Several federal agencies give employees another chance to resign with little time to decide

At least four federal agencies are once again giving their employees the option to resign but be paid through the end of September, according to internal emails obtained by CNN and agency spokespeople.

At least six federal agencies are once again giving their employees the option to resign but be paid through the end of September, according to internal emails obtained by CNN and agency spokespeople. The employees don’t have long to make a decision either. Depending on the agency, some must decide by April 8 while others have until April 18. The departments of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Defense, Energy and Transportation, as well as the General Services Administration, have reopened the controversial deferred resignation program as part of the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal workforce. It comes as agencies are preparing large-scale reductions in force, or RIFs. The original program was offered to about 2 million federal employees, who had to accept by mid-February. Roughly 75,000 participants signed up. Workers were notified about the initial offer in a mass email from the Office of Personnel Management with the subject line of “Fork in the Road,” the same subject line billionaire Elon Musk used when culling employees at Twitter after he purchased it. This time, the email offers are coming from the agencies themselves. The USDA is offering the deferred resignation incentive to permanent and term employees, including those in probationary status, although it noted that not all positions will be eligible to participate.