OMB issues guidance on Reduction in Force layoffs due to partial shutdown

[mystery-ak]

January 16, 2019
OMB issues guidance on Reduction in Force layoffs due to partial shutdown
By Thomas Lifson

A new statement from the Office of Management and Budget provides cold comfort for federal bureaucrats worried that furloughs during the partial shutdown could become permanent layoffs, as long as Democrats refuse to give in and fund the border barrier.

There will be no immediate layoffs (what the federal government calls reductions-in-force – or  RIFs) if and when the current partial shutdown passes the 30 day mark in 4 more days. As I explained yesterday in Trump's shutdown trap?, federal law requires RIFs when federal employees are furloughed more than 30 days.

But after the matter was raised and widely discussed, the OMB issued a statement that indicates it would require an actual reorganization plan that would make furloughed positions permanently identified as unnecessary, in order for the furloughs to be RIFed. Nicole Ogrysko writes in the Federal New Network:

    Agencies won’t need to consider targeted layoffs, otherwise known as reductions-in-force (RIFs), if the current partial government shutdown continues for another few days.

    While federal statute typically instructs agencies to RIF targeted groups of employees who have been placed on furlough status for 30 days or more, the regulations don’t apply to emergency furlough situations, the Office of Management and Budget confirmed Tuesday. (snip)

    There are two kinds of furloughs. “Administrative furloughs” are planned events by an agency “designed to absorb reductions necessitated by downsizing, reduced funding, lack of work or any budget situation other than a lapse in appropriations,” according to the Office of Personnel Management.

    “Shutdown furloughs,” also called “emergency furloughs,” occur during lapses in appropriations.

    OPM’s 2015 guidance on shutdown furloughs also clarifies the matter.

    “Reductions in force furlough regulations and SES competitive furlough requirements are not applicable to emergency shutdown furloughs because the ultimate duration of an emergency shutdown furlough is unknown at the outset and is dependent entirely on congressional action, rather than agency action,” OPM guidance reads. “The RIF furlough regulations and SES competitive furlough requirements, on the other hand, contemplate planned, foreseeable, money-saving furloughs that, at the outset, are planned to exceed 30 days.”

more
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/01/omb_issues_guidance_on_reduction_in_force_layoffs_due_to_partial_shutdown.html