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Nearly 1,000 state employees are waiting to learn if they will be allowed to quit their jobs under a voluntary separation that aims to shrink the size of state government and cut expenses.
Of the thousands who were notified of the early out program in July, a total of 980 employees had applied by the Aug. 4 deadline, state officials said.
Not all of them will be allowed to quit. The state is reviewing the applications and decisions will be based on “the mission and priorities of the agency and … an evaluation of whether the function of the position is required,” a spokesperson for Gov. Wes. Moore (D) said in an email. Workers also have to have worked at least two years for the state to take advantage of the program.
The Department of Budget and Management plans to notify employees in mid-September of whether their application for separation has been accepted or not. When they unveiled the program in late June, administration officials insisted that they did not have a specific target in mind for the number of workers they were hoping would leave, only that it was one part of a larger effort to cut $121 million in state personnel expenses.
“The VSP [voluntary separation program] is one of several actions the governor has implemented to achieve the $121 million reduction, including the hiring freeze already announced,” a DBM spokesperson said in an email when the program was announced.
While they could not predict how many might ultimately be accepted into the buyout program, the governor’s office said similar voluntary separation program in 2015 realized a 38% acceptance rate.
According to details on the DBM website, the buyout offer, first announced in late June, was available to full-time employees in the executive branch with at least two years of service. Those accepted will get $20,000, plus an additional $300 for each year of service. The state will cover six months of paid state health benefits after their separation, and departing workers will also be paid for any unused leave and compensatory time.
Workers who take the buyout have to agree not to work for the state again for at least another 18 months, and their positions will be eliminated once they leave.
There were nearly 52,000 positions within the state personnel and Maryland Department of Transportation personnel systems, about 4,800 of which were vacant as of May, the DBM spokesperson said at the time. About 13,500 are in job classifications that are not eligible for the buyout offer, including police and correctional officers, judicial and legislative employees, and close to 60 other offices, ranging from the Attorney Grievance Commission to the Canal Place Preservation and Development Authority.
Workers at the state’s colleges and universities are also ineligible, although the executive order creating the program allows several of the universities to set up their own buyout programs if they wish.
Of the 980 workers who applied for the porogram, 862 were employed as part of the State Personnel Management System and the remaining 118 were employed by the Maryland Department of Transportation, according to an administration spokesperson
DBM spokesperson Raquel Coombs said last month that a more specific breakdown of the departments the applicants came from was confidential.
Representatives for both the American Federation of Teachers-Maryland and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said their unions were waiting for more information on the breakdown of employees.
The governor’s office had originally proposed eliminating 150 vacant government positions, implementing a hiring freeze and offering some buyouts to meet the $121 million personnel cost reductions that were mandated as part of the fiscal 2026 budget approved by the General Assembly this spring.
But lawmakers and union representatives differed from the administration on what personnel cuts were required, and they specifically pushed back against the notion of layoffs.
AFSCME said several critical “24/7” agencies — hospitals, public safety and prisons, for example — are already understaffed and covering vacancies with overtime, and insisted that any further personnel reductions not cut into service.
“Any solutions to help our state navigate these tough and volatile times must not come at the cost of providing quality state services,” the union said in a statement when the buyouts were announced.
Besides trimming personnel, the union said the state should look at “eliminating costly contracts, in-sourcing services where needed, addressing other inefficiencies, and closing corporate tax loopholes to raise much-needed state revenues” to cut costs.
Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.
