Trump EO instructs agencies to submit reorganization plans, prepare for rifs

On February 12, 2025By Littum

President Donald Trump instructs the agency’s leader to prepare for reduction in force, giving them 30 days to submit reorganization plans as part of a new attempt to cut the federal government.

Trump’s latest Executive Order is also aimed at further institutionalizing Elon Musk’s initiative “Institute for Efficiency” across the government. Trump signed the executive order on Tuesday night in the Oval Office with Musk.

According to EO, the Office of Management and Budget will develop a plan to reduce the size of the government’s workforce “through efficiency improvements and wear.”

The order comes as the Trump administration tries to convince federal employees to take his “vulnerable resignation” offer. A federal judge has paused the exposed resignation program in the midst of a legal challenge.

The order instructs the agency leader to prepare to initiate “large reductions into effect”, while at the same time ending both temporary staff and unemployed annuitants working in areas that will not be subject to the RIFs.

The order does not specifically say when the RIFs would begin. As Federal News Network has previously reported, RIFs are typically a complex and time -consuming process that can open agencies for legal challenges and aggravate productivity.

“All offices that perform functions that are not required by statute or other law must be prioritized in rifs,” the order states.

It specifies that staff working with diversity, justice and inclusion initiatives, as well as any features that Trump “suspend or close” are priorities for the RIF actions. It also calls for agencies to prioritize employees “performing functions that are not required by statute or other law, which is typically not designated to significantly” during a government closure.

The order requires agencies to submit reorganization plans to OMB within 30 days. The reports must identify statutes that determine the agency, as well as discuss “about the agency or any of its undercomponents to be removed or consolidated.”

Trump’s order requires agencies to hire no more than one employee for every four employees who depart.

It also requires agency manager to work with Doge team leads to developing a “data-driven plan” that ensures that new career utilities are in the “areas of the highest needs.” DOGE -Teams will provide the recently renamed US DOGE service with monthly employment reports for each agency.

The order does not apply to military personnel. And agency managers are allowed to exempt “any position they find necessary to accommodate national security, homeland security or responsibility for public security” from EO.

The Director of Office of Personal Management can also give exceptions to the executive order.

Congress Democrats immediately hit by the executive order, called it illegally, and highlights the effects of public services.

“This unprecedented assault on the federal workforce and the services they provide to the American people will not go unanswered,” said House Oversight and the Government Reform Committee, which ranks member Gerry Connolly (D-VA.) In a statement. “We are going to fight for every way we can: in the courts, in public opinion, with bully sermon, in the halls of Congress and in any community throughout this country. We will not let this injustice happen. “

Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) Said EO is conducting “careless job cuts to federal agencies already understaffed.”

“This executive order will only make the government worse and less effective for the taxpayers who expect social security, Medicaid and so much else,” Murray said.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA.) Called the latest actions a “cleansing of the federal civil service”, “illegal, awful for the country, and paves the way for increased corruption.”

“Federal workers and their expertise are crucial to Americans’ health and safety,” Beyer said. “They work every day to protect us from illness, crime and threats foreign and domestic. They ensure that our seniors have social security and Medicare, they provide care for veterans and they deliver our mail. Trump’s plan to massively reduce the workforce that provides these services will seriously damage these services.

Unions push back on rifs

Even before Trump signed the order on Tuesday night, federal staff associations have been preparing for the possibility of big rifs.

Deputy -Chief of Police Jacqueline Simon told journalists at the Union’s regulatory conference on Monday that RIFs mean that agencies no longer need positions to perform certain functions, or no longer have funding to perform these functions.

“To just run a rif and then automatically contract that the training is not legal,” Simon said.

Acting departure -legislative director Daniel Horowitz said he questioned the legality of rifs as they are based on the fact that Executive Branch Reining in Funds Congress has already set aside.

“The reason they make rifs is because they make illegal bias. We won’t lose sight of it. They close agencies without any authority from Congress and then seek to rife people. There is still all that work to do, so there should be no rifs, ”he said.

In a statement on Tuesday night, the National Ministry of Finance criticized the Employee Association President Doreen Greenwald Trump’s latest executive order.

“Federal employees protect the environment, protect public health, provide help to Americans in need, promote economic growth and secure the nation,” Greenwald said. “Federal employees in the front line live in any community across the country and serve the American people behind the scenes, and their expertise and commitment to public service should not be taken for granted. NTEU will continue its fight against these shameful attacks on federal employees and work to ensure that they can continue to serve, honestly and without regard to politics, the United States. “

(Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman contributed reporting to this story.)