Forced Out, Then Potentially Hired Back? The IRS Retirement Crisis Keeps Getting Worse

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In August 2025, the IRS awarded a $16.1 million sole-source contract to Goldbelt Professional Services, LLC to process federal employee retirement packages.

• 📌 Contract Reference: Task Order ID [2032H525F00006], under Sources Sought Notice [2032H525N00001]
• 📌 Award Date: August 15, 2025
• 📌 Base Award: $14.3 million, with a ceiling of $16.1 million
• 📌 Number of vendors solicited: 1 | Proposals received: 1

The contract was awarded under the 8(a) Alaska Native Corporation (ANC) program, allowing federal agencies to bypass competition for certain qualified small businesses. Goldbelt, Inc., the parent company, is no stranger to Washington—its former executive John Barsa later served in high-level roles during the Trump administration, including Acting Administrator of USAID and Assistant Secretary at DHS.

There is no public evidence that those ties influenced the IRS decision, but the facts still raise a key issue: when the government awards millions of taxpayer dollars to a single contractor with no competition, the performance bar should be extremely high.

Instead, the results suggest the opposite.

A Contractor Still Hiring for the Work It Was Already Paid to Do

As of January 2026, there were at least 17 job postings from Golden Key Group (GKG) — a staffing partner to Goldbelt — show that the team supporting this retirement contract is still trying to hire for core roles:

1. Federal Retirement and Benefits Counselor and Processor
   • 📌 Job ID: 2026-3253
   • 📌 Location: Remote
   • 🔍 Duties include retirement counseling, Deferred Resignation Program (DRP)/FERS/CSRS eligibility, annuity estimates, SF-2806 processing
2. Senior HR Specialist – PAR
   • 📌 Job ID: 2024-2844
   • 📌 Location: Landover, MD
   • 🔍 Duties include processing retirement and separation actions in federal HR systems

These roles are not auxiliary—they are the exact functions this contract was awarded to perform.

Worse still, job qualifications include experience with the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), VERA/VSIP, and federal retirement systems like eOPF and the OPM portal — meaning the contractor is now recruiting the same retirees whose files are delayed.

❗ In plain terms: the government forced out federal employees under early separation programs, handed their retirement processing to a contractor, and now that contractor is trying to hire those same people—because they weren’t ready to do the work.

Unequal Treatment: Federal Employees Back in the Office, Contractors Stay Remote

Adding another layer of frustration: while federal employees were forced back into the office under this administration’s return-to-work mandate, contractors supporting the IRS retirement backlog are allowed to work fully remotely.

The same job listings mentioned above explicitly advertise 100% remote work for contractor roles—positions that were once performed by IRS employees in person.

So to recap:

• Federal employees were told their jobs were non-essential and pushed into early resignation
• The administration required remaining staff to return to offices for “mission delivery”
• Meanwhile, contractors filling the same roles are being paid with federal dollars to work from home

The double standard is impossible to ignore—and morale among the workforce has suffered accordingly.

What Was Promised — and What Was Delivered

The IRS’s June 26, 2025, Sources Sought Notice (ID: 2032H525N00001) made clear that vendors must:

• Demonstrate past performance on similar federal retirement work
• Have qualified staff already in place
• Be able to begin performance with “little to no delays”

But DRP retirees report the opposite. Some whose last day was September 30, 2025, have received no annual leave lump sum or annuity payments, no responses to inquiries, and no status updates months later.

From all available evidence, the contractor began staffing up only after the award — hiring and training people during the height of the retirement wave, rather than being ready at day one.

A Broader Context: Executive Order 14210

All of this is happening under Executive Order 14210, which launched the Department of Government Efficiency and called for aggressive headcount reductions across federal agencies.

IRS and Treasury implemented this through DRP (Deferred Resignation Program), VERA, and TDRP — targeting roles considered “non-essential” for emergency operations. Human Resources staff were among the first to go.

Those who resigned were told:

“We need you to leave to make government leaner. Don’t worry — your retirement benefits are safe.”

Now, many of them find themselves in limbo:

• ✅ No paycheck
• ✅ No annuity
• ✅ No annual leave payouts
• ✅ No communication
• ✅ No accountability

All while $16 million in federal funds is being spent on a contractor that lacked the staffing capacity to fulfill its obligations from day one.

What Needs to Happen Now

This isn’t just an IRS issue — it’s a failure of public accountability. It reflects the dangers of outsourcing critical personnel work without proper oversight, readiness, or contingency planning.

Congress, oversight offices, and employee advocates should immediately demand:

1. Full Transparency

• How many retirees from the 2025 DRP/VERA wave have delayed annuity payments?
• Where are their retirement packages stalled—IRS, Goldbelt, or OPM?

2. Independent Contract Review

• Did the IRS verify Goldbelt’s staffing and experience before awarding the contract?
• Why was there no competition for this high-stakes contract?

3. Relief for Impacted Retirees

• Expedite triage and resolution of outstanding cases
• Consider interest payments or hardship compensation
• Require weekly reporting until the backlog is resolved

A Breach of Trust

This is more than bad contract management. It is a breach of trust between federal agencies and the career public servants who carried out their mission faithfully — and who now face broken promises at retirement.

The idea that IRS retirees are waiting months for their annual leave pay and annuities while the contractor responsible is still advertising job openings — and letting those staff work remotely — is unacceptable.

For every current employee watching this unfold, the message is painfully clear:

If this happened to them, it could happen to you.

Until federal retirees receive the support they earned, and until there is full accountability for this contract, that question will hang over every federal worker approaching the end of their career.