The State Department is reportedly prepared to extend buyouts of $25,000 to diplomats and other employees who want to retire early.

The New York Times on Saturday reported that the State Department will give the buyouts to the first 641 personnel who say they will depart by April.

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The proposed buyouts would be on a voluntary basis, the report notes, and come as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Rex Wayne TillersonGary Cohn: 'I haven't made up my mind' on vote for president in November Kushner says 'Alice in Wonderland' describes Trump presidency: Woodward book Conspicuous by their absence from the Republican Convention MORE seeks to slash department personnel by 8 percent.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers in September questioned the reported reorganization planned for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department, arguing, “Congress has a critical role to play in the ongoing reform process.”

Barbara Stephenson, the president of the American Foreign Service Association, slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce senior staff at the State Department, arguing doing so will hurt American diplomacy.

"The rapid loss of so many senior officers has a serious, immediate, and tangible effect on the capacity of the United States to shape world events," Stephenson wrote in a column.

Tillerson has also denied reports that morale at the State Department is low.

"I walk the halls, people smile," Tillerson said in an interview last month. "If it’s as bad as it seems to be described, I’m not seeing it, I’m not getting it.”