Its not a buyout; its the "deferred resignation plan". its continuing to get payed as normal while being on Admin leave through to september 30, which is the date they agree to resign by by taking the deal.

A lot of people didn't take the first one solely because we were staring down the barrel of a government shutdown less than a month out from it being offerred.

Its mildly preferable to waiting to get fired at random; for anyone with less than 10 years of federal service, its a hell of a lot better than we'd get in severance (at 3 years, id get just about a paycheck and a half, myself).