The Transportation Security Administration is offering voluntary early retirements to its eligible employees this calendar year.

The Office of Personnel Management recently approved the agency’s request, granting TSA the ability to issue VERAs through Nov. 30, 2014.

“TSA has been restructuring our program offices to promote an agile organization poised to support our mission to protect the nation’s transportation systems though sound position management,” a TSA spokesperson told Federal News Radio.

She said using VERAs will allow TSA to work toward its goal of becoming a more “efficiently structured and optimally run organization.”


To qualify for VERAs, TSA employees must have either completed 25 years of service at any age or 20 years of service and be at least 50 years old. Some mission-critical employees, such as air marshals and intelligence specialists, are not eligible for VERAs.

Employees who accept the offer must separate from the agency no later than Dec. 31, 2014.

The agency previously offered VERAs in 2012.

TSA is just one of several agencies planning to offer early retirements or buyouts, in an effort to reduce staffing levels and costs.

The Social Security Administration announced in January that it was offering VERAs to its employees, under the same age and length of service requirements as TSA.

The Environmental Protection Agency offered early retirement at 19 of its regional program offices earlier this year.

Employees who accepted VERAs at the U.S. Geological Survey have until the end of September to be off the payroll.

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