Trump’s memo tells federal agencies how to make a massive layoff

CNN
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The Trump administration moved forward on Wednesday with plans to make a massive agency-wide layoff. This is the latest move to reduce the federal workforce.

With guidance on how to make cuts and restructuring plans, known as the RIF, the Office of Management and Budget and Personnel Management issued a memo to agency leaders and took another step to take the President Donald Trump’s “President’s “Implementing Government Efficiency.”

The memo comes as the Trump administration is making multifaceted efforts to overhaul federal operations and to let employees go. Within six weeks, he fired tens of thousands of probation workers, placed other employees on administrative leave, offered a postponed resignation package, and ordered staff to return to the office full-time.

The move, along with a confused weekend request for staff to list activities over the past week, has also achieved anxiety levels for many federal workers at Ratchet. The federal government has not made forced widespread cuts since the Clinton administration in the 1990s.

The principles that guide the agency include implementing “significant cuts” in the number of federal workers by eliminating unnecessarily positions and reducing federal property ownership and budgets, and, according to the memo, improving service and productivity for Americans.

The first phase involves submitting a list of institutional departments and employees performing functions not required by law or regulations that are not considered essential employees during government closures. The plan should include a list of all jobs in the agency department that serves directly Americans, all laws that establish the agency, and all laws that make plans that agents use to reduce staff.

Additionally, agents should engage with Congress to provide suggestions on how to obtain major restructuring efforts and agreements on funding transfers between accounts. The deadline for submitting plans that should include implementation timetables is March 13th.

In the second phase, OMB and OPM are seeking an overview of “a positive vision for more productive and efficient agency operations in the future.” These are scheduled for April 14th and must be implemented by September 30th.

The requested information includes an organizational chart proposed by the agency and confirmation that it reviewed all employee job descriptions, recent performance reports, service length, and veteran status. OMB and OPM also want to learn about the proposed relocation of offices away from the Metro area, Washington, DC, and plans to reduce costs and improve efficiency through technology.

The agency’s plans should also include provisions from union collective bargaining agreements that may curb cost-cutting and efficiency efforts and proposals to renegotiate these provisions. Agency should also provide legitimacy to exclude programs and departments from reductions as well as areas of large future layoffs.

And, like the executive order, the memo points out that future employment should be limited to one position for every four people departing.

Exempt from this restructuring are the positions of military and federal uniformed personnel, including law enforcement, border security, national security, public safety and immigration enforcement, and the U.S. Coast Guard. Furthermore, the US Postal Service and the President’s Office of Enforcement are not subject to memos.

Furthermore, the guidance points out that agencies or departments that provide direct services to citizens, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Veteran Healthcare, should not implement cuts until OMB and OPM prove that they have a “positive effect” in providing these services.

Kevin Liptak of CNN contributed to this report.

This story has been updated with additional details.