, and as far as I can tell, there is no discussion of transition or wind-down periods (and that’s not something the FAQ addresses). That means, unless there is further clarification, people can stop where they are in their project and, other than out of a spirit of comradery and pity on those who will come after them, don’t have to leave any documentation.
Two Three Four big hot takes:
1a. This isn’t really a buyout in the traditional sense. While people are being offered a sweet deal not to work, it’s not necessarily a “buy out” in so much as it is not a lump sum payment. That may make this much more enforceable (see 1b).
1b. Once again, it looks like no one checked the fine print before rolling out a policy. Yesterday in the comment thread on Malicious Compliance With Radical Orders I mentioned we’re once again seeing the results of sloppily and rushed policies. Andy pushed back that the current Trump administration is more competent than the first one. In my agreement with him and revision/refinement of my position, I responded with:
I think what we are seeing here is a different sort of incompetence–having people who still have relatively little experience with the intricacies of the actual implementation of these orders drafting them with a focus on surviving legal scrutiny in the ways you describe.
This is a common occurrence when you have an ideologues driving policy (and a discussion I’ve had with former ideologues who later seriously confronted the issues with their poorly drafted legislation and policy).
[Updated update: After adding the following struck section of the article, Jen gave me an opportunity to get more practice saying “I was wrong” in public. She correctly points out that this policy only applies to “lump-sum” amounts. It appears that in this case, most people who take advantage of the program will just continue to draw their existing salary for doing nothing. I’ll leave the following in to preserve the error (and a reminder that, just as with comments, it’s a good idea not to immediately update posts without triple checking what you wrote).
For all their sins, it does appear that they did check the existing policy.]
Case and point, there is existing OPM policy that restricts “buy outs” in the Executive Branch to $25,000:
The Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Authority, also known as buyout authority, allows agencies that are downsizing or restructuring to offer employees lump-sum payments up to $25,000 as an incentive to voluntarily separate. When authorized by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), an agency may offer VSIP to employees who are in surplus positions or have skills that are no longer needed in the workforce who volunteer to separate by resignation, optional retirement, or by voluntary early retirement, if approved.
I’m most familiar with Executive Branch jobs related to Civic Tech, and I can assure you that a nine-month buyout of most of them would greatly exceed $25,000. Of course, the question is who will be willing to actually conduct the oversight to throw a wrench into those works? That’s TBD given the Democrats do not currently control either branch of the Legislature.
Still this could easily throw government workers who accept this offer into limbo. And those types of disruptions (potentially taking the offer, then having it rescinded or changed) are not going to help service delivery or the effective functioning of government between now and the end of Q3.
H/t to Stormy Dragon for the heads up on this one.
2. From fiscal management and government service delivery perspectives, this has the makings of a disaster. It’s hard to see how this is a win for anyone other than for people who are, by nature or upbringing, resentful of all government workers. There has been no apparent consideration for how this blanket of a program will potentially impact the functioning of the Executive Branch (which, as we’ve seen in the last few days, trickles down to the State and Local level in ways people don’t appreciate). Service delivery will be negatively impacted, and, as I’ve written before, that will have profound and negative impacts not just on the operation of government but everyday people. If as many people take advantage of this offer as I expect will, there’s no way direct government services like Medicaid or getting a passport to indirect government-funded services like Meals on Wheels and Headstart will avoid the negative impacts.
Unless of course, the architects of this plan suddenly discover that, in order to keep the government working, exceptions won’t be as “rare” as they promised.
We’re also facing the very realistic probability that, during the next nine months, the government will end up paying more than twice as much for less work that is being done today (as some positions will invariably have to be filled–which includes hiring costs–and will incur restart costs due to gaps in service). It’s possible that some of the gaps will be filled via external contracts–but to my knowledge there hasn’t been a corresponding jump in Requests for Proposals (RfPs). That could come in the days to come.
In business, this type of huge one-time cost can be made up through improved profits and shareholder value. The issue is that the Federal Government isn’t a business and (outside of the Post Office) isn’t expected to generate a profit. While the administration will tout the job savings, starting in 2026, from this action, the reality remains that Federal Salaries and Benefits are discretionary spending. Discretionary spending only accounts for 27% of the overall Federal Budget. While roughly 45% of federal discretionary spending is on salaries and benefits, much of that spending is related to armed forces and veterans, rather than government workers targeted by this order. Sure there will be savings, though the question remains if they will be worth the resulting impact to service delivery.
3. If this approach sounds familiar, that’s because it is! As ABC White House policy reporter Cheyenne Haslett points out, this approach, down to the email subject line, mirrors what Elon Musk did when he took over Twitter (or Xitter for those in the know). From X:
NEW: The memo sent to government employees this evening offering them buyouts very closely mirrors an email Musk sent to Twitter employees in 2022 — down to the same subject line “A Fork in the Road.”
The 2022 email tells Twitter employees, “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.” Compare that to memo: “The federal workforce should be comprised of the best America has to offer. We will insist on excellence at every level…”
And another similarity: in the same way the OPM memo requires employees to only respond “Resign” to the email to seal the deal, Musk asked Twitter employees to “click yes on the link below” if they wanted to stay on at Twitter.
“Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful,” Musk wrote in 2022. And this evening, the closing message to government employees by OPM: “Whichever path you choose, we thank you for your service to The United States of America.”
Everyone’s mileage with Musk varies. Many will say “look people predicted that Twitter would collapse after the exodus of employees and it didn’t so clearly that will apply here.” Those people would be correct in that X still exists. At the same time, it’s hard to say that, under the new management, the platform is (a) more stable or (b) flourishing in terms of business metrics. By some recent estimates, the site has lost 80% of it’s value from when Musk purchased it. That doesn’t bode particularly well for the Federal Government.
In the weeks and months to come, I’ll keep watching and updating OTB as things evolve around this topic.
* – One thing that didn’t fit well in the main body of this article is the rather ominous wording of the “Enhanced standards of conduct”:
Enhanced standards of conduct: The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work. Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward. Employees who engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination.
[Emphasis mine – MB]
The fact is this has been a longstanding expectation of all Federal Employees.** What stands out is the unmodified “reliable, loyal, trustworthy?” My immediate question is to what or whom. In the past, this wouldn’t have been a question most people would ask in so much as it was implied that this was to the Constitution and the offices derived from it. However, that assumption is called into question by the multiple reports about ongoing loyalty-to-Trump screenings.
Again, MAGA themed readers might be ok with this idea given their support of the current President. That said, I ask them to consider how they would feel if a Democratic administration had done the same thing. What we are seeing is more or less a return to a patronage system of government–as we all know those always function efficiently, right?
**- note for the whataboutists out there: I fully acknowledge that some have fallen far short of that, and they shouldn’t be tolerated regardless of whichever administration is in office. I also humbly suggest that there is no evidence that malfeasance occurs at any higher rate among federal employees than in any other professional walk of life.
