The Department of Health and Human Services faces a months-long backlog of reasonable accommodation requests from its employees, as the department embarks on major changes to how it handles these requests.

HHS is preparing to roll out a new reasonable accommodation policy later this week. Several HHS components, however, recently set their own new policies, which more broadly cover telework and how often employees may work from home.

The new policy comes at a time when the Trump administration has called on the federal workforce to show up to the office full-time, and has rolled back options for some employees to work from home full-time or occasionally each two-week pay period.

Federal agencies are required under the Rehabilitation Act to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees with disabilities, as long as that accommodation does not result in an “undue hardship” for agencies.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told employees in a memo last week that its Accommodation Tracking System (ATS) was shutting down, and that, effective immediately, reasonable accommodations will be “centralized at the HHS level.”

According to the memo obtained by Federal News Network, HHS will need to work through a backlog of about 3,330 of CDC’s pending reasonable accommodation requests.

It’s not clear how long it will take HHS to review each individual reasonable accommodation request, but according to the CDC memo, HHS expects it will take six to eight months to get through the backlog.

It’s not clear if other HHS components are also facing a backlog of reasonable accommodation requests.

The CDC memo states that its Office of Human Resources announced telework “should not be given as an interim accommodation,” while a reasonable accommodation request is under review.

“If the employee requests telework, the employee must still report into the office until a decision is made (or use leave),” the CDC memo states.

HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard told Federal News Network in a statement Monday that “HHS is centralizing reasonable accommodation requests in alignment with President Trump’s executive order on return to work.”

“The department remains committed to processing these requests as quickly as possible,” Hilliard said.

The CDC memo also states HHS is expected to release an updated reasonable accommodation policy later this week.

Several CDC employees told Federal News Network that the agency has recently unveiled a new telework policy, in which employees are limited to 80 hours of telework per year, and that reasonable accommodations cannot include regular/scheduled or full-time telework.

A CDC spokesperson said in a statement that “this shift aligns with President Trump’s executive order on returning federal employees to in-person work, ensuring the government is best positioned to deliver results for the American people.

In September, the CDC said it would stop approving telework requests for employees with reasonable accommodations, but temporarily reversed course on that decision, according to internal agency emails obtained by Federal News Network.

A separate email obtained by Federal News Network told HHS employees with pending reasonable accommodations that “all existing reasonable accommodation programs have been consolidated to form the HHS Reasonable Accommodation (RA) Taskforce, servicing the entire HHS workforce.”

The email, sent by an HHS reasonable accommodations coordinator, instructs employees with pending reasonable accommodation requests to complete a questionnaire within seven calendar days, and to submit medical documentation within 20 calendar days.

The email states that failure to submit the required medical documentation by this deadline will result in a “closure of your request.”

The American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which represents CDC headquarters employees in Atlanta, told members in an email on Nov. 26 that the agency is once again taking steps to end full-time telework for employees with reasonable accommodations.

AFGE Local 2883 wrote that on the first day back to work after the 43-day government shutdown ended, CDC employees were told that supervisors no longer have authority to approve temporary 90-day agreements for full-time telework, and that their temporary accommodations that expired over the shutdown could not be renewed.

“Some were told their current, non-expired RAs were cancelled outright. Still others were told telework is no longer a reasonable accommodation available to CDC staff. Scores of employees with disabilities were instructed to return to the office or take leave,” the union wrote.

AFGE Local 2883 told members that CDC’s actions stand in “direct defiance” of the return-to-office mandate that President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office, as well as follow-up guidance from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management.

“This harmful policy change keeps us from doing our jobs for the American people in the best way possible. It works against the safety and well-being of all of our colleagues, including many of whom were forced to return to a campus still marred by unrepaired bullet holes from the August shooting. And it violates our rights as federal workers. It’s against the law to mass-deny any type of reasonable accommodation for everyone in the agency,” the union wrote.

In August, a gunman fired more than 180 shots into the CDC’s headquarters, killing a police officer who responded to the scene.

According to the union, however, HHS reasonable accommodation coordinators have said “telework is still a reasonable accommodation at CDC,” and that existing temporary reasonable accommodations granted on or before Sept. 15 will continue and can be extended or modified as appropriate.

“CDC’s misrepresentation of HHS’s policy on reasonable accommodations terrorized both the supervisors who implemented it and the employees who suffered as a result,” the union wrote. “This is a confusing and stressful time for many of us, especially as there has been no clear guidance across offices for what comes next. We cannot let this chaos and uncertainty stand, and we will demand clear leadership and full transparency.”

Despite these restrictions on telework as reasonable accommodations, some parts of HHS are, more broadly, easing up on work-from-home restrictions.

At the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Administrator Mehmet Oz told staff in a Nov. 14 email that CMS employees will be able to take up to four telework days per month, “in recognition of the hard work that you all have put in this year.”

According to the email, employees who scored a 4.5 or higher on their most recent performance rating will be eligible to take two days of telework per two-week pay period. Employees who scored between 4.49 and 3.0 will be eligible to day a single telework day per pay period.

The new policy went into effect on Nov. 17. Oz told employees that these telework days would not count against the 80 hours of telework that all HHS employees can take each year. CMS did not respond to a request for comment.

Oz told CMS staff that any telework in excess of that 80-hour limit would require an office-level or center-level signoff, including by the political leadership for that component.

“Those requests must include a detailed writeup justifying the exception and need to then be sent forward to be approved by the COO for CMS,” Oz wrote. “All requests beyond the 80 hours will be sent to HHS for tracking and awareness.”

According to the email, new employees won’t be eligible for telework until they are at least six months into the job.

“Once they have completed their probationary period and received their first-year performance review then their telework status can reflect that performance rating,” Oz wrote.

The post HHS faces months-long backlog of reasonable accommodation requests from employees first appeared on Federal News Network.

A deal to end the longest government shutdown, expected to pass the House later today and head to President Donald Trump’s desk, rescinds layoff notices sent to thousands of federal employees in October.

The spending plan doesn’t bring back jobs for former federal employees who received reduction-in-force (RIF) notices earlier this year and who have officially separated from the government. But it does mean their severance payments, which have been on hold since the start of the shutdown, will resume.

Former federal employees say the nearly month-and-a-half freeze on severance payments has been a less visible part of the shutdown’s financial impact, and added to the emotional toll felt by those who lost their jobs under the Trump administration.

The severance payment freeze has had a major impact on former employees at the Department of Health and Human Services.

HHS sent RIF notices to 10,000 employees in April, and another 10,000 HHS employees left the department through voluntary separation incentives. Last month, HHS sought to lay off nearly 950 additional employees, but those RIF notices are expected to be rescinded.

Thomas Nagy, Jr, HHS chief human capital officer and deputy assistant secretary for human resources, told former employees in an email obtained by Federal News Network that, “due to the current lapse in appropriations, you will not be receiving any further severance payments until funding is restored.”

Nagy told laid-off workers that they may see a “temporary debt” on their leave and earnings statement, because severance payments have been stopped, retroactive to the beginning of the lapse in appropriations.

He added that the department’s payroll provider, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, “will initiate no collections actions, and that no funds will be withdrawn from your bank account,” and that HHS will resume payments “as soon as it is legally and operationally possible to do so.”

‘There is nobody we can ask’ 

A laid-off HHS employee’s latest leave and earnings statement, shared with Federal News Network, does not include her severance payment. Instead, it shows that she owes the agency nearly $4,000.

The employee, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation, said no funds had been withdrawn from her account, but said the notice raised more questions than it answered.

“I have no idea if this means this is actually going to be collected from me at some point, or if this is just an error,” she said.

Aside from boilerplate emails, the former HHS employee said she received no further communication from the department. She said she’s not sure who else to contact at HHS, because her entire supervisory chain also received RIF notices, or were reassigned to different agencies within HHS.

“I don’t actually know anybody who I can ask anymore,” the former employee said, “There is nobody we can ask. That’s really upsetting.”

Federal News Network has heard from several other former HHS employees who saw negative amounts on their latest leave and earnings statements. None received any notice asking them to repay any amount.

HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard told Federal News Network in a statement that “severance payments may only continue for employees in organizations exempt from furlough based on their funding source.”

To comply with the Anti-Deficiency Act, agencies have suspended severance payments for the duration of the shutdown. It’s not immediately clear how soon those severance payments will resume, once the shutdown ends.

The Office of Personnel Management, in updated guidance sent ahead of the shutdown, told agencies that “no funds may be authorized for severance payments for days during the lapse until an appropriation is enacted.”

A Nov. 5 memo from the HHS Office of Human Capital Management, sent to Food and Drug Administration managers and supervisors, states that HHS “has suspended all severance payments to former employees due to the current lapse in appropriations.”

The memo, obtained by Federal News Network, states that the suspension of severance payments started for the pay period ending Nov. 1, and “affects all HHS organizations.”

“Due to funding constraints across multiple HHS organizations, HHS Office of Human Resources directed a department-wide suspension of all severance payments through the end of the appropriations lapse,” the memo states. “Former employees will receive retroactive severance payments once the appropriations lapse ends.”

The memo directed human resources staff at other HHS components to notify all former employees about the hold on severance payments by Nov. 7.

More than 1.4 million federal employees missed two full paychecks, and received a partial paycheck during the 43-day government shutdown. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the shutdown will cost the federal government at least $7 billion, and up to $14 billion.

Shutdown RIFs will be rescinded

More than 4,000 federal employees across the government received RIF notices in mid-October, following guidance from the White House that encouraged agencies to move forward with layoffs in the event of a funding lapse. But those RIF notices will be reversed, as part of the deal to end the government shutdown.

The bill states that between the date of enactment and Jan. 30, no federal funds may be used “to initiate, carry out, implement, or otherwise notice a reduction in force to reduce the number of employees within any department, agency, or office of the federal government.”

The Senate passed the shutdown-ending spending plan on Monday, and the House is expected to pass the bill on Wednesday. The bill includes a continuing resolution that will keep many agencies funded at current spending levels until Jan. 30, 2026.

Most, but not all, of those RIF actions have been on hold because of a preliminary injunction granted by a district court judge last month. Federal unions sued the Trump administration over the layoffs, alleging that they violated the Administrative Procedure Act. Unlike most lawsuits, the Trump administration did not appeal the district court’s ruling.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday that the administration “is very hopeful that this shutdown is going to come to an end.”

“President Trump looks forward to finally ending this devastating Democrat shutdown with his signature, and we hope that signing will take place later tonight,” Leavitt said.

Even with the rollback of the shutdown layoffs, Leavitt said the Trump administration has still taken major steps to “reduce the size of our federal bureaucracy.”

The Partnership for Public Service estimates that more than 211,000 employees have left the federal workforce this year, either through layoffs or voluntary incentives

“We’ve done a lot of great work on that front, and we will continue to. But obviously, the President’s main priority was to reopen the federal government and get people back to work, and that’s what this deal accomplishes,” Leavitt said.

The post Shutdown-ending deal stops severance freeze for laid-off federal employees first appeared on Federal News Network.