Trump administration tells court publicly releasing its mass layoff plans would hurt recruiting and retention

As the Trump administration seeks to drastically reduce the number of federal employees, it has voiced concern to a federal court that releasing its plans to do so would hurt its ability to retain current workers and recruit new ones. 

The White House made the argument in a court filing responding to a judge’s order that the administration release its Agency Reduction in Force and Reorganization plans, which all agencies have submitted but have largely been kept a secret. The release requirement was part of District Judge Susan Illston’s larger decision that temporarily paused agencies from carrying out their RIF plans for two weeks. 

In response to the sweeping decision, Stephen Billy, a senior advisor at the Office of Management and Budget, said in a declaration to the court that releasing the plans would cause "irreparable harm” to the government. The plans, or ARRPs, are distinct from actual RIFs, he said, and contain proposed changes that would take years to implement. 

He added they contain sensitive information that would “seriously undermine agency operations” if they became public because they include plans and strategies for union negotiations, regulatory changes, future appropriations requests, congressional engagement and agency IT management. Billy also said the ARRPs contain plans that could hurt recruitment and retention, despite ARRPs themselves being designed to strategize ways to reduce staffing totals. 

He stressed the plans are deliberative in nature and contain ideas that may never come to fruition. The Justice Department added that nothing in the plans "irrevocably commits an agency to taking any specific step.” 

The plaintiffs in the case, led by the non-profit group Democracy Forward, said the judge should delay the release of the plans but not put the larger temporary restraining order on hold. That is currently set to stay in effect through May 23 and the court is slated to hold a hearing on a potentially longer-term hearing on May 22. 

On Monday, Illston agreed to delay her Tuesday deadline requiring the release of the plans.

The temporary restraining order is already having direct impacts. The National Science Foundation last week informed employees in its Equity for Excellence in STEM division they would be laid off and employees had been placed on administrative leave, where they were set to remain until their terminations were finalized. Star Anderson, the current head of NSF’s human resources, informed employees Monday they were suspending those RIF actions through May 23 at a minimum. Any employee who had been placed on administrative leave must now “continue to perform their assigned role at NSF until further notice.” 

At the Interior Department, the major agency where staff reduction seemed to be the most imminent, there were no communications to employees as of Monday afternoon on what the workforce should anticipate. Supervisors across the department had informed employees last week that RIFs would begin in the coming days, but those plans appear to be on hold. That did not come as welcome news to all staffers expected to be impacted. 

One Interior employee said workers there were not seeing the restraining order as a reprieve, but they merely “see it more as a stayed execution.” Another said they did not want to drag the process out further. 

“I almost wish there wasn’t a delay so we can just get it over with,” the employee said. “I feel like it’s inevitable.” 

At the departments of Agriculture and Treasury, where layoffs were also expected shortly, employees reported hearing word that those moves are on hold until May 23. 

Interior, meanwhile, is still moving forward with at least part of its reorganization, despite the restraining order pausing implementation of any part of the ARRPs. It is in the process of consolidating most of its support functions, such as contracting, finance, human resources, communications and others, away from individual bureaus to instead report directly to the department’s secretary. Those efforts are still ongoing as they were initiated May 4, according to an employee who was formally moved from one bureau to central Interior over the weekend and subsequent to Illston’s order. 

Not all recent firings are being walked back. The Health and Human Services Department re-fired its probationary employees last week, with letters obtained by Government Executive informing impacted staff the dismissal would take immediate effect on May 8. The initial firings, which took place in February, were undone by a now-defunct court order. 

The probationary firings that occurred at agencies throughout government were not conducted using reduction-in-force proceedings but instead as regular firings. A judge has ordered the “for cause” language to be stripped from the termination notices, making them closer in approximation to a RIF. HHS has, unlike NSF, not yet taken any steps to walk back those actions. 

David DiMolfetta contributed to this report.