No New Buyout Offer At NASA?
NASA RIF WATCH 2.0
NASAWatch
Keith’s note: There is no mention in these news stories about NASA offering a new round of buyouts or whether they are considering them. You might ask your management – to ask their management etc. etc.
- New Buyout Offers on the Table for Federal Employees, Fedsmith: “Some agencies have made new buyout offers to their employees to voluntarily reduce the size of their workforces before widespread RIFs begin.”
- Federal Workers Get Second Musk Buyout Offer , Yahoo: “Federal workers at a number of agencies — including the Defense, Transportation, Agriculture and Energy departments — are getting a second chance to accept a buyout offer, the latest effort to downsize the US government spearheaded by Elon Musk.”
- Federal agencies launch second — and likely final — offer to leave, Politico: “This week, at least seven agencies, including the departments of Defense, Agriculture, Energy, Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, as well as the Small Business Administration and the General Services Administration, are making a new round of offers for workers to leave their jobs, using the same Deferred Resignation Program that prompted more than 77,000 federal employees to voluntarily leave earlier this year.”
8 responses to “No New Buyout Offer At NASA?”
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If you’re offered it, take it. Don’t let the hammer come down on you because your supervisors have their heads buried in the sand.
Wait for the RIF. Get that value on line I.
The fine print in that DOGE offer doesn’t pass the smell test.
May be good advice for some, but depends on seniority, right? Many shorter-tenure CS’s will not get anything close to what DRP offers.
What does DRP actually offer? Sitting around unpaid for 4
5 months? That’s not the same as a buyout or severance since you can’t take another job or even begin negotiations with another employer until after Sept 30. At least that’s what our Center is saying – that DRPers are still full employees required to follow all outside employment rules.
Is NASA even going to have a RIF? All of our probationary employees are still in tact, no new DRPs and no VERAs that I have seen. Only a couple dozen employees at HQ and DEI employees. I hope we do our RIF by attrition (retirements coupled with hiring freeze). It sure is starting to look like that to me, or am I just blind and dumb here?
It certainly is perplexing. But I don’t think anyone’s really seen the RIF plan. That will be apparent by April 14 seemingly.
There’s got to be some political leverage here where Ted Cruz is trying to protect his pork by threatening to hold up Isaacman’s confirmation unless they spare NASA. And maybe it is Musk trying to preserve his money funneled through NASA contracts? As an American taxpayer and patriot I would be very sad if NASA is spared while CDC is gutted and CFPB is destroyed (or reduced in scope).
The center directors and mission directorate heads were supposedly briefed on the Phase 1 plan in some capacity, but they’re staying silent so far…
If you believe Janet Petro’s limited statements on it, it sounds like Phase 1 is “concepts of a plan”. Some areas identified to look for cuts, not how/what to cut.
I don’t want to read too much into it or have any false hope, but the stay on probationary firings and the limited layoffs so far (<30 people) does seem like maybe NASA will be allowed to meet targets through attrition and not the chainsaw? Going off the DOGE site numbers, 20% of NASA is 60+ and maybe eligible for retirement (assuming sufficient years of service). Another 16% is 55-59 and on the cusp, either MRA already or in VERA territory. That's up to 36% of the workforce they could entice with VERA/VSIP. Supposedly about 5% already took the DRP. Even just 5% would be the biggest cut to the workforce in 30 years.
I agree with you 100% and is exactly how I have been gauging the situation.