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By Madeline Bates and Sammy Travis
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON – A federal judge on Monday lifted the deadline for workers to accept President Donald Trump’s buyout offer until he rules on the legality, prolonging the uncertainty at federal agencies and for Arizona tourists, veterans, businesses and tribes.
At the Grand Canyon, visitors could see cuts in operating hours and services if staffing drops. Arizona veterans fear delays at clinics and for loans and disability claims.
At least 65,000 of the nation’s 2 million federal workers signed up for the “deferred resignation” offer by the original deadline last Thursday, according to the White House. The offer requires a commitment to resign now in exchange for getting paid through Sept. 30.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole delayed the deadline until Monday as he weighed a challenge by federal workers’ unions. On Monday afternoon, he set aside the deadline indefinitely pending his ruling on the legality of the offer.
Congress has not authorized funding for buyouts, and unions have warned workers against signing up.
“There’s a lot of concern on whether the conditions of the buyout will actually be delivered,” said Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers.
Arizona has 34,150 of the nation’s roughly 2 million civilian federal employees, according to the Congressional Research Service. That ranks 18th.
Among them are rangers at the Grand Canyon, which attracted over 4.7 million visitors in 2023, according to the National Park Service, and employs more than 400 people.
In Cochise County, where the VA has two clinics in Sierra Vista, Army veteran Prezy Matthews said he’s concerned about fellow veterans who rely on the agency.
“One of the reasons why I joined the military is because of the benefits,” he said. “I would be very disappointed” if services are reduced because of staffing cuts. “That’s what I worked for.”
Matthews and his wife, Guadalupe, own homes in Tucson and Sierra Vista purchased using VA loans. He has a request pending with the VA to see a specialist to treat his hypertension and worries that staff cuts will delay approval.
Married veterans can receive $4,000 a month for a disability stemming from military service.
Trump administration officials have offered assurances that veterans benefits won’t be impacted by job cuts or by a spending freeze announced separately. But moves aimed at slashing the workforce have rattled federal employees, and resignations could mount.
Matthews noted that loans and disability claims already take months to process, so reduced staffing at the department is sure to worsen delays.
More than 245,000 Arizonans are enrolled in the VA health care system, the department says. Census data shows the state has more than 450,000 veterans.
The potential staffing cuts don’t faze some Arizona veterans.
“I’m totally not worried about it. I don’t think that it’s going to have a negative impact on the federal government’s ability to operate all right,” said Charles Dine, a real estate agent who also chairs the veterans advisory board in Gilbert.
A friend of his who works for the VA has strongly weighed taking the buyout, Dine said, because the payout would make it easier to return to school.
“I’m not worried at all about the federal government,” Dine said. “It’s completely bloated. And with the overspend that they’ve identified already, I’m not worried at all about these people walking off because there’s no shortage of people to replace them should they need the manpower.”
Trump’s push to dramatically downsize the federal government is led by Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and the world’s wealthiest person.
The offer went to nearly all full-time federal employees on Jan. 28 in an email titled “Fork in the Road” – the same title Musk used in a blast email when he downsized at X, the social media giant formerly known as Twitter.
The initial deadline was last Thursday, giving workers just 10 days to weigh their options. At that point, 65,000 workers had accepted the offer, according to the White House.
At the urging of several labor unions representing more than 875,000 federal workers, U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Massachusetts delayed the deadline until midnight Monday.
A “professional civil service is essential to a strong democracy, and public service should be delivered by individuals dedicated to serving their communities, not those who have close connections to politicians,” the unions told the court.
The White House has said workers would have to stay on the job through Feb. 28 but after that would be free to travel, take other jobs or do anything else they want while collecting salary through Sept. 30.
Legal experts, unions, Democrats and many state attorneys general have advised against accepting the offer, calling it vague and lacking guarantees.
“This so-called buyout offer is yet another attack that will cripple the critical federal services Arizonans rely on,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, announced last week ahead of the initial deadline. “We urge you to follow your union’s guidance.”
No president has tried to exercise such authority before.
Because Congress has not authorized buyout funds, the National Association of Retired Federal Workers and others warned that people who take the buyout may not get paid as promised. NARFE also warned that widespread cuts will harm the public.
“We’re worried about the impact of too many people accepting the ‘deferred resignation’ offers on every aspect of government operations,” said John Hatton, NARFE vice president of policy and programs, in an email. “We cannot predict how many people will accept it and how that will disrupt the day-to-day business of government.”
Unions also warned that workers might have to work through Sept. 30 to collect paychecks, even though they’d be locked into giving up their jobs after that. Democrats pointed to Trump’s history of reneging on contracts and warned that anyone who resigns may get no more paychecks once they stop showing up.
The offer excluded military personnel, postal workers, immigration enforcement personnel and air traffic controllers, along with others deemed essential to national security.
Still, nearly all federal workers got the email, including Transportation Security Administration workers who were later told they weren’t eligible for the buyout. TSA has over 50,000 transportation security officers nationally.
Excluding them made sense, said Jovan Petkovic, spokesperson for the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1250, which represents TSA workers in Arizona and Nevada, because cutting workers who protect the nation’s airports and planes wouldn’t make any more sense than cutting the Border Patrol.
“It would be, from a logical standpoint, insane,” he said.
The National Indian Child Welfare Association is among the many groups bracing for drastic changes as Trump pushes out workers.
The group is concerned that federal job cuts would delay policy decisions, funding and technical assistance that support tribal child welfare programs, said Amory Zschach, NICWA communications director.
“Reducing federal engagement can reduce the visibility of native issues on a federal level,” she said.
Small businesses, which employ 1.1 million people in Arizona, could also be impacted.
The Small Business Administration reported issuing 1,335 loans statewide last year worth more than $700 million.
“We’ve had three SBA loans since we started the company. It’s really how we grew it,” said Jeff Herbert, co-founder of Superstition Meadery in Prescot, which sells mead – an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey— in 37 states and 13 countries.
In 2019, the SBA honored Herbert and wife Jennifer as Small Business Persons of the Year. He calls SBA instrumental in their growth.
Large indiscriminate cuts at SBA would be “counterproductive,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I’m worried yet, but I’m paying attention.”
For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.
