Agriculture Department Free to Fire Thousands of Staff in April

Thousands of fired Agriculture Department employees are expected to lose their jobs again after April 19 because an independent watchdog agency failed to maintain the temporary halt to their terminations.

The Office of the Special Counsel, which investigates abuses in the federal workforce, didn’t ask an independent panel to extend its pause on the firings by the required deadline, Merit Systems Protection Board Executive Director William Spencer told Bloomberg Law. The OSC needed to have sought the extension from the MSPB by April 3 to avoid a lapse in the panel’s order to reinstate thousands of USDA employees, according ...