Clinton to seek buyout authority for all agencies

President Clinton will ask Congress for the authority to offer employee buyouts at all federal agencies, the Office of Personnel Management announced Thursday.

The request for governmentwide buyout authority will be part of Clinton's fiscal 2001 budget proposal, which is scheduled for release Feb. 7. A similar request was included in Clinton's 2000 budget proposal, but Congress did not act on it.

Buyouts were used extensively during two rounds of downsizing from 1994 to 1997. During that period, more than 148,000 federal workers took buyouts of up to $25,000 and left the civil service.

Since 1997, Congress has granted buyout authority for limited periods to individual agencies such as the Defense Department, the Internal Revenue Service and NASA.

Garry Ewing, staff director of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Civil Service, said buyout authority should only be granted to individual agencies for specific positions for limited times. In addition, buyouts should only be used after a careful analysis of which people an agency needs to keep and which it doesn't need, he said.

"Otherwise, you could find yourself buying out the people you really need," Ewing said. "Across-the-board governmentwide buyout authority is not the best way to do buyouts. It's not an efficient way to do buyouts."

OPM said the administration will also support individual agencies' efforts to obtain buyout authority "to help them in downsizing efforts."