Officials Working on Mass Firing Plans Deemed Essential During a Shutdown

The Trump administration has established a new group of “excepted” workers in the event of a government shutdown: those who are handling the mass firings of other government workers.

On Sunday, the Office of Personnel Management updated its shutdown guidance for civil servants to include a section about “Reductions in Force.”

“OMB has determined that agencies are authorized to direct employees to perform work necessary to administer the RIF process during the lapse in appropriations as excepted activities,” the updated document reads.

The new section also encourages agencies to prepare plans for RIFs, and it leaves open the possibility that agencies can initiate the firing process at the very beginning of the shutdown — building on the directive OMB teased in a memo last week ahead of the Sept. 30 government funding deadline.

The administration also gave furloughed workers a new exception to rules limiting their use of government technology. Federal workers would be allowed to use their government-issued laptops and check their government emails to see if they have been laid off.

The update comes after OMB Director Russ Vought directed agencies in a memo last week to prepare for mass firings during a possible government shutdown. The memo has been widely seen as an effort to apply additional pressure to Democrats to vote for Republicans’ short-term funding bill — and to increase the stakes of voting against it.

Agencies have already been preparing RIF plans for sometime this fall, after paychecks are no longer sent to the workers who opted into early retirement and deferred resignation programs. It is not clear whether those plans would be changed, or broadened, in the event of a government shutdown.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Democrats have largely rejected Republicans’ short-term funding solution, calling for it to include an extension to the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Democratic leaders in Congress are expected to meet with President Donald Trump Monday.

While there is no official number of federal workers who have been fired, dismissed, or left through a deferred resignation program since the Trump administration took office, the Partnership for Public Service estimates that the workforce has shrunk by roughly 200,000, or nearly 1 in 10 federal workers.