The Department of Veterans Affairs is exempting large swaths of its more than 470,000-employee workforce from the Office of Personnel Management’s “deferred resignation” offer.
The VA, in an email sent to employees Thursday evening, said it plans to exempt 116 Veterans Health Administration positions from the deferred resignation program (DRP).
These exemptions include frontline health care positions, as well as support positions such as police, firefighters, maintenance and food service personnel.
The Veterans Benefits Administration is exempting five positions — rehabilitation counselor, general legal and kindred administration, veterans claims examiners, appraisers and vocational rehabilitation specialists.
The National Cemetery Administration is also exempting 20 positions, most of which are involved in the management, care and maintenance of VA cemeteries.
A full list of VA’s exemption requests is available here.
It remains unclear how many federal employees governmentwide are exempt from OPM’s deferred resignation offer. But the VA, the largest civilian federal agency, is taking the offer off the table for hundreds of thousands of its employees.
A VA spokesperson told Federal News Network that the department “worked closely with the White House and the Office of Personnel Management to identify more than 130 occupations within the department that will not be eligible for the Deferred Resignation Program.”
“Exempting these occupations from the program will ensure VA continues providing mission-critical health care, benefits and memorial services to our nation’s Veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors,” the spokesperson said.
VA’s Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) shared these exemptions in an email sent Thursday.
“The Department of Veterans Affairs established a list of occupations that are excluded from participating in DRP and VERA. If your occupation is on this list, you are not eligible to participate in the DRP,” the email states.
OPM last week granted Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) to agencies as part of its deferred resignation offer.
VA’s email says employees eligible to accept OPM’s deferred resignation offer “must continue to work until your supervisor tells you that you are in a leave status.”
One VISN director stressed to VA employees that the exemption list for OPM’s deferred resignation offer is a separate list from the list of positions the department exempted from a governmentwide hiring freeze.
VHA last month exempted more than 300,000 health care positions from the governmentwide hiring freeze — about three-quarters of its total workforce.
In a sample contract obtained by Federal News Network, eligible VA employees who accept OPM’s deferred resignation or VERA offer agree to keep working through Feb. 28 and will be placed on paid administrative leave no later than March 1.
“Employee shall remain on paid administrative leave up through and including September 30, 2025, or such earlier date on which Employee may choose to resign or otherwise separate from federal service (deferred resignation period),” the contract template states.
The sample contract also states VA employees who accept the deal won’t be subject to furloughs, termination, reductions in force (RIFs) or layoffs as a result of an agency-initiated reorganization.
“[AGENCY] shall comply with all terms of this agreement even if Employee’s position is eliminated or reassigned prior to September 30, 2025,” the document states.
VA employees who accept OPM’s offer cannot rescind the agreement and waive all rights to challenge the resignation before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) “or any other forum.” Agency heads can also rescind the deferred resignation offers.
VA OCHCO told employees that starting Feb. 6, 2025, OPM will provide the department with data on the total number of VA employees who have taken the deferred resignation or VERA offer.
No later than February 10, 2025, VA OCHCO will start providing that information to each employee’s servicing HR office.
“The servicing HR office will confirm the employee is eligible to resign/retire (e.g., position is not excluded from eligibility, employee is in a full-time position, etc.),” VA’s email states.
If a VA employee no longer has access to their government email, the servicing HR office will contact the employee through personal contact information in their employee record.
“It is important for VA to maintain contact with the employee during the period they are on administrative leave either through government or personal contact information,” the email states.
A federal judge put OPM’s deferred resignation offer on hold in a ruling Thursday. Arguments on the program’s legal merits are scheduled for a separate hearing at 2 p.m. on Feb. 10.
Copyright
© 2025 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
