Originally published at: Reductions in Workforce Hit Intelligence Agencies | ClearanceJobs Blog
When the current administration started rolling out executive orders calling for a reduction in the federal workforce and sent federal workers the “fork in the road” email, Defense and Intelligence agencies were exempt. However, it was not long afterwards that that we started hearing stories indicating otherwise. Applicants on ClearanceJobsBlog were reporting their Conditional Job…
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Come to the IC they said, job security they said.
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The crap-show many of us tried to avoid at the ballot box.
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I have spoken to dozens of GS-15 and SIS officers directly and they unequivocally say it’s never been like this. Your comment is tone deaf and just factually incorrect.
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I would agree if this was actually a RIF that was conducted in a way that is defined in well-established rules and regulations. What we’ve seen so far is an illegal and in some cases unconstitutional slashing of the federal workforce (deemed as such by federal judges appointed under both sides of the aisle).
And regular RIFs are still coming on top of it.
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Since when is a federal job considered constitutional? It’s not. Unfortunately, it’s been a huge expectation for some. I used to be government red tape. I am not interested in paying for that anymore.
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Illegally dismantaling departments and bureaus without congressional approval is unconsitutional. Its also illegal to fire a federal worker claiming poor performance when that is not the case. There’s a perfectly legal way to downsize the federal workforce but so far that has not been the case.
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Just because your job is safe, don’t downplay the significant impact that the reckless decisions that have been made will have on many members of this community & the nation at large. Clearly, compassion isn’t in your job description.
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Always odd when one brings up this point or says “the fed isnt a job entitlement factory,” or “guaranteed for life.” Nobody is claiming the contrary, and many of us know there is fat and bloat. We arent against reductions following the rules. My facility has 74 dod civilians. At one point it was 98% military. During the war military returned to units and dod civilians were brought in. Now we have 85% dod civilian, 15% military. 12 fed-civ took the first fork in the road, we have 8 probationary, and 17 term employees, like me. Round 1 of the RIF ends all temps and terms. No renewal, no extension. These are 1 deep positions critical to a career field. As the terms get cut the jobs will not be done. We will take a 50% cut. Could we live without 2 or 3? Sure. But each of us have on average 5 collateral duties. All of these will be levied on those remaining. Recipe for disaster. That is just round 1 of RIF. And there are at least 2 more after that.
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I don’t think there have been any actual RIF’s yet. But as I understand it, the goal is to get to whatever the targeted cuts are (8%?) by the end of May, as in “out the door” so it’s coming soon.
There are some voluntary incentives out there, and I just read that DoD is reopening the Deferred Resignation Program (AKA the “fork”), but I suspect there are many people who will simply refuse to participate in any voluntary program.
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Yeah not seeing but a few hundred take round 2. My level, rather one level up is trying to cut 10% before allowing any Term fedciv extend or renew. That is about 300 people by end of September. Not seeing it. Term expires 25 October. We have two in May and June. They are the first in the hopper.
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I think they can let “temp” employees go at any time for any reason… how about “term?” From what @Amberbunny2 says it sounds like they can’t but they can certainly decline to renew. Can they count that toward whatever “quota” they’re trying to reach? By end of May (I think)?
Yeah that’s us Terms. Only a drop in the bucket. I suppose they could RIF at any time…in that case we expire. But I think that happens if they dont get the numbers they wanted. I’ve applied to a few lateral 13s…the 14s dried up. I cant imagine our facility continuing if we lose all 17 Terms. Huge tasks would have to end.
I know someone who works at a place with a large number of term employees hired under various authorities. She has passed on a couple of term positions which would have meant a promotion but did not want to be looking for a new job when all those term positions expired. Looks like that was a good move.
Another former coworker retired and came back part time… they were all let go with no severance whatsoever.
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Yeah I expect we all turn into pumpkins. They need cut 300 by October before they can hire anyone. I doubt they can get there. Had opportunity to move to a new agency but feared the probationary status. Glad I paused there. I can move to any Air Force position for promotion and not be probationary. But hiring freeze gives slim pickings. I’d consider crossing back to contract work as the USAF spins up counter SUAS work.
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Agreed. Terminating federal employees who were simply doing the job and the duties prescribed to them by multiple previous administrations is simply dictatorial fascism and an attempt to purge the civil service of servants who serve the public interest and replace them with fascist oppressive servants.
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…and its confirmed. Our facility loses 21 position-authorizations by December. Pumpkin status. As terms expire, they fall off the books. It became way too easy to only hire Terms, and fiscal constraints made it harder and harder to POM for permanent funding. The terms were always renewed/extended because thats how the system dictated. And then it changed. And our facility will pay the price putting their remaining mission at risk of being absorbed up a level and reduced further. And to your point we absolutely supported what we were asked to support under previous administrations. Punishing or going after the rank and file employees because they supported the initiatives given them “taint right”
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When you say “position authorizations” are you talking about these “term” positions? I never really knew how it worked. I looked at a couple of “term” positions during my federal job search, none of them panned out.
And then there are term positions with verbiage in the vacancy announcement about “this position may be non-competitively converted to regular” or something like that.
There’s another point, if you get hired as a “temp” (up to 365 days) you don’t get retirement credit; I don’t think you can even buy that time back like military time.
Of course we do this in contractor world all the time, hire some leased labor for a short term. Some people with very unique hard-to-find skills would stay in that category for years but mostly they just moved on… some of them actually worked that way for years, bouncing from one short term contract to the next. But then they were also getting paid more than regular employees.
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I def miss aspects of contract life in a contract rich environment. The way it works here, the different centers trade existing but unfilled positions back and forth in order to keep the position and “unit manning document” slot. In the drawdown they first gave up unfilled slots, early retirement fork then spoon in road. Still weren’t hitting desired end strength. Decision made to give up the filled term seats…which means no authorized position for person to fill. Very similar to a contract cutting from 3 to 2. Essentially there will not be any dollars allocated to the position…and the authorization goes away. So even if hiring re-opens…my Center is not holding an authorization for my seat, even though my duty section needs my tasks completed. All next week they meet to streamline, combine, re-align (read: fight) for what each GS14 feels their piece of the pie, their authorized seats should be. I predict it gets parochial, petty, bloody fast. Human nature to build feifdoms and nobody wants to give up a seat they feel they get value and ROI on. But with a 50% cut…everyone is going to shed capability. I decided to ride it out through October date to see if it changes (weekly if not daily so far). I can hold out till new year to see…but then…bored to tears…relocate back to Virginia. Figure out what retirement looks like
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Any scuttle on people who took the “fork” and have stopped working? What is the status of their clearance after they stopped working? Is it still in full effect? Or was it rescinded due to their volunteerism implicated something about their performance and/or feelings toward DEI?