Resignations. Retirements. Firings.
And now large-scale layoffs, as agencies faced a Thursday deadline to turn in their plans for executing the next phase of President Trump’s goal of significantly reducing the government payroll.
Agencies were given guidance and a timeline last month to submit outlines for “reductions in force” — a bureaucratic term meaning shrinking of an organization. Many agencies have not yet announced detailed plans. But some plans have trickled out, pointing to a downsizing effort exceeding the number of probationary workers already fired and the number of workers who accepted voluntary resignation offers.
There are rules governing how government agencies can make these broad cuts, however. Part of the process is assigning scores to individual employees based on their length of service, performance and veteran status. Those with the highest scores are supposed to be prioritized for finding other jobs in the agency.
Here is what we know about the reduction in force efforts at various agencies.
Education Department
More than 1,300 workers were fired this week.
This is in addition to the 572 who took resignation packages and 63 probationary workers who have been fired. The reductions have cut the size of the agency, which started the year with 4,133 workers, in half.
Last month, the agency sent an email offering employees a buyout ahead of “very significant” layoffs.