The Environmental Protection Agency will begin reducing its workforce by offering buyouts to the agency’s 15,000 employees after the White House issued an order for agencies to cut down their teams, the Washington Postreports.
The Trump administration’s proposed budget included a 31 percent funding cut to the EPA and a 3,200-person reduction in its workforce. In a memo to agency officials, Mike Flynn, the EPA’s acting deputy administrator, said the goal was to complete the cutsby June.
“Given our resource situation, we will continue a freeze on external hiring,” Flynn noted, despite the fact that the presidential memorandum blocking any hiring of federal employees has been lifted. These buyouts, cash payments to encourage workers to leave voluntarily, are expected to be cheaper than the long and tedious process required to fire federal employees.
