Some federal agencies are walking back workforce cuts with critical functions at risk of failure
Some federal agencies are asking employees to reconsider their plans to leave government or requiring those it has designated for termination to come back to work, as the Trump administration seeks to avoid catastrophic interruptions to pivotal government operations.
The Agriculture Department is already planning for reduced or ceased work in key areas such as avian influenza response, according to employees involved in those efforts, causing the administration to ask employees to reverse course and rejoin government. The Health and Human Services Department has asked some employees it just laid off to come back to work, while letting them know they will still be dismissed eventually. The about face comes after agencies have issued a litany of incentives for employees to voluntarily end their federal service or, in some cases, laid them off through a reduction in force.
Leadership at the Agriculture Department this week sent an email to staff throughout the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service asking workers who accepted the administration’s Deferred Resignation Program—which enables them to remain on paid leave until they leave government by Sept. 30—to undo that decision. Around 16,000 employees have opted into the DRP after the department offered a second window to accept it this month and some areas of APHIS, including those instrumental to managing the current bird flu outbreak, were particularly hard hit.
The agency is discussing contingency plans, such as moving staff around from other parts of USDA, reprioritizing certain work and pausing “programs we can no longer continue,” said one employee involved in those conversations.
If everyone who has signed up for the deferred resignation takes it—and their leave is set to kick on April 30—APHIS is planning slow down work on crop insurance for farmers who lose product to disease; payments to poultry farmers who lose their flocks due to bird flu; the licensing of veterinary products that diagnose, prevent and treat diseases; and operations at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories. [Continue reading…]