RIF guidance from OPM and OMB told agencies to look to employees who “are not typically designated as essential” during a lapse in appropriations. Image: rblfmr/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA report for Congress has raised issues regarding the Trump administration’s use of shutdown contingency plans as a guide to reduction-in-force planning, saying that an individual’s status under those plans is not necessarily an indicator of how crucial the position is to agency operations.
The Congressional Research Service report noted that in a February executive order telling agencies to begin planning for “large-scale” RIFs, and in follow-up guidance from OPM and OMB, agencies were told to look to employees who “are not typically designated as essential” during a lapse in appropriations. Agencies meanwhile were told to prioritize for separation temporary employees, reemployed annuitants and functions “not mandated” by law.
Agencies have a deadline of April 14 to present specific RIF plans to OMB and OPM, after an initial deadline of last Thursday (March 13) to present general plans.
The report notes that in shutdowns, certain employees are exempt from furloughs due to the funding source for the position—such as long-term appropriations, trust funds or other sources—not due to the nature of the position. For positions funded by regular appropriations, it adds, some positions are deemed “excepted”—not “essential”—due to the government’s obligation to provide certain services regardless of the Antideficiency Act.
“Interpretations of the Antideficiency Act and its allowable exceptions have varied from Administration to Administration, from shutdown to shutdown, and during the course of a single shutdown. When engaging in shutdown planning, agencies may exercise some discretion in determining whom to furlough and whom to except from furlough relative to the specific circumstances of a given shutdown,” it said.
During shutdowns in 2013 and 2019, some agencies changed employees’ status, both by recalling some furloughed employees to work and by furloughing additional employees initially kept on the job, it said.
Further, the report notes that the guidance tells agencies to base decisions on the shutdown contingency plans of 2019 that were the last issued during the first Trump administration, not to the plans agencies later produced during the Biden administration—which the Trump administration has taken off the OMB site where they had been posted. “Agency subcomponents created after 2019 may not be accounted for in these plans,” it said.
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