The senior officials of the Department of Education told staff members on Wednesday that if they accept the deferred resignation package of the Trump Administration, the Secretary of Education can cancel it and the employees would not have any appeal, which could leave them without a promised payment .
The Personnel Management Office sent notices last week to federal employees that if they renounce before Thursday, they could continue to receive wages and benefits until the end of September. The Trump administration expects to obtain up to 10% of the workforce to quit smoking as part of a plan to reduce federal bureaucracy.
But three officials of the Department of Education told NBC News that Rachel Oglesby, the new head of the department, and Jacqueline Clay, its director of Human Capital, described important warnings to the so -called bifurcado in the road offer in a meeting of All personnel held. Zoom on Wednesday. Officials did not want to be appointed by the fear of reprisals.
The Secretary of Education would be allowed to terminate the agreement, or the government could stop paying, and the employees who took the deferred resignation package would renounce all legal claims, the three officials said they were told at the meeting. The three employees say they have only seen sample resignation agreements so far and would have to accept to resign for Thursday night before they could see the real terms of their separations.
“It seemed like a commercial for a used car dealership, such as’ acts now, just one day,” said an department official who attended the meeting.
The spokesmen of the Department of Education and the OPM said it was false, pointing out a memorandum that says that the guarantees of the renunciation offer are binding for the Government. “If the Government retreated in its commitments, an employee would have the right to request a termination of his resignation. ”
However, the memorandum includes a sample agreement that includes a clause that agency chief forum”.
A specific sample resignation agreement for employees of the Department of Education includes similar language, according to a copy obtained by NBC News.
Throughout the federal government, the Trump administration pressure to take the purchase offer has increased. In an email to federal employees on Tuesday after the original purchase proposal, the OPM wrote: “Take into account the Deferred Resignation Program (‘Fork in the Road’) expires at 11:59 PM ET on Thursday 6 February. There will be no extension of this program. “
More than 40,000 people have taken the purchase offer so far, according to a White House official, from a federal workforce of more than 2 million people.
There is a deep concern among federal workers that the purchase offer of the Trump administration could be a bait and switch, and the government can potentially maintain its part of the bargain. The comments of the managers of the Department of Education only worsened those concerns, said the three employees.
“Morality is quite bad,” said a second official. “One of the managers with whom I work has just said that he has not seen any email in the last four hours since the meeting ended, because everyone had taken their lives.”
A third employee described the tone of the call as angry, since the workers asked questions in the Zoom chat box, but then they did not get answers.
The unusual purchase offer has overturned Washington in the middle of a wave of Trump executive orders and maneuvers and the technological billionaire Elon Musk, who is head of the Efficiency Department of the Trump Government, an office within the White House. In just two weeks, Trump and Musk have launched a radical effort to redo the federal government, reduce spending and even eliminate some agencies.
Many Democrats and some Republicans say that Trump and Musk are violating the constitutional limits of the presidency illegally and that a constitutional crisis precipitate.
Some labor unions for federal workers have demanded to stop the Deferred Resignation Program, arguing that the Trump administration has no legal authority to offer such purchases. Federal Government unions and Democratic state prosecutors warned federal workers who will never receive the benefits of promised resignation and characterized offers as an attempt to intimidate them to resign.
Trump has nominated Linda McMahon, former world director of entertainment of Wrestling Entertainment and head of the administration of small businesses in their first administration, to be Secretary of Education. A confirmation audience has not yet been scheduled.
Other personnel changes arriving at the Department of Education can arrive before McMahon. The department hopes to make dismissals, known as valid reductions, the three department officials said they were told during Wednesday’s meeting. Oglesby, the chief of cabinet, and Clay, the human capital officer, did not say when they will take place or what offices will be more affected during the meeting.
The staff members of the Department of Education must also go to the office daily on February 24. Clay told staff members that department leaders are working to find another federal building for remote employees to work from 50 miles from their homes.
Trump has said he wants to eliminate the education department, which would fulfill a dream for a long time with the Republican base, but it is supposed to achieve an act of Congress. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the White House is weighing the executive action that could dismantle the department in a fragmentary way, citing people without a name familiar with the matter.
