GAO says federal leave costs surged under Trump downsizing

The Trump administration spent an estimated $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave for federal workers in 2025 as it moved to shrink the government, with much of the cost tied to a buyout-style resignation program launched early in President Donald Trump’s second term, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Tuesday.

The watchdog found that agencies’ use of paid administrative leave rose 435% from 2023 to 2025, while salary costs for that leave increased sixfold. The surge coincided with the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, which carried out mass firings and helped dissolve the U.S. Agency for International Development.

About $6.7 billion of the estimated 2025 leave cost came from the “deferred resignation program,” according to the GAO. The program, overseen by the Office of Personnel Management and offered in January 2025, allowed federal employees who agreed to resign or stop working to continue receiving pay through Sept. 30, 2025.

Federal workers were notified of the offer in a “Fork in the Road” email sent just days into Trump’s second term. Musk had previously used the same subject line in an email to employees at X, where he reshaped the company’s workforce.

At the time the federal program was announced, then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said workers who “don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again, then they are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump Administration will provide a very generous payout of 8 months.”

The administration had projected that 200,000 federal employees would accept the offer. The GAO estimated that 144,312 employees accepted, based on administrative leave data, while the Office of Personnel Management has said nearly 140,000 employees opted into the program. Paid administrative leave peaked in July 2025, when 2.5 million of the 3 million leave workdays reported that month were tied to the deferred resignation program, the GAO said.

The report stressed that its figures were estimates because OPM could not identify the exact cost of leave used specifically for workforce reductions. The GAO said the agency reports that leave together with other types of general paid administrative leave.

“OPM does not know the actual costs of the paid administrative leave used for workforce reduction efforts, including the deferred resignation program,” the report said. “To calculate long-term savings, OPM needs to know short-term costs of paid administrative leave used for these efforts.”

The GAO also said it could not determine whether the long-term savings goals of the leave program were met. “Without a mechanism to track paid administrative leave for workforce reduction efforts, federal leaders may not have the data needed to understand whether government-wide cost saving goals are being met,” the report stated.

Scott Kupor, the OPM director, defended the program in a statement, saying the report failed to emphasize the difference between “a one-time expense ($9.5 billion) to reduce the size of the federal government by 270,000 employees and the $40 billion per year savings in taxpayer dollars that this reduction provides.”

“That 400% return on investment is a massive benefit to the taxpayer,” Kupor said.

The GAO recommended that OPM improve the transparency of paid administrative leave data and create a separate category for leave used to support workforce reduction efforts. The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

OPM data show that 271,000 employees have left the federal government since Trump began his second term in January 2025, including voluntary and involuntary departures. NBC News reported that OPM data indicate the federal workforce had grown every year from 2015, the earliest year provided, through 2025, when Trump returned to office.

CBS News reported that DOGE previously claimed on its “Wall of Receipts” webpage that it had cut $110 billion in federal funding through reductions to contracts, leases and grants. A separate GAO report released last month said that figure was inflated and that DOGE lacked transparency on its calculations, with insufficient information to verify the method used for 96% of its reported savings.