Latest news with #WilliamAlsup
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Probationary IRS workers will be back to work before Tax Day: Trial Balance
This story was originally published on To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily newsletter. The Trial Balance is weekly preview of stories, stats and events to help you prepare. About 7,000 probationary IRS workers who were terminated in February are now reinstated and set to return to work on April 14, according to an email sent to employees last week. The workers were let go as part of the Trump administration's effort to reduce the federal workforce. Though probationary employees have fewer protections than permanent ones, two federal judges ruled in March that the terminations were unlawful. As a result, the IRS reinstated the affected employees but placed them on administrative leave, keeping them on the payroll without assigning duties. Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California criticized the move, arguing it fell short of the injunction's goal to resume normal services at the IRS. In response, the agency said the employees will be fully reinstated by April 14, just a day before the April 15 tax filing deadline. The decision stems from a bench order issued by Alsup in American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO et al. v. United States Office of Personnel Management. 'The court has read news reports that, in at least one agency, probationary employees are being rehired but then placed on administrative leave en masse,' the order said. 'This is not allowed by the preliminary injunction, for it would not restore the services the preliminary injunction intends to restore.' Employees of the IRS who fall into this category have spoken publicly, citing confusion and outdated systems as reasons the agency requires a large labor force. Speaking on The Accounting Podcast last month, IRS revenue agent Jeff Johnston — one of the 7,000 probationary employees laid off and now reinstated — said the hardest part of the job wasn't the work itself but completing it within the IRS's archaic systems. 'It is a really hard job to learn only because the systems you have to use within the IRS are just [antiquated],' Johnston said. 'It would be like going back to an IBM XT. One of the main systems that [the IRS uses] to get taxpayer information [still] has a green screen.' He added the initial hiring, which was brought on by funds that were promised in the Inflation Reduction Act, involved onboarding and training some heavily credentialed people. He said those in his onboarding process had 'CFO level experience' along with master's degrees in accounting and taxation. 'They had all of these experienced people, they trained them for six months to a year, and then just threw it away,' Johntson said. 'Nobody has done the cost on that. Can you imagine the cost to recruit and train those people?' Here's a list of important market events slated for the week ahead. Monday, April 7 Consumer credit, Feb. Tuesday, April 8 NFIB optimism index, March Wednesday, April 9 Wholesale inventories, Feb. Minutes of Fed's March FOMC meeting Thursday, April 10 Initial jobless claims, week of April 5 Consumer price index, March Core CPI, March Friday, April 11 Producer price index, March Core PPI, March Consumer sentiment (preliminary), April This week, will publish a Q&A with Workday CFO Zane Rowe. Rowe has served as a CFO in large multinational corporations for nearly 20 years. He talks about what elements of the CFO role have changed and stayed the same, how he has created a flexible finance function that embraces change, how to implement change in legacy organizations and more. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court OKs Trump's mass firing of new federal workers, blocking S.F. judge's rehire order
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected challenges to the Trump administration's mass firing of new federal workers. By a 7-2 vote, the justices set aside a ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco, who ordered the administration to "immediately" rehire 16,000 probationary employees across six departments of the government. In a brief order, the high court said the judge improperly based his ruling on complaints from nine nonprofit groups who said they would be affected by the cutbacks in staffing. "But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations' standing," the court said. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have denied the administration's appeal. The decision is the third in the past week to overturn a judge's ruling at the behest of the Trump administration. Trump's lawyers argued that judges do not have the authority to second-guess the management of federal agencies. Read more: Supreme Court upholds Trump's war power to deport Venezuelan gang members "This Court should not allow a single district court to ... seize control over reviewing federal personnel decisions," then-acting Solicitor Gen. Sarah Harris said in her appeal. The mass layoffs ordered by the Trump administration have mostly gone unchallenged in the courts because of the civil service laws. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 gave federal employees the right to file complaints with administrative agencies inside the government. But the Supreme Court said that meant they may not sue directly before an independent federal judge. As a result, several lawsuits brought by employees unions were dismissed in February. But on March 13, Alsup ordered the government to "immediately" rehire 16,000 probation employees who were dismissed in February. He relied on a different theory. He said a group of nonprofits that represent veterans, farmers, outdoor advocates and others had standing to sue because the staff cutbacks would hurt them. And he said Trump's Office of Personnel Management violated the law by ordering the mass firing of probationary employees. His order told the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and the Treasury they must reinstate their fired employees. When the 9th Circuit Court refused to lift that order, Trump's lawyers filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court. Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Supreme Court OKs Trump's mass firing of new federal workers, blocking S.F. judge's rehire order
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected challenges to the Trump administration's mass firing of new federal workers. By a 7-2 vote, the justices set aside a ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco, who ordered the administration to 'immediately' rehire 16,000 probationary employees across six departments of the government. In a brief order, the high court said the judge improperly based his ruling on complaints from nine nonprofit groups who said they would be affected by the cutbacks in staffing. 'But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations' standing,' the court said. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have denied the administration's appeal. The decision is the third in the past week to overturn a judge's ruling at the behest of the Trump administration. Trump's lawyers argued that judges do not have the authority to second-guess the management of federal agencies. 'This Court should not allow a single district court to ... seize control over reviewing federal personnel decisions,' then-acting Solicitor Gen. Sarah Harris said in her appeal. The mass layoffs ordered by the Trump administration have mostly gone unchallenged in the courts because of the civil service laws. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 gave federal employees the right to file complaints with administrative agencies inside the government. But the Supreme Court said that meant they may not sue directly before an independent federal judge. As a result, several lawsuits brought by employees unions were dismissed in February. But on March 13, Alsup ordered the government to 'immediately' rehire 16,000 probation employees who were dismissed in February. He relied on a different theory. He said a group of nonprofits that represent veterans, farmers, outdoor advocates and others had standing to sue because the staff cutbacks would hurt them. And he said Trump's Office of Personnel Management violated the law by ordering the mass firing of probationary employees. His order told the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior and the Treasury they must reinstate their fired employees. When the 9th Circuit Court refused to lift that order, Trump's lawyers filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump lawyers urge Supreme Court to block San Francisco judge's order to rehire workers
President Trump's lawyers urged the Supreme Court on Monday to block a judge's order requiring the government to "immediately" rehire 16,000 federal employees. In an emergency appeal, they argued that U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco had no legal authority to second-guess the administration's personnel decisions. The appeal is the first asking the high court to weigh in on the administration's aggressive plan to shrink the federal workforce. Read more: Trump wants to rein in federal judges. One California Republican is already working on it Acting Solicitor Gen. Sarah Harris said the judge's "extraordinary reinstatement order violates the separation of powers, arrogating to a single district court the Executive Branch's powers of personnel management on the flimsiest of grounds and the hastiest of timelines. That is no way to run a government." She said the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had yet to rule on the administration's appeal of the judge's order, and asked the high court to put the judge's order on hold, at least temporarily. While federal employees have legal rights as civil servants, those rights have proved to be largely ineffective in fighting the large-scale layoffs. Unions representing tens of thousands of federal employees sued in late January, but their suits were tossed out on the grounds that the civil service law requires employees to lodge their complaints with an administrative agency inside the government. The Supreme Court has said this is the exclusive route for such claims. Read more: Fired federal workers can fight their dismissals, but there's a catch As a fallback option, Alsup, an appointee of President Clinton, cited claims from people who rely on the National Park Service or on the Veteran Affairs, Defense, Energy, Agriculture, Interior and Treasury departments. Speaking in his courtroom, he ordered those agencies to "offer reinstatement to any and all probationary employees terminated on or about February 13th and 14th 2025." Harris did not describe what the administration has done to comply with the order. She said the Supreme Court "should not allow a single district court to ... seize control over reviewing federal personnel decisions." The justices are likely to ask for a response from the lawyers who filed suit in San Francisco. Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Associated Press
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to halt judge's order to rehire probationary federal workers
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to halt a ruling ordering the rehiring of thousands of federal workers let go in mass firings across several agencies. In an emergency appeal filed Monday, the Republican administration argued the ruling should be put on hold because the judge didn't have the authority to order some 16,000 probationary employees be hired back. The order came from U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco, who found the firings didn't follow federal law and required immediate offers of reinstatement be sent. The agencies include the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury.
