Judge delays Trump's federal employee buyout deadline

• A federal judge delayed Trump's deferred resignation deadline.

• Federal workers originally had until February 6 to decide if they wanted to accept the offer.

• The court ruling said that the government cannot take further action until at least Monday.

A judge on Thursday extended President Donald Trump's federal employee buyout deadline to at least Monday.

Last month, the Trump administration gave federal workers until February 6 to accept its deferred resignation offer, which the administration said would allow workers to stop working but continue to receive full pay and benefits through September 30.

A group of labor unions filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to extend the deadline. A federal judge on Thursday pushed back the date for employees to accept the buyout to at least Monday afternoon, when a new hearing will be held.

A representative from Democracy Forward, which represented one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, confirmed the decision to Business Insider and said the Office of Personnel Management is required to notify federal employees there is no existing deadline for deferred resignations.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Over a dozen federal workers told BI that they still had unanswered questions about the logistics of the buyouts, including what retirement benefits would look like. One worker said they hoped the deadline would be extended so they didn't "have to make a major life decision in nine days."

The White House previously confirmed to BI that over 20,000 federal workers had accepted the buyout offer as of Tuesday. It's unclear how many more workers accepted the offer before Thursday's court decision.

Federal employees were still receiving reminders of the deferred resignation deadline on Thursday morning, according to an email reviewed by BI. The email said that the deadline would not be extended, and employees who wanted to accept the buyout offer should reply to the email from OPM with the word "resign."

"We are pleased the court temporarily paused this deadline while arguments are heard about the legality of the deferred resignation program," Everett Kelly, president of AFGE — one of the groups that filed the legal challenge — said in a statement. "We continue to believe this program violates the law, and we will continue to aggressively defend our members' rights."

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Read the original article on Business Insider