The Trump administration was able to move forward with its “Fork in the Road” scheme when a federal judge reportedly refused to further halt a federal government buyout program.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole had given federal workers more time to consider accepting the extraordinary offer, which guarantees them eight months’ worth of salary and benefits if they chose to leave the agency.
O’Toole ruled on Wednesday that the unions who had filed a lawsuit over the instruction lacked the legal standing to do so.
The ruling permits the Trump administration to end the window for accepting the agreement, which was initially scheduled to expire on February 6.
While O’Toole considered unions’ proposal to temporarily prevent the Office of Personnel Management from implementing the program completely, that deadline was postponed.
The White House reported that about 75,000 government employees accepted the buyout option after the program ended Wednesday night.
The number is below White House estimates that between 5 and 10 percent of federal employees would accept the offer, or less than 4 percent of the approximately 2 million federal employees, but still impressive by many metrics
In the past, the White House claimed that at least 40,000 federal employees, or about 2% of the 2 million federal employees, had accepted the offer.
Although O’Toole’s decision portends problems for the unions’ larger challenge to the buyout program, he did not go into great detail about their legal defenses of their lack of standing.
The major government employee union among those suing, the American Federation of Government (AFGE), expressed regret over the decision.
Since the government is only now funded through March, there are questions about whether the money required to support employee commitments will actually be available.
[READ MORE: Trump Federal Buyout Gets Court Approval]
