The Department of Health and Human Services is offering its employees up to $25,000 to voluntarily leave the federal workforce.
The announcement came in an email to HHS staff Friday evening. The email, which was reviewed by NOTUS, says that employees can apply for the buyout anytime next week. Authorization for the payments, known as Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments, came from the Office of Personnel Management.
The email states that the offer is made in keeping with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order that seeks to “reduce the unnecessary footprint of the government.” It also notes that the buyout offer is in addition to the early retirement offer made by the department to eligible employees earlier this week.
Other federal agencies have also made buyout offers to their employees through the same OPM voluntary separation payment program. The Education Department offered some employees up to $25,000 to leave, with a three-day deadline to respond. The Securities and Exchange Commission offered employees up to $50,000.
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The OPM website states that to be eligible for VSIP, employees must have served continuously in the executive branch for at least three years, among other requirements. It also states that any employees who accept the buyout must repay it if they take another job with the federal government within the next five years.
This is the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to reduce the size of the federal workforce. An order from OPM and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency directing agencies to fire all probationary employees led to the termination of thousands across the federal government. A federal judge ruled the directive likely illegal, causing OPM to walk it back. But agencies have not been required to hire back employees — though some have.
The new administration has specifically targeted HHS for reform. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that he would like to “clean out” the health agencies and fire hundreds at the National Institutes of Health.
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Margaret Manto is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Have tips? You can reach Margaret at margaretmanto.61.
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