Deadline hits for federal worker buyout offer 

Editor's note: After this article was written, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration's proposed buyout offer until at least Monday, per Reuters.

Today is the deadline for federal workers to accept a buyout offer proffered by President Donald Trump. 

The offer, for the deferred resignation program, would allow the workers to resign and receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30, according to a publicly available email sent to federal employees Jan. 28 by the Office of Personnel Management. 

That email noted, “The majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments and reductions in force.” 

It added that furloughs were coming and that a large number of federal employees would be reclassified. 

The Trump administration has stated that the savings to the taxpayers from the buyout would be approximately $100 billion. 

In the Springfield metropolitan statistical area, the U.S. government is the fifth-largest employer, according to December 2024 data from the Springfield Regional Economic Partnership, which states there are 3,946 federal workers here. 

The area’s other leading employers are CoxHealth with 13,297 employees, Mercy Hospital Springfield with 9,238, the state of Missouri with 6,298 and Walmart and Sam’s Club with a combined 5,960, according to the data. 

Many of Springfield’s federal workers are employed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and others work at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, often referred to as FedMed, among other workplaces. 

The American Federation of Government Employees, the labor union representing 750,000 federal government employees, according to its website, is urging workers not to accept the buyout without further clarification. 

A notice on the AFGE Facebook page states, “There is not yet any evidence the administration can or will uphold its end of the bargain, that Congress will go along with this unilateral massive restructuring or that appropriated funds can be used this way, among other issues that have been raised.” 

The buyout has not been authorized by Congress, which has authority over federal spending, also called the power of the purse, through Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution. That section, called the Appropriations Clause, states, “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” 

According to the Office of Personnel Management website, downsizing agencies may offer lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 per employee – less than seven months of salary and benefits for full-time federal workers. 

OPM Director Charles Ezell offered a workaround in a memo to agency heads Tuesday, and that is to put them on paid administrative leave. 

The situation leaves federal workers with a fraught decision to make by end of day: to accept a buyout that the White House may not have had the legal authority to make and that thus may not be honored or to have their positions eliminated through downsizing and receive nothing. 

As of yesterday, 40,000 of the nation’s federal workers had accepted the buyout offer, according to reporting by The Washington Post, and that equates to about 2% of the workers who were offered the buyout deal. That’s short of the White House’s goal of 5%, according to the Post. 

The Pew Research Center reports there were 3 million federal government workers in November 2024, making up 1.9% of the nation’s civilian workforce. Their average tenure is 12 years, according to Pew. 

The deadline for workers to accept the offer is 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, or 10:59 p.m. locally.