Federal Downsizing

The Federal Workforce Restructuring Act authorized federal agencies to offer "buyouts" to employees who retired or resigned from the government before April 1, 1995. The legislation contained an exception that allowed the payment of a buyout to an employee as late as March 31, 1997, if the agency head determined that such a delay was essential to the agency's mission. The General Counsel at the Department of Energy (DOE) concluded in a July 1995 memorandum that the act did not preclude DOE from offering buyouts to employees who had not applied for them before April 1, 1995. He further stated that a determination by the Secretary of Energy to "conditionally approve" delayed buyouts for all DOE employees in broad job categories who applied before April 1, 1995, was permitted to later be amended to cover employees who had not filed buyout applications before that date. GAO disagrees with the General Counsel's position. GAO believes that the plain language of the act, as well as the fundamental logic and underlying context of the statute, clearly require that determinations to invoke the exception and permit delayed separation must be made in conjunction with approval of the buyouts themselves. In GAO's view, the authority of agencies to approve buyouts ended on March 31, 1995. The legislative history of the act supports this opinion.