{"id":46675,"date":"2025-07-30T04:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T04:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/46675\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T04:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T04:25:11","slug":"agency-rifs-reorganizations-starting-to-take-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/46675\/","title":{"rendered":"Agency RIFs, Reorganizations Starting to Take Shape"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\tA banner commemorating the 163rd anniversary of the USDA June 6 2025. The USDA recently announced a reorganization that is to involve closing some regional and field offices and consolidating several facilities in the national capital area while relocating about 2,600 employees outside that area.\t\t\t\t\t Image: Annabelle Gordon\/UPI\/Shutterstock
\n\t\t\t\tBy: FEDweek Staff<\/a><\/p>\n

Long-expected agency RIFs and reorganizations are starting to take shape with announcements by several agencies. A list of agencies has also now been released that have asked asked OPM for approval for an initial, technical, part of the RIF process.<\/p>\n

However, much uncertainty remains, as the court challenge that resulted in the release of that list remains pending and officials say that the number of employees facing layoffs continues to change amid acceptance of incentives and other forms of turnover.<\/p>\n

OPM itself is the latest agency to provide specifics, with newly installed director Scott Kupor saying<\/a> in a posting that \u201cBy the end of this calendar year, OPM will have seen about 1,000 departures, roughly one-third of our workforce.\u201d Of those, 80 percent will be voluntary, mostly through acceptance of the deferred resignation offer, while others accepted buyout\/early retirement offers or left for other reasons\u2014leaving 129 separated involuntarily by RIF.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some cases, we had to make the hard decision that certain functions we were doing previously were no longer affordable . . . In other cases, we retained a function but determined that we could increase the operational efficiency of the team \u2013 through some combination of the use of technology, a reorganization of the team, or a re-prioritization of their objectives \u2013 and thus reduced headcount by a more modest amount,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

About the same time, an OPM official provided to a federal district court a list of agencies that had asked OPM to waive a time limit on a key RIF preparation step before the court issued an injunction against the order on \u201cAgency RIF and Reorganization Plans.\u201d The U.S. Supreme Court lifted<\/a> that injunction but the case is proceeding, with the judge pressing for disclosure of specific plans that might result in individual injunctions if they are found to violate pertinent laws and regulations.<\/p>\n

That list includes seven offices within both GSA and Agriculture; five in Treasury; four in HHS; two each in Interior, Transportation, FMCS and U.S. Agency for Global Media; and one each in Commerce, Labor, HUD, Institute of Museum and Library Services; NARA, NEH; State; the U.S. African Development Foundation, and Wilson Center.<\/p>\n

That disclosure followed an earlier statement<\/a> in that suit, saying the list was not a comprehensive count of potential RIFs, since it represented only a some of such requests as of a given date, and that a later number is 70 from 19 agencies.<\/p>\n

In that filing, the Justice Department also continued to oppose the court\u2019s review of RIF plans, saying that the government \u201cnever said the RIFs halted by this Court\u2019s injunction had been finalized\u2014to the contrary, one of Defendants\u2019 fundamental points in its court filings is that nothing is final until the agencies actually make final RIF decisions.\u201d A federal appeals court has meanwhile temporarily suspended the judge\u2019s order for access to those plans.<\/p>\n

Also about the same time, the Agriculture Department announced a reorganization that is to involve closing some regional and field offices and consolidating several facilities in the national capital area while relocating about 2,600 employees outside that area. That followed the announcement<\/a> by the State Department of a planned layoff of more than 1,300 civil service and foreign service employees.<\/p>\n

Number of Layoffs Moving Target<\/p>\n

The number of employees who ultimately would be involuntarily laid off in those actions\u2014with more expected to come\u2014remains a moving target as agencies recalculate in light of turnover. OPM previously said that hundreds of thousands of employees government-wide had accepted deferred resignation offers, with the large majority of them to leave September 30.<\/p>\n

Those opt-ins to deferred resignation were cited in the VA\u2019s announcement<\/a> that it does not expect to have to conduct a major RIF, and in an IG report<\/a> saying that RIFs would account for only a small portion of a projected job cut at the IRS of about 25,000 employees, a quarter of its workforce as of the start of the year.<\/p>\n

Courts to Weigh in on Union Rights<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, several other court cases that could impact the outcome of RIFs remain pending. Those cases challenge an executive order stripping union representation rights from most federal employees and allowing agencies to repudiate existing contracts; in many of those contracts, agencies have committed to taking certain steps to soften the impact of RIFs.<\/p>\n

The most recent development on that issue is that a second federal court has rejected the administration\u2019s request for a declaration that the order was within the President\u2019s powers to restrict unions in the federal workplace on security or related grounds. Separate suits by the AFGE and NTEU unions remain pending in other courts, although injunctions against the order in both cases have been lifted.<\/p>\n

Congress Leaving Key Policy, Funding Decisions to the Fall<\/a><\/p>\n

Guidance on \u2018Schedule G\u2019 Stresses Political Oversight<\/a><\/p>\n

OPM Tells Agencies to Allow \u2018Religious Expression\u2019 in Federal Workplace<\/a><\/p>\n

Agency RIFs, Reorganizations Starting to Take Shape<\/a><\/p>\n

Order Formally Launches \u2018Schedule Policy\/Career,\u2019 Adds Category of Appointees<\/a><\/p>\n

Court Allows Order against Unions to Remain, but Congress Eyes Stepping In<\/a><\/p>\n

See also,<\/p>\n

Top 10 Provisions in the Big Beautiful Bill of Interest to Federal Employees<\/a><\/p>\n

A Pre-RIF Checklist for Every Federal Employee, From a Federal Employment Attorney<\/a><\/p>\n

Work Longer or Take the FERS Supplement Now: Which is Better?<\/a><\/p>\n

Doubling Your TSP (C Fund vs G Fund)<\/a><\/p>\n

TSP Passes $1 Trillion in Account Balances<\/a><\/p>\n

Primer: Early out, buyout, reduction in force (RIF)<\/a><\/p>\n

2025 Federal Employees Handbook<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A banner commemorating the 163rd anniversary of the USDA June 6 2025. The USDA recently announced a reorganization…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,147,530],"class_list":["post-46675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}