The federal judge who had placed the hold on the Office of Personnel Management’s deferred resignation offer for federal employees has allowed it to proceed.
Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. lifted the injunction in an opinion issued on February 12. In the opinion, he said that the unions who brought the challenge to OPM’s buyout offer lacked standing as they were not directly affected by the directive. The court noted that standing requires more than being “mere bystanders” and necessitates a “personal stake in the dispute.”
AFGE was one of the unions that filed the lawsuit. In a statement, the union vowed to continue fighting. AFGE National President Everett Kelley said:
Today’s ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants. But it’s not the end of that fight. AFGE’s lawyers are evaluating the decision and assessing next steps.
Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program.
We continue to maintain it is illegal to force American citizens who have dedicated their careers to public service to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk.
O’Toole initially put the injunction in place just hours before the original deadline of OPM’s “Fork in the Road” offer on February 6. It was then extended on Monday, February 10 after a hearing was held on the case until he had time to issue a new order.
OPM said in response to the extension of the injunction that it was still accepting resignations from federal employees but that it intended to “close the program to new entrants as soon as legally permissible.”
Not surprisingly, it has now closed the program to new resignations in light of the judge’s decision. A notice on the agency’s website reads:
Program Closed
The Deferred Resignation Program is now closed. Any resignations received after 7:20pm ET, February 12, 2025 will not be accepted.
Federal employees who are still hoping to take advantage of the offer after the closing deadline are likely to be disappointed. One of OPM’s frequently asked questions about the program states:
Deferred resignation will generally not be available to those who resign after the program closes. Certain exceptions might be made for employees who were on approved absence for some or all of the period while the program was open.
Approximately 75,000 federal employees have accepted the buyout offer.
OPM has warned federal employees who chose not to accept the buyout offer that layoffs would be coming in the form of RIFs (reduction in force) and furloughs. President Trump issued a new executive order this week which instructed agencies to begin preparing for widespread layoffs through RIFs, so this process could begin rather quickly.
In fact, news reports have started coming out today (February 13) that mass layoffs have begun at several agencies.
