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The General Services Administration is planning further cuts to its workforce by early May through a combination of voluntary incentives to leave the agency and nonvoluntary layoffs.
GSA is offering Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments (VSIP) to employees. Wednesday is the first day eligible employees can apply for early retirement and buyouts.
GSA Deputy Chief Human Capital Officer Jeremy Taylor told employees in an email the agency will accept VERA and VSIP applications through April 4.
Employees who accept the VERA/VSIP will separate from the agency no later than May 3.
“Employees may apply for a VERA only, or a VSIP in combination with a resignation, a regular optional retirement, or early retirement (VERA),” Taylor wrote.
Employees laid off through an ongoing Reduction in Force (RIF) are eligible to apply to the VERA/VSIP, but Taylor said RIF’d employees are prohibited from receiving both a VSIP payment and severance.
The maximum amount agencies can offer in a VSIP is $25,000. Federal employees under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) are eligible for voluntary early retirement if they’re at least 50 years of age, with at least 20 years of service, or any age with at least 25 years of service.
This is GSA’s latest step to shrink its workforce. The agency laid off hundreds of employees earlier this month, as part of an ongoing Reduction in Force (RIF). Employees who received RIF notices must also separate from the agency no later than May 3.
More cuts are expected, according to two people familiar with GSA’s planning. The agency expects to complete a first-round RIF at the Federal Acquisition Service by the end of next week. A second round of layoffs at FAS is expected this summer.
The agency laid off about 600 employees on March 3 and terminated hundreds more in the following days. GSA’s Public Buildings Service, which manages a governmentwide portfolio of leased and owned federal office buildings, felt the brunt of these workforce reductions. Agency leaders expect to cut 63% of the PBS workforce.
A GSA employee, however, told Federal News Network that the Public Buildings Service hit a “snag” with its RIFs, and will have to wait 90 days to continue further cuts.
GSA conducted “box” RIFs across PBS, eliminating entire functions or closing entire office locations the agency said it no longer needed. Employees impacted by those RIFs have been placed on 90 days of administrative leave until their official termination date.
“They now can’t reorganize, because they actually do need people to do those functions in those geographic areas. So now they have to wait 90 days for the first wave of RIFs to be officially gone. Then they can finalize a new org structure and do the second round of RIFs based on the normal process,” the GSA employee said.
GSA employees are eligible for VSIP if they’ve been employed by GSA or another executive branch agency for a continuous period of at least three years and serve in a position without a time limitation.
“In rare circumstances, the agency may have designated a position as ineligible for VERA/VSIP,” Taylor wrote.
Other agencies are taking a similar approach to staffing cuts.
The Social Security Administration told staff last month it’s offering voluntary early retirements and VSIPs, intending to reduce its workforce by about 7,000 employees. SSA already has its lowest headcount in more than 50 years.
The Associated Press reported on March 10 that the Department of Health and Human Services sent a similar “voluntary separation offer” to more than 80,000 of its employees.
The post GSA sets May deadline for more staff cuts through layoffs and incentives first appeared on Federal News Network.