EPA/JOBS: “Nearly 400 workers have left the Environmental Protection Agency in recent days, the agency said Tuesday [9-5-17], a wave of departures that soon could take the agency’s staffing to its lowest point in almost 30 years.
The departures come primarily from buyouts offered as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to fulfill a campaign promise of ‘tremendous cutting’ at the EPA. His budget proposal in March suggested a 31% funding cut that would result in approximately 3,200 fewer jobs at the agency.
The voluntary buyouts were offered in June to more than 1,200 workers. Almost a third of those eligible took the buyout and, coupled with a dozen retirements on Aug. 31, the agency trimmed its staff by about 2.5% in less than a week. Several dozen more workers could retire or opt to take the buyout later this month, which would cut EPA’s total number of employees to almost 14,400 workers, the lowest since 1988. Two years ago it had more than 15,500 employees nationwide…
Some of the agency’s critics among employee groups and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are skeptical of the agency’s ability to meet its regulatory responsibilities as it shrinks, while others question whether buyouts are an effective use of tax money.
Mr. Pruitt hasn’t laid out any plan for how to reshape the agency or its priorities, making it more difficult to improve its performance with fewer resources, said Jeff Ruch, executive director at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which represents government employees in environmental fields. It wasn’t immediately clear how the departures broke down among different departments within the EPA.”
-Timothy Puko, “Hundreds of EPA Workers Leave in Recent Days,” The Wall Street Journal online, Sept. 5, 2017 09:10pm