Judge Puts Temporary Hold on CFPB Plan to Lay Off Most Employees

A federal judge reportedly blocked the Trump Administration’s plan to lay off 90% of the staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Friday (April 18) while she determines whether this plan violates her previous order.

In her previous order, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said the CFPB could not conduct a reduction-in-force (RIF) until it conducted a “particularized assessment” showing that employees who are laid off are not necessary for the agency to fulfill its statutory duties, The Hill reported Friday.

In her Friday ruling, the judge also put a hold on the CFPB’s plan to cut off employees’ computer access, according to the report.

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) and other groups contended in a filing that the mass layoffs that were widely reported Thursday (April 17) violated the judge’s earlier order, the report said.

The Trump Administration countered that it followed the judge’s instructions and went through the CFPB’s business units line by line to determine how many employees it needs to fulfill its statutory duties, per the report.

A follow-up hearing is scheduled for April 28, according to the report.

It was reported Thursday that the CFPB was in the process of laying off 1,500 employees, which would reduce the agency’s staff to 200, and that the affected employees would lose access to the agency’s email systems and IT systems Friday night.

According to a Politico report, CFPB Director Russ Vought wrote in a notice to the affected employees that the cuts are “necessary to restructure the Bureau’s operations to better reflect the agency’s priorities and mission.”

NTEU President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement issued Thursday that the union believed the CFPB had not made the “particularized assessment” required by the court order.

“For the CFPB to issue RIF notices — in which we are already identifying mistakes — to a large group of employees less than four days from the D.C. Circuit order’s issuance indicates that CFPB has likely not made the required particularized assessments,” Greenwald said in the statement.

It was reported Wednesday (April 16) that the CFPB is scaling back enforcement of financial services companies and instead will focus on threats to members of the military and their families.