After shedding around 20% of its workforce in the last 15 months, the Interior Department is once again offering employees incentives to leave the agency as part of what it is calling a new “strategic initiative” to save money and better deliver services.
Interior became the first major agency to offer a “deferred resignation program” on a widespread basis this year, which will allow nearly all of its full-time employees the chance to sit on paid leave through September before exiting government service. Interior, like all federal agencies, offered multiple rounds of DRP last year and successfully pushed out around 13,000 employees.
The department did not spell out a specific headcount reduction goal as part of the offer or say what would happen if it falls short of any such goal, and did not respond to requests for clarification. Interior has at multiple points in President Trump’s second term been on the verge of implementing sweeping layoffs across its workforce, only for various court rulings to delay those efforts at the 11th hour. The department no longer faces restrictions on such reductions in force, but the cuts—until Thursday—appeared to have been put on the back burner…