CDC’s HR staff overwhelmed, causing real-life problems for former employees

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Meet Paul (not his real name). He’s much like many federal employees. Paul served in the military for more than five years and then joined the government as a civilian employee.

Paul gained critical experience in cybersecurity and eventually made his way to work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During his 20-plus years in government, Paul was dedicated to his agency’s mission, to his co-workers and to being a part of the broader community.

So when Paul chose to leave in February, it was, without a doubt, a tough decision.

But what made Paul even angrier than the untenable environment at his agency was how the agency treated him after he decided to leave. Political leaders at the CDC, like at many agencies, made personnel decisions without first understanding the downstream impacts.

It took Paul nearly five months to “officially” stop working for the CDC. The agency got rid of a majority of their human resources staff and didn’t empower the remaining employees, who were then overwhelmed by the number of people needing to be out-processed, with the information they needed to make decisions.

“The entirety of human resources got gutted. There is only about 50% to 60% of the entire CDC workforce left,” said Paul, who requested anonymity because telling his story would impact his current job in the private sector. “Over the course of the next five months after I left, there was radio silence. I was sending emails only to find out that people retired or took the deferred resignation program (DRP). It was like yelling into an abyss. I finally connected with another executive who happened to be in DC where the new HR director was working. She connected with him and that is what spurred activity and that got me out-processed.”

Post-federal employment problems

It turns out that someone in HR put Paul’s name in the “action portal,” but never hit the “submit” button. The request for Paul to be out-processed languished in the system for months, causing a host of concerns and potential problems.

“There are very real impacts to people like me who are stuck in limbo. First, my federal health benefits are still active, but with no pay, I’m not paying the premiums. That creates a very real risk that I could get a massive bill from the insurance company whenever things finally do get fixed. Also doctors are refusing not to bill my federal insurance as it still shows ‘active,’ creating real issues for me and the family around care,” Paul wrote to Federal News Network, which specializes in reporting on issues in the federal workforce, in April after nearly two months of trying to get out-processed. “Second, I have over 400 hours of annual leave that should have been paid out as a lump sum payment 6-to-8 weeks after I left federal service. Because I’m not out-processed, not only has that not happened, but the system still shows me accruing new leave, which is going to create more confusion.”

Additionally, Paul, who left for a private sector position, couldn’t technically start his new job because he perspective, there are real concerns about conflicts of interest.

Then there were payout issues, insurance confusion and other challenges that went on and on.

“One of things I had negotiated with my former boss was a couple of weeks of paid leave. Because you lose sick leave, my boss had agreed to keep me on payroll for two weeks to help bridge gaps of pay and benefits. When they out-processed me, they did so two weeks early with my resignation date in February instead of early March. Now I’m trying to get them to correct that. I need to reach out to get a copy of my time sheet to prove I was on approved paid leave. I had reached out to three people and hadn’t heard back [for months],” Paul said. “Blue Cross Blue Shield refused to turn off my insurance because I was still a federal employee. I’d go to the doctor and they would bill Blue Cross Blue Shield despite me telling them I’m no longer an employee. BCBS could go back and say they aren’t processing that claim and I will have to deal with that fall out. I was at risk of having thousands of dollars in out of pocket costs. I proactively reached out to BCBS and told them I’m not an active employee and they said agency needs to provide documentation and I couldn’t get ahold of anyone to do that.”

For the better part of six months, Paul was frustrated and at risk of significant financial and personal consequences.

Then the relief came in mid-June when the CDC finally officially out-processed him.

“This whole experience doesn’t sour me on the federal government, but what it really highlights how fundamentally disastrous the administration’s cuts were and done without no regard to the human cost of these unilateral actions,” he said. “They went through the government with a chainsaw, and really needed to go with a scalpel. The human suffering that came from these cuts was not thought about. It’s easy for me to compartmentalize and blame people who caused it at the root. And it makes me more angry at those who are truly responsible.”

CDC HR staff overwhelmed

While Paul’s story ends well, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other federal employees in similar predicaments at both CDC and across government.

Vi Le, a former CDC employee and a volunteer for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said Paul’s story is all too common.

“What has been happening is whenever we reach out to HR, we don’t get a response, or it takes a long time to get a non-response response. They don’t know the answer or they are maybe they are waiting on the Department of Health and Human Services to respond or provide guidance,” Le said. “People don’t know about their retirement packages or what to do if their administrative leave is extended, or if it was a forced retirement versus a voluntary retirement in case of people being a part of a reduction in force. People can’t get answers from HR. It’s been really difficult.”

Le said she talked to a former CDC employee who worked in HR, who said the office was overwhelmed with emails from former feds trying to get answers to simple questions, but having to send 10 or 20 separate requests.

Le added over the course of the summer the lack of HR employees, particularly experienced ones, is leading to more problems.

“There are people who were RIF’ed accidentally because of a mistake on their records. They had the wrong competitive area code. Their office unit wasn’t RIF’ed, but they were,” she said. “AFGE’s rough estimate is about 50 people at the CDC who are in this boat, but HR will not fix it. There’s been escalation in various ways, but they are just not fixing it. People are still RIF’ed even though their offices were not, so now many are stuck.”

Abigail Tighe, a former public health advisor with CDC who was fired as a probationary employee, said CDC’s responsiveness really went downhill in April and it has never recovered.

“It’s not just the HR folks, but the IT folks too. I still have equipment to return. They asked me to set up an appointment so I asked to do that and never heard back. When I contacted the IT folks, they were overwhelmed too,” said Tighe, who also is a member of AFGE and a founding member of Fired but Fighting, a coalition of RIF’ed and fired CDC employees.

As for CDC, the agency still isn’t talking.

Multiple emails Federal News Network sent to CDC over two months seeking answers to eight specific questions about how the agency is communicating with and managing former employees went unanswered.

Employees still are waiting for answers or solutions to problems. Most would agree if you want to reduce the size of your workforce, do it right, treat people humanely, plan for the changes and make it as seamless as possible. Seven months into this administration’s workforce reduction effort, the chaos has far from settled for many current and former federal employees.