Wyoming’s 8,100 federal workers face deadline today to respond to Trump’s resignation offer

Update: A federal judge on Thursday blocked enforcement of the “deferred resignation” deadline, according to numerous news reports. U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Massachusetts issued the order in response to a suit brought by a federal employees’ advocacy group. He will hold a hearing Monday. — Ed.

About 8,100 federal workers in Wyoming have until today to accept a Trump administration “Fork in the Road” resignation offer that would see them leave government employment at the end of September.

A U.S. Office of Personnel Management memo states that those choosing “deferred resignation” will be “exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements” but will still be paid through the end of September and receive corresponding benefits. The Jan. 28 memo tells those who do not resign that “we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency.

“The reform of the federal workforce will be significant,” the memo states, and will require most employees to work in offices, not remotely. The federal workforce will have a “performance culture,” that is “more streamlined and flexible” and operates under “enhanced standards of conduct,” including loyalty.

Changes will be made “in accordance with applicable law,” according to the federal personnel office, a notion that’s been challenged in court.

Maryland-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility sued President Donald Trump and others on Jan. 28 asking a federal court to declare the initiative illegal and therefore null and void.

Other groups that advocate for federal employees also rang alarm bells.

“[S]easonal and permanent [National Park Service] jobs have been rescinded or delayed, with thousands of additional positions at risk of elimination,” said Phil Francis, chairman of the executive council of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, a group of former agency employees.

“The busy season is closing in,” he said in a statement. “Without sufficient staffing, national parks cannot function well.”

There’s “uncertainty throughout the Forest Service,” said Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. “The fear is palpable.”

An implication in the “Fork in the Road” memo is that “the next [offer] may be less generous,” Stahl said. “It may be ‘give us your keys, you’re out of here.’

“Everybody in the Forest Service,” he said, “is just hunkered down waiting for the next axe to fall.”

8,100 workers in Wyoming

The federal government employed 8,100 workers in Wyoming last year not counting those in the military, according to Wenlin Liu, administrator and chief economist at the Economic Analysis Division of Wyoming’s Department of Administration and Information. That includes employees of the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, plus the FBI, U.S. Postal Service and others.

The “Fork in the Road” memo states that the “deferred retirement” offer is not available to employees in the military, in immigration enforcement and working on national security. A caveat allows some flexibility to agency leaders.

The federal workforce is about half the size of the state government’s, according to Wyoming’s administration and information department. But it is much larger than Wyoming’s biggest private employer, Walmart, according to World Population Review, an organization focusing on population and demographics.

Walmart employs 5,181 people in Wyoming, the retail chain says. The University of Wyoming is second largest with about 4,500 employees, World Population Review states.

The “Fork in the Road” implications for Wyoming’s tourism industry are uncertain.

“[V]isitor centers will close, lines will grow longer, and basic maintenance — such as cleaning restrooms and facilities — will suffer,” national parks coalition leader Francis said in his statement. “Millions of Americans who cherish their national parks may find them inaccessible, poorly maintained, or unsafe.”

The Trump plan threatens those “who protect our public health, the environment and our food and water,” Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said. The “Musk-Trump Confederacy,” would “decimate the ability of our government to do work for the people” and “will harm everyday Americans to remove and replace unknown and unheralded civil servants whose work is critical to keeping our country safe,” the public employees group said.

Musk, of course, is the billionaire the president has appointed to oversee government efficiency and downsizing. Trump has tasked Elon Musk with overseeing his new Department of Government Efficiency.

Delegation positions

Trump has significant support in Congress including from the Wyoming delegation of U.S. Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis and U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman. All three are Republicans and have clout after Trump handily won Wyoming in the last election. All three have acted in lockstep with the Trump administration.

Barrasso is the Senate majority whip — the second-ranking senator. Lummis is a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, chairs the Clean Air, Climate, Nuclear Innovation and Safety subcommittee and serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure and the Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife subcommittees.

Hageman has established herself as a pointed critic of the federal workforce that Trump targets.

“For too long, Washington, D.C. has delegated authority to unelected bureaucrats in a manner that jeopardizes our Constitution,” she states on her webpage. “Administrative agencies have the power to write, enforce, and judicially review law, even though they are unelected and therefore unaccountable to the People.”

As the Republican agenda advances, it’s clear whose necks are first on the chopping block, Forest Service supporter Stahl said.

“If you’ve got [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] in your title the Trump administration has made it very clear you should either get a different job or leave the government entirely,” he said.

But “I doubt the Trump administration is going to can the firefighters,” who make up about half the USFS workforce, Stahl said.

“At the end of the day, somebody’s going to have to replace the toilet paper in the campground restrooms, process the permit for the Boy Scout 20-person campout, go out and mark the small trees that will be thinned in a fuels reduction project,” he said.

Choices ahead

The challenge will rest with administrators who could take advantage of a caveat in the “Fork in the Road” memo, Stahl said. It allows an agency to exclude some workers from the deferred retirement program.

“The memos out of the Office of Personnel Management that are driving this process give individual agencies the authority to give allowances,” he said. But among administrators, “nobody knows” how far they might venture without repercussions.

“They’re now being faced with the decision ‘do I make a [remote-work] allowance for the worker who commutes over [Teton] Pass [who] can’t buy a $2 million house in Jackson or afford rent?’” Stahl asked. Or, “do I not take that risk.”

As administrators weigh those decisions, “there’s a thumb on the scale,” Stahl said, “Elon Musk’s thumb.”

Employees who work remotely — like a Forest Service worker who specializes in Geographic Information Systems mapping but lives in San Francisco, might be required to move to Wyoming, he said, outlining a hypothetical situation.

Such an employee is asking “do I move my family and have my spouse quit her job?” he said. “They’re being told ‘well, here’s the deal — if you don’t want to move to Sheridan, you can twiddle your thumbs for nine months, then resign.’”

Unlike the U.S. Agency for International Development, parts of the FBI and the Department of Education, land management agencies “haven’t seen the blowtorch hit,” Stahl said. “But everybody kind of expects something to hit them.”

As Stahl sees it, Trump’s goal is to get the U.S. Supreme Court to declare the Civil Service Reform Act unconstitutional, a violation of the separation of powers. The act created the modern-day civil service, the phalanx of 2.2 million government workers who carry out congressional laws, executive directions and court rulings.

Adopting that perspective, Stahl pointed out that the president doesn’t tell Barrasso who he can or can’t hire for his staff. Trump can’t tell Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who can be his clerks.

“Why can Congress tell me who I can hire?” Trump might ask, according to Stahl. For Trump, “that doesn’t seem fair,” Stahl said.

The notion of a civil service beholden only to the president has support from conservative scholars in The Federalist Society, a legal organization that is “ramrodding this return to constitutional literalism and the original intent of the founders,” Stahl said.

“They read dusty old manuscripts [and would] return to our nation to 250 years ago when the president only employed five people,” Stahl said. “That’s the end game.”