The administration of US President Donald Trump spent an estimated $9.5bn last year on salaries for federal workers placed on paid administrative leave, despite the programme being part of an effort to reduce the size of government and cut costs, a congressional watchdog has reported.
The Government Accountability Office said the spending represented a sixfold increase in the cost of paid administrative leave compared with 2023.
According to the report, federal agencies increased their use of paid administrative leave by 435% last year, largely because of the controversial deferred resignation programme promoted by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which was spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk.
The Trump administration had presented the initiative as a way to reduce government spending by encouraging federal employees to leave their jobs.
Under the programme, introduced primarily during the early months of Trump’s second term, eligible employees could agree to resign while remaining on the government payroll for several months without working.
Some federal agencies introduced more than one round of the scheme. Participation increased as the administration’s plans to restructure the federal workforce became clearer and more employees became concerned about potential job losses.
The GAO estimated that about $6.7bn of the $9.5bn in paid administrative leave costs was linked to the deferred resignation programme. More than 144,000 federal employees were estimated to have been placed on leave under the initiative.
However, the US Office of Personnel Management said the GAO’s estimate did not accurately reflect the financial impact of the programme.
The watchdog also noted limitations in the data provided by federal agencies, warning that its estimate could be higher than the actual cost. It added that OPM may not be able to determine whether the administration’s long-term savings targets are being achieved because of weaknesses in the available data.
OPM criticised the report, arguing that the cost should be considered against the projected savings from reducing the federal workforce.
The agency said the report “fails to highlight 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,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement to CNN.
OPM data showed that just under 140,000 workers participated in the deferred resignation programme, which was launched shortly after Trump returned to office in January 2025.
The offer was introduced through an email carrying the subject line “Fork in the Road”. Federal employee unions advised workers against accepting the offer at the time, questioning whether the government would fulfil its commitment to continue paying participants through September. Legal efforts to stop the programme were unsuccessful.
OPM defended the initiative in August 2025 after Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal released a report criticising the programme as a waste of taxpayer funds.
“We designed the DRP as a practical, humane, and voluntary option to accelerate workforce transitions in a system that desperately needed movement,” Kupor said at the time.
“Employees were given the option to retire early and receive eight months of paid leave; in return, the government will save $20+ billion in costs, annually.”
The new GAO findings have also drawn criticism from Democratic Senator Patty Murray, vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Murray accused the Trump administration of spending billions to place experienced federal workers on paid leave rather than having them continue performing their duties.
“After promising to cut waste, Trump instead set billions upon billions in taxpayer dollars on fire to quite literally pay people not to do jobs they loved—from researching cancer cures to taking care of our National Parks, and so much else,” she said.
She added, “This was the most expensive way imaginable to make government worse.”
