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About 75,000 federal workers have accepted President Donald Trump’s buyout program, which is far short of the White House’s goals for the effort to cull the federal workforce.
On Wednesday, a federal judge lifted a pause on the program, which allowed federal employees to be paid until September 30 if they resign by a specific date. While the original deadline was February 6, that was pushed back as the legal wrangling continued. The White House closed the offer Wednesday evening.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the lifting of the pause was “the first of many legal wins” for the president.
The Office of Personnel Management communications director, McLaurine Pinover, said in a statement that they’re “pleased the court” pushed back against the attempt to end the program.
Pinover also said that the program closed at 7 p.m.
“This program was carefully designed, thoroughly vetted, and provides generous benefits so federal workers can plan for their futures,” she said.
The effort is part of the Trump administration’s attempts to cut back the federal workforce. Trump signed an executive order∂ Tuesday taking aim at federal staff. The order informed agencies that they must work with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to reduce the number of staff and restrict hiring. The goal is to “significantly” reduce the size of the federal workforce.
The buyouts were offered via mass email — a similar approach to cost-cutting that Musk has taken at his private companies.
One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to the pause on the program told Axios that the ruling “is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants.”
The program was halted last Thursday when U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. temporarily blocked the Office of Personnel Management from going ahead with the effort. Unions filed a lawsuit to stop the program, arguing that it was an “arbitrary, unlawful, short-fused ultimatum.”
O’Toole wrote in his ruling that the unions, representing more than 800,000 federal workers, would be unable to go ahead as they lacked standing to sue and because his court didn’t have the jurisdiction.
The judge wrote that the unions weren’t directly impacted by the buyout program “but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees.”
“This is not sufficient,” he added, according to The Washington Post.
As many as 3.75 percent of the U.S.’s two million federal employees have accepted the buyout, far short of the projected White House estimate of five to 10 percent.
