Judge Allows Deferred Resignation Program to Resume
A district court judge today lifted a pause on the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation” offer to federal workers. The offer allows federal employees to resign and continue retaining pay and benefits through September.
Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., a Clinton appointee in the District of Massachusetts, said the labor unions who sued the Trump administration alleging the offer violating federal law did not have standing to bring the case because the unions themselves, unlike the federal workers they represent, were not directly harmed by the action. O’Toole also said labor disputes such as this must go through an administrative review process before being brought before courts.
Litigation will continue even as the offer is back on the table.
Original post, Feb. 6
Trump Administration’s Deferred Resignation Offer Halted
Following a hearing this morning, a federal judge paused the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation” offer to federal workers until at least Monday. Federal workers had just hours left to decide whether to accept an offer to resign from their positions now while retaining pay and benefits through September.
District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., a Clinton appointee, barred the White House from taking further action until another hearing is conducted Monday. He also ordered the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to notify employees that the offer’s Feb. 6 deadline had been extended.
The lawsuit follows a Jan. 28 email from OPM, titled “Fork in the Road,” which offered a deferred resignation program to a large swath of the federal workforce. These employees are nonpartisan career civil servants who carry out the every day work of government under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Their work includes providing health care to seniors through Medicare, prosecuting violent crimes and representing the United States to the rest of the world. The email suggested the jobs of those who remained would still be in jeopardy, reading “At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency.”
Several unions representing federal employees filed a lawsuit Tuesday against OPM and its acting director Charles Ezell alleging the Fork Directive violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution and the Antideficiency Act. They argue that the directive is illegal because it is “arbitrary and capricious,” in violation of the APA’s guidelines for how federal agencies should implement rules and regulations. The directive also promises funding beyond what Congress has appropriated. Although the Fork Directive says employees who choose to resign now will be paid and receive benefits until Sept. 30, Congress has only appropriated funding for most federal agencies through March 14.
The plaintiffs describe the Fork Directive as part of the Trump administration’s widescale effort to drastically reduce the civil service. The unions warn that doing so will result in a loss in qualified employees with expertise to carry out congressionally-mandated federal programs and a politicization of the federal workforce where “partisanship [becomes] elevated over ability and truth.” They asked the court to permanently block the directive.
The “Fork in the Road” directive reflects a staff reduction program by the same name conducted at Twitter (now X) after Elon Musk obtained ownership of the company. Musk — a private citizen at the time of the Jan. 28 email — is “reportedly deeply involved in OPM’s operations [and] has close ties to senior OPM staff politically appointed by the new Administration.” The Fork Directive at Twitter led to an 80% reduction in staff. Musk was made a “special government employee’ with top secret security clearance Feb. 3.
On Wednesday, CIA employees received a similar offer encouraging them to voluntarily resign through the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, which allows agencies to temporarily lower the retirement eligibility to restructure the workforce.