Few FCC Staffers Expected to Take Offer to Leave Agency

Members of the Office of Workplace Diversity staff have been put on leave, including Director D’wana Terry, agency employees told us. An organizational chart for the office on the agency’s website is blank, though the staff page lists several staff members.

Current and former FCC employees described anxiety within the agency, with some weighing an offer from Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to leave now and get paid through September. The “Fork in the Road” email is similar to a deal Musk offered Twitter employees after he bought that company. In that case, Musk reduced staff some 80%. At least 65,000 federal workers have accepted the offer, about 3% of those who received it, the White House said last week.

Trump and DOGE have vowed much deeper cuts in the federal workforce and warned that those who don’t take an early exit could still lose their jobs. Trump has also sought to reclassify many workers as “Schedule Policy/Career” employees who could be easily replaced.

A lawyer and former FCC staffer spoke of “confusion and hesitation” among staff as they decided whether to take an early out. An industry official who had a meeting at the FCC last week described “a nervousness in the ranks” and “a lot of tension,” adding that some senior staff ready to retire will likely leave now.

Few federal workers are likely to take the buyout, and the courts are likely to preserve many of the protections the employees enjoy, predicted Andrew Schwartzman, senior counsel at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. As any human relations professional will tell you, “aside from people who are on the verge of retirement anyway,” those who take buyouts have “the best job prospects elsewhere, i.e., the best people,” he said. One broadcast lawyer told us he knows of several senior FCC staffers who have decided now is a good time to retire.

Even if “the Muskian notion that there are a lot of lazy federal workers sitting around doing nothing has some general support, it does not fit very well at the FCC, where … a lot of the staff work at least a full 40-hour week and often much more than that.”

Federal employees should continue rejecting "the administration’s threats and not voluntarily give up [their] careers in public service,” said the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) after a Massachusetts U.S. District Court judge paused the White House’s deferred resignation offers to federal workers Thursday, the day of the resignation deadline. The deadline was extended to Monday.

While the deferred resignation offer has been criticized for being insufficiently guaranteed or backed by federal law, the FCC has emailed staff that it will stand behind the offers, an agency employee told us. That carries more weight with agency staff than the initial offer did on its own, the employee said.

Tough Times

“It is a turbulent time with constantly shifting statements coming from the administration that could be confusing [and] federal employees who don't want to take an exit package,” said Cooley’s Robert McDowell, a former FCC commissioner. “One can hope that the most crucial public servants are getting the right message one-on-one.” McDowell is advising former FCC colleagues to wait and see what happens. “Everything could change in the next five minutes.”

“There will be a serious loss of expertise at the agency, one way or the other,” predicted former acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps. “It’s difficult to believe that government leaders in this high-tech age would rob essential agencies of the expertise we need to survive and prosper.” The process has been handled “with such sloppiness,” Copps said in an email: “Incompetence rules. Competitor nations must be laughing their heads off.”

The FCC may be somewhat insulated “because Trump believes the agency is in good hands to be an instrument of the Project 2025 agenda,” and it pays for a large share of its costs through regulatory fees, a public interest group lawyer said.

“There is nothing ‘efficient’ about cutting the services and programs that help this nation function and thrive,” said NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald in a column in Government Executive last week. “Either we fight for our federal workforce now -- to ensure the American people continue to get the quality services they depend on -- or we will suffer the consequences of a government ill-equipped to protect and deliver for the taxpaying citizens of our nation.”

In a statement submitted to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, American Federation of Government Employees President Everett Kelley said the White House’s targeting of federal workers will ultimately harm the American public. “What is happening today is not a drive to streamline government but to destroy it."

Telework Questions

The FCC hasn’t yet acted on another Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memo advising agency heads that provisions for telework in their contracts with employee unions can be disregarded, FCC employees told us. The Feb. 3 memo said, “Provisions of collective bargaining agreements that conflict with management rights are unlawful and cannot be enforced.” The FCC’s contract with NTEU allows most covered employees to telework up to eight days per 10-day pay period with supervisor approval. The agency has issued little new guidance on telework, an employee told us.

In a post on LinkedIn Wednesday, Brad Berry, senior adviser-digital equity and inclusion to former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, announced that "the Trump administration" placed him on administrative leave “for working to achieve a more inclusive society with a level playing field for all.” Berry said in the post that he was put on leave in part because of his title, adding that he asked Carr “if he preferred that I instead carry the title ‘Senior Advisor for Digital Inequity and Exclusion.’” Neither Berry nor the FCC immediately responded to a request for comment.

Multiple FCC employees told us there's a lot of uncertainty and concern among staff about what is allowed under the new administration. FCC Pride, an employee resource group for LGBTQ staff, suspended itself last month after a Jan. 29 memo from the OPM directing agencies to cancel employee resource groups supportive of transgender staff. “While we have not yet received any instruction from the Commission to disband, in anticipation of such an instruction, FCC Pride Leadership is suspending the activities of this group,” an email sent to members said. The FCC didn’t comment on whether staff are allowed to form such groups under the new administration.

However, OPM issued a memo Wednesday stating that “agency heads retain the discretion to allow employees to host affinity group lunches, engage in mentorship programs, and otherwise gather for social and cultural events” but that agencies should consider whether such activities are consistent with the recent executive orders and “the broader goal of creating a federal workplace focused on individual merit.”