OPM offers federal workforce deferred resignations

On 28 January 2025 the Office of Personnel Management sent an email to approximately two million federal civilian employees from “hr@opm.gov” with the subject line “Fork in the Road,” offering a deferred-resignation programme. Employees who replied with the word “Resign” by 11:59 p.m. ET on 6 February 2025 would, the email said, be placed on administrative leave and receive “full pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload” through a separation date of 30 September 2025.¹ The email’s exclusion list named “military personnel of the armed forces, the U.S. Postal Service, positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and any other positions specifically excluded by your employing agency”; agencies subsequently added carve-outs for further components (CBP, CISA, much of SSA and VA).¹ The American Federation of Government Employees, the National Association of Government Employees, the National Treasury Employees Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed AFGE et al. v. Ezell et al., No. 1:25-cv-10276 (D. Mass.), on 4 February 2025; Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. entered a TRO on 6 February that stayed the deadline, then dissolved the stay on 12 February 2025 on standing and on Civil Service Reform Act exclusive- review grounds.² OPM closed the first-round window at 7:20 p.m. ET on 12 February 2025 with approximately 75,000 employees (about four per cent of the federal civilian workforce) accepting, per NBC News reporting attributed to a White House announcement the same day.³ EO 14171 (“Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce,” signed 20 January 2025) and OMB Memorandum M-25-13 (“Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs,” issued 27 January 2025) framed the proximate workforce and funding context.⁴⁵

1. The payment runway runs to 30 September 2025, the end of the federal fiscal year. Current appropriations at the time of the email ran only through 14 March 2025; OPM’s commitment to pay through 30 September was challenged in AFGE v. Ezell as obligating funds in advance of appropriations in violation of the Antideficiency Act, 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(B), and as exceeding the 10-workday cap on agency-imposed administrative leave at 5 U.S.C. § 6329a(b)(1).⁶⁷ OPM’s General Counsel issued a memorandum on 4 February 2025 asserting that the programme was lawful.⁸

2. A voluntary resignation accepted under the programme is not an adverse action under chapter 75 of title 5 and does not carry the notice-and-appeal procedures of 5 U.S.C. §§ 7503(b) and 7513(b); MSPB jurisdiction is foreclosed unless the resignation was involuntary.⁹¹⁰

3. Federal employee unions argued in AFGE v. Ezell that the programme lacked statutory authority, violated the Antideficiency Act and was issued without notice required by federal-sector labor law.¹¹ Judge O’Toole’s 12 February 2025 order dissolved the TRO on the ground that the union plaintiffs lacked Article III standing and that any individual employee challenge to a personnel action must proceed through the Merit Systems Protection Board under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 — 5 U.S.C. § 7703 (judicial review of MSPB decisions in the Federal Circuit) and 5 U.S.C. § 7121 (collective-bargaining grievance procedures) — not through district court.¹²¹³