Federal workers have reportedly been sent a second buyout offer from the departments of Transportation, Energy, Agriculture, Defense, General Services Administration (GSA), and Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Resign now and get paid through the end of September's fiscal year, according to the offer letters sent with deadlines ranging from April 7 to April 18, The Washington Post reported.
"We could have just fired people and not given them an off-ramp," White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told the Post. "For all of this talk about disruption, we are affording people an off-ramp that no other private or public sector job would."
Long-time government workers are appearing to be more receptive to this second-chance offer to get paid through September this time than the first — reportedly because the offers were sent from a department head and someone they have been working with and not the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), according to the Post.
"It feels more structured and less chaotic than the first time," a Department of Agriculture employee leaning toward taking this second-chance offer, told the Post. "We'd work with our agency instead of responding to a mysterious OPM inbox, not knowing if the government would actually carry through on the agreement."
Moving the offers from within the departments instead of OPM is alleviating some potential legal challenges, too, according to the Post.
"This time around, the administration has greater legal clarity about what they can legally do, and how to frame the offers with more clarity," University of Maryland professor emeritus Donald Kettl told the Post. "That gives them a chance in some agencies to convince more people to leave."
The second round might be a warning from the Trump administration for those on the verge of getting their jobs cut without a summer of full pay through September, a source told the Post.
"We want to make sure that there aren't more people that would self-DOGE to make whatever cut we are doing the most strategic," the source said, referencing the Department of Government Efficiency efforts to cut what it says is the waste, fraud, and abuse of longtime government spending and staffing left over from the COVID-era expansion and massive Biden administration spending levels.
Transportation, GSA, and HUD confirmed to Axios the second-chance offer letters were sent from their agency leaders.
"We're providing DOT employees a second chance to voluntarily leave," a Transportation spokesperson told Axios. "This is just one part of our effort to make DOT more efficient and accountable to the taxpayer.
"Those who perform safety-critical functions are exempt from this program."
The opt-outs are "voluntary," a GSA spokesperson told Axios.
HUD's second-chance offer was announced on X.
"On week 1, President Trump went straight to work on reforming the federal workforce," the X post March 31 read. "One option offered to federal employees was a 'fork in the road' to separate from the federal workforce.
"The option to take the fork in the road closed on Feb. 12.
"Since then, we have heard from staff who wish they had taken it. Today, we're launching a second Deferred Resignation Program or 'fork in the road' in coordination with OPM that opens today and closes on Friday, April 11, 2025."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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