The Government Printing Office will ask Congress for the authority to offer employees buyouts in an effort to cut personnel by 15%.
The move is a preemptive strike against projected reductions in agency appropriations as a result of overarching government cutbacks. If approved, the GPO will offer employees $25,000 to voluntarily leave the agency.
“GPO has restructured and reinvented itself numerous times throughout the last 150 years to carry out the critical mission of meeting the dissemination and information needs of the U.S. Congress and Federal agencies,” said Public Printer Bill Boarman.
“These challenging economic times have no boundaries and are forcing many Federal agencies to seek ways to survive. GPO is open for business. We are an agency with a dedicated workforce that will continue to reengineer itself in the 21st century to serve as the digital information platform for the Federal Government.”
The goal is to cut roughly 330 positions from the agency’s 2,200-person workforce, including 25% of management and supervisory levels.
GPO will use current funds for the program that needs to be concluded by the end of the first quarter of FY12 to achieve the needed savings for the coming year. The hope, GPO management says, is that the reductions can be achieved without altering the agency’s mission critical operations.
GPO is responsible for the production and distribution of information products and services for all three branches of the Federal Government, including U.S. passports for the Department of State as well as the official publications – in both electronic and print formats – of Congress, the White House and other Federal agencies.
In addition to publication sales, GPO provides for permanent public access to Federal Government information at no charge through GPO’s Federal Digital System and through partnerships with approximately 1,220 libraries nationwide participating in the Federal Depository Library Program.
