In July, stakeholder outcry scuttled a Department of Homeland Security plan to slash the staff of its Office of Intelligence and Analysis. Now DHS is trying again—with buyouts and early-retirement offers.
The offers to apply to the deferred resignation program, or DRP, were modeled on the Office of Personnel Management’s “fork in the road” effort and sent twice to I&A staffers since July, according to a copy of one of those offer emails issued in September and a person familiar with the matter. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the plans. The email also included options to participate in a Voluntary Separation Incentive Program and Voluntary Early Retirement Authority.
The offers were extended after Nextgov/FCW reported in July that the intelligence agency was seeking to jettison most of its employees. Those plans, which would have kept only about 275 of 1,000 staffers, drew pushback from law-enforcement groups and Jewish organizations that have long relied on the DHS spy agency to disseminate timely intelligence about threats to state, local, tribal, and territorial communities. One organization privately warned Congress that the proposed cuts would create “dangerous intelligence gaps.”
The cuts were put on hold just days later, Nextgov/FCW first reported.
But I&A is still working to halve its workforce, albeit more slowly, according to the person. The office has already shed about 300 people through early retirement and an initial DRP offering, the person said. It now aims to shed another 200 through a second round of DRP, essentially halving the workforce since January, the person said.
I&A employees had until Sept. 14 to submit their information for the second deferred resignation, according to the email. Approved staff would remain on administrative leave for 12 weeks, giving them pay until early December, it adds. It is not clear how the current shutdown affects these agreements.
The programs “provide an opportunity to make decisions as part of the restructuring effort underway in DHS headquarters,” the email says. It was not immediately clear how many people inside the agency elected to take the DRP.
For years, intelligence insiders and outside experts have said I&A needed a reorganization to operate more effectively—and to install guardrails against the domestic overreach it has been widely accused of in the past. But the deep cuts proposed over the summer put the office at odds with the communities it serves.
The office is one of 18 in the U.S. intelligence community, and one of two under DHS, along with Coast Guard Intelligence. I&A was created shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks to help disseminate information about domestic threat.
U.S. spy agencies, including major offices like the NSA and CIA, have been marked for workforce reductions in President Donald Trump’s second term. Various intelligence offices are also affected amid the ongoing government shutdown. I&A has 544 employees who are still working during the lapse in federal funding, according to a DHS planning document.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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