The Department of Energy has circulated its own Deferred Resignation Plan, akin to the Office of Personnel Management’s earlier “Fork in the Road” initiative, and responses are due Tuesday April 8, according to a Monday memo from Secretary of Energy Chris Wright.
The new DOE buyout is spawned by President Donald Trump’s Feb. 11 executive order that created the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and also instructed federal department heads to start planning for large-scale reductions in force and reorganizations.
“This is a difficult but necessary effort to make government more efficient and accountable,” Wright said in the Monday March 31 memo emailed to staff, and subsequently viewed by Exchange Monitor.
“In conducting any such exercise, it is important to consider how optimization initiatives could impact DOE personnel,” Wright said. “Therefore, to mitigate the effect of potential involuntary separations, I am immediately instituting a DOE Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), which allows for employees to take needed time for future planning while continuing to be paid through the designated period.”
Under the DOE DRP, the effective date for resignations is no later than Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, and the effective date for retirements is Dec. 31, the end of the calendar year, according to the Wright memo.
The enrollment period for both the DOE deferred resignation and the DOE retirement programs will end at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8, according to the Wright memo.
Since Trump took office Jan. 20, the departures at DOE’s $8-billion Office of Environmental Management have included Candice Robertson, the federal manager who was leading the nuclear cleanup program, as well as site managers at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
Scores of probationary employees were also fired, although most have been temporarily at least reinstated while court challenges proceed.
Stay tuned.
