REDUCE Act

Reducing Expensive Departments & Unnecessary Civil Employees Act or the REDUCE Act This bill limits federal hiring and requires each federal agency to establish plans to eliminate or combine components of the agency. The bill does not apply to positions or agency components that are critical to national security, public safety, law enforcement, or immigration enforcement. Specifically, a federal agency may not appoint more than one employee for every four employees that retire, transfer, or separate from such agency. This limitation does not apply after the agency has reduced the number of its employees by 20%. The bill also requires each agency to determine which agency components should be eliminated or combined and develop a plan to bring this into effect through reorganization or reduction in force. Each agency must conduct a review of each position within the agency to identify positions that are redundant or unnecessary and report the results of this review to Congress.

Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS).