State approves early buyouts for 332 employees, part of the elimination of 502 state jobs

by Nicole Pilsbury, Maryland Matters
October 22, 2025

More than 500 state jobs were abolished Wednesday by the Board of Public Works through a combination of elimination of vacant positions and the departure of hundreds of workers who took an early buyout.

All told, the elimination of 502 positions is expected to save $27.4 million in fiscal 2026, said Marc Nicole, the deputy secretary of the Department of Budget and Management, who presented the cuts to the board. He said the eliminated jobs are expected to save $47.2 million in fiscal 2027 and in years going forward.

Nicole said 170 abolished jobs were vacant positions that were deemed unneeded and were eliminated, but the other 332 were state employees who took an early buyout under the Voluntary Separation Program unveiled this summer as part 0f the state’s budget-cutting efforts.

The buyout program was available to full-time state workers with at least two years of state service.  Not everyone who applied was accepted and some workers were not even allowed to apply, including police, correctional workers, court employees and close to 60 other state offices, according to the buyout offer.

The state received a total of 877 valid applications from state workers by the Aug. 4 deadline. State officials said at the outset of the process that they did not have a specific target in mind for the number of early buyouts, by the 332 approved for a buyout year was almost identical to the last round of early outs, in 2015, when 38% of those who applied were accepted.

Those whose separation applications were approved got $20,000, plus an additional $300 for each year of service and six months of their health benefits paid for by the state. They were also paid for any unused leave or compensatory time.

Workers had to agree not to work for the state again for at least 18 months, and their positions were eliminated once they left. The last day for those accepted for early separation was Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2025.

The eliminated jobs are just a fraction of the nearly 52,000 positions within the state personnel and state Transportation Department personnel systems that were reported this spring by the Department of Budget and Management. But Gov. Wes Moore (D) said the cuts are needed to help the state deal  with torrent of cuts being made to federal jobs and agencies by President Donald Trump (R) and his administration.

“Maryland has never been tested like this before,” Moore said. “We have policies that are coming from the White House that are doing everything from raising prices to pulling away basic supports and basic services — and all this is happening at a time when we continue to manage a historic budget crisis that the state of Maryland is navigating.”

“All the easy decisions are gone,” Moore added. “Everything that we are doing now, every choice that’s left — they’re difficult.”

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.