The Treasury Department is planning to consolidate administrative functions across the department, and is giving more employees a second chance to take a “deferred resignation” offer.
Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Management John York told employees in an email Friday that the department is looking to centralize its IT, human resources, procurement, travel and other administrative functions carried out by multiple offices in component agencies.
“This would be a consolidation of Shared Services that are delivered by [Treasury’s Administrative Resource Center], IRS, and other service providers on behalf of Treasury, while leaving administrative policy in existing Management Offices,” York wrote. “This will no doubt be a heavy lift.”
York told employees that this reorganization “will succeed only with more long hours and toughminded decision-making” over the next few years.
In light of these upcoming changes, Treasury is now expanding its deferred resignation program to include employees in its Office of Management. However, York said there are no guarantees that all employees who apply for the offer will be approved.
“Given the criticality of our office and the important role many of you will need to play especially at the early phases of the effort to centralize operations at the Treasury, I cannot promise that everyone who signals interest in participating in the DRP will be approved to participate,” York wrote. “Nonetheless, I will try to honor the expressed desire of those who elect the DRP where operational necessity allows.”
Employees who work in Treasury’s Office of Management will receive a link to apply for DRP on April 14. They will have until April 21 to sign up for the offer.
Treasury gave other employees a “second and final” chance to accept deferred resignation on April 7, and until April 14 to apply for the offer.
The department recently told the Office of Personnel Management it’s looking to cut up half of IRS enforcement personnel and reduce staffing by up to 20% across other Treasury components as part of a major agency reorganization.
IRS pauses plan to rehire fired probationary employees, citing recent court decisions
The IRS is putting a hold on plans to bring fired probationary employees back to their jobs after orders from two federal judges to reinstate them were paused by higher courts.
Many agencies involved in these lawsuits have kept their fired probationary employees on paid administrative leave rather than bring them back to their jobs.
Federal News Network first reported that the IRS planned to bring its fired probationary employees back to their jobs by April 14. The agency gave individuals in this scenario the option of returning to their jobs or voluntarily separating from federal service.
However, in an email it sent Friday, the IRS told employees it was walking back that plan.
“Based on recent court decisions, efforts to return probationary employees to full-duty status by April 14 have been paused. Unless otherwise instructed, you will remain on administrative leave until further notice,” the email states.
The IRS says these probationary employees are still eligible to apply for several incentives to leave federal service.
The agency says they still have another chance to opt into the “deferred resignation” program and apply for Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) or a Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments (VSIP) worth up to $25,000.
It’s not clear yet what other agencies have told their fired probationary employees. At least 24,000 probationary employees have been terminated since President Donald Trump took office.
The Guardian reported Thursday that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) re-fired hundreds of probationary employees.
“After about 3 weeks of reinstatement, I, along with other probationary employees at NOAA, officially got ‘re-fired’ today (6 weeks after the original firing) after a temporary restraining order was lifted by an appeals court earlier this week,” Andy Hazelton, a physical scientist at NOAA’s National Weather Service, wrote on X. “What a wild and silly process this has been.”
These agency actions reflect the latest actions in an ongoing legal battle over these mass firings.
On Wednesday, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily set aside a Maryland judge’s injunction that ordered agencies to reinstate employees in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court found the government was likely to succeed in proving that the Maryland district court had no jurisdiction over the states’ claims that federal agencies had engaged in an illegal Reduction in Force (RIF).
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued a separate ruling that had a similar effect on a California court’s ruling, which also ordered the reinstatement of some fired probationary workers.
The Supreme Court’s order determined that several nonprofit associations involved in the lawsuit didn’t have standing to sue over the firings. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have kept the judge’s order in place.
In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge William Alsup said he is considering whether to issue another preliminary injunction that could withstand the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Alsup heard arguments over whether federal employee unions had standing to sue and win another injunction on Wednesday. The judge, however, won’t issue another ruling until attorneys in the case provide more information.
That includes data about how many employees were affected by the mass terminations, their relationships with the union plaintiffs, and possible evidence that would show that agencies’ firing decisions were made at the direction of the Office of Personnel Management.
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