A federal judge declined to further pause a federal government buyout program, enabling the government to forge ahead with its Fork in the Road program.
U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole had extended the time frame for federal employees to decide whether to take the unusual offer, which gives employees eight months of pay and benefits if they wish to depart government.
In a Wednesday ruling, O’Toole found that the unions who had sued over the directive did not have standing to do so.
“The unions do not have the required direct stake in the Fork Directive, but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees. This is not sufficient,” O’Toole wrote.
The decision allows the Trump administration to close a window to accept the deal that the government originally planned to end on Feb. 6. That deadline was extended while O’Toole weighed a bid by unions to temporarily block the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from carrying out the program entirely.
The White House has previously said at least 40,000 federal employees had taken the deal, roughly 2 percent of the 2 million federal workers.
