NCUA Seeks Volunteers for Extra Work After Trump Buyout Offers

The National Credit Union Administration is facing a staffing shortage and looking for employees to perform more than one job function to meet the agency’s mandate, according to an email obtained by Bloomberg Law.

The federal credit union regulator has already lost more than 100 of its approximately 1,200-member staff, NCUA Executive Director Larry Fazio said in a Friday email to agency employees.

With many more departures expected in the coming weeks and months, Fazio said the agency is “prioritizing actions that ensure we are able to continue successfully performing our core mission.”

To do that, the NCUA will “share resources across the agency to ensure the most important work is accomplished effectively,” Fazio said.

“So if you have a skill set that would be valuable to another office during this time of change, please let your supervisor and office leadership know,” the email said.

The NCUA declined to comment.

The Trump administration is seeking broad cuts across federal banking regulatory agencies.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is planning for the departure of around 1,200 of its 6,200-member workforce that started the year, and Trump officials attempted to fire around 1,500 of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s approximately 1,700 employees. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is also gearing up for steep job losses.

Buyout Offers

Nearly 300 people at the NCUA applied for voluntary buyout offers, Fazio said in the email.

The agency had been seeking 217 voluntary separations, or roughly 18% of its workforce, according to documents previously obtained by Bloomberg Law.

As part of its effort to cull the workforce, the NCUA offered a deferred resignation program, as well as a voluntary separation incentive payment for workers of retirement age.

The NCUA’s deferred resignation program allows workers to be paid through December while remaining on administrative leave, making it more generous than offers the Trump administration extended to most other federal employees running through September. NCUA employees who stay through Dec. 31 are eligible for a lump-sum payment of up to $42,500, according to the internal agency documents.

The agency’s VSIP offer is available only to employees eligible for retirement, allowing them to receive a $50,000 lump-sum payment if they retire by Dec. 31.

Not all NCUA employees who apply for a buyout will receive one.

The NCUA can choose to deny applications from workers deemed “mission critical,” according to the agency’s documents. Employees whose voluntary resignation requests are denied can be paid at a time-and-a-half rate while they continue to work at the NCUA.

The NCUA was thrown into turmoil when President Donald Trump fired two Democratic board members, Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka, last month. The two former board members sued to block their terminations.

The NCUA has a board meeting scheduled for May 22 where one of two agenda items is an update on the voluntary separation program. It’s unclear how much the NCUA’s board can do with only Chairman Kyle Hauptman seated.