GSA offers buyouts to 400 employees

The General Services Administration has announced that it will offer buyouts to almost 400 employees as part of its effort to cut agency costs.

Acting GSA Administrator David Bibb said in a memorandum that the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget gave his agency a green light to offer cash incentives for some to voluntarily leave.

The 700 employees eligible to apply, all in the Office of Global Supply or the Federal Technology Service, are being notified by letter. They have until May 26 to accept the buyout offer, and can leave the agency between May 31 and July 3 with a few exceptions.

The maximum amount employees can receive is $25,000, but totals will vary based on years of service and age, according to a GSA spokeswoman. The buyouts also will be offered coupled with early-out options, which allow employees older than 50 with 20 years of service or any age with 25 years of service an early retirement with a reduced pension.

GSA is looking for 30 employees in the Global Supply office to accept the offer and 365 in the Federal Technology Service to do so. A GSA spokeswoman said the agency is offering buyouts to avoid layoffs, and the agency does not expect to have to lay off anyone.

Buyouts will allow employees "who would like to consider various options for their future to do so and will also allow GSA to move forward with more financial flexibility to address our business challenge," Bibb said in his memo.

Martin Wagner, acting commissioner of the Federal Technology Service and the Federal Supply Service, which includes the Office of Global Supply, said in February 400 positions needed to be cut because costs exceeded revenue. At that time, GSA asked OPM and OMB for buyout authority, which they granted in late April.

GSA is an unusual agency in that it receives much of its funding from earnings generated by its acquisition divisions rather than through congressional appropriations.

That the agency is reducing staff through buyouts rather than layoffs is a relief, said Jack Hanley, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees' Council of GSA Locals.

"If they can just let people who want to retire or move on go by offering buyouts, that's fine with us," Hanley said. "But I'm still concerned that they may not have saved enough money just by doing the buyouts. It worries me that we're giving away the most experienced people in the agency. It's mostly going to be the senior employees that take it."

Hanley said he thinks there still is a chance the agency will lay off employees after this round of buyouts.

GSA last offered buyouts in 2005, to employees in the Public Buildings Service. Since November 2002, when Congress gave the executive branch authority to offer buyouts, half of all federal agencies have offered them to a total of 22,600 employees, according to the Government Accountability Office.