This report provides an update on issues affecting federal managers. As always, I encourage you to visit www.fedmanagers.org on a regular basis for more information on these and other matters.

Also, be sure to look for the monthly FMA Grassroots Update where we offer links to action letters and FMA-PAC matters we do not address in the Washington Report. The grassroots newsletter is sent exclusively to non-governmental email addresses to avoid any Hatch Act violations. If you are not receiving it, contact the national office to provide your non-governmental email address.

Please feel free to provide feedback any time by emailing Greg Stanford at gstanford@fedmanagers.org, or by calling the National Office at (703) 683-8700. Thank you for your membership in FMA. It’s an honor to represent your interests before Congress and the administration.

President Donald Trump signed a $1.2 trillion appropriations minibus into law on February 2, effectively ending a four-day partial government shutdown. The Senate passed the package (H.R. 7148) by a vote of 71-29 during the last week of January, and the House passed the bill earlier this week by a vote of 217-214. This finalizes Fiscal Year 2026 spending for the Department of Defense, Transportation-HUD, National Security-State, Financial Services and General Government, and Labor-HHS-Education. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security was extended via a continuing resolution through February 13.

Federal Managers Association National President Craig Carter urged Congress to avert another government shutdown prior to the House and Senate actions, writing, “shutting down the government is never a good option, puts our nation’s security at risk, and negatively impacts federal employees and their communities.” The measure signed into law by President Trump accomplishes FMA’s goal.

“The recent government shutdown wasted billions of dollars and created undue stress on Americans across the country,” Carter wrote. “It is in the best interests of all Americans to keep the federal government open and for Congress to find a compromise to funding our government. The American people believe legislators should work across the aisle to find solutions, and the Federal Managers Association wholeheartedly agrees.”

On February 2, Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) and six cosponsors introduced the True Shutdown Fairness Act (H.R. 7322), legislation that would pay all federal employees, service members, and federal contractors, during any government shutdown in Fiscal Year 2026. The bill is companion legislation to a measure introduced by Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

While the most recent 4-day partial shutdown concluded swiftly, the country is still recovering from the record 45-day government shutdown in October-November 2025. With the threat of government shutdowns a constant threat, and federal managers being used as pawns in a political game of chicken, FMA has endorsed a bevy of bills in the 119^th Congress to give federal employees some basic protections in the event of a future lapse in funding. Below is a compilation of shutdown-related bills FMA supports.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform unanimously passed the Federal Workforce Early Separation Incentives Act (H.R. 7256), legislation that would modernize the federal workforce volunteer buyout program and increase financial incentives. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY), passed by a vote of 43-0.

“Taxpayers deserve a federal government that is efficient, accountable, and appropriately sized,” said Rep. Langworthy in a statement upon introduction. “By ending the 30-year-old cap, and instead tying the retirement incentive to earned income, we will make the VSIP more fair and potentially appealing. This legislation brings a common-sense update to a program that has been frozen in time, giving agencies a better option to reduce costs while treating federal employees fairly.”

Federal Managers Association (FMA) National President Craig Carter visited Washington, D.C., during the week of January 12 to meet with legislators, their staff, and administration officials.

Carter met with Carol Matheis, Deputy Associate Director, Accountability and Workforce Relations, Workforce Policy and Innovation at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The productive meeting included a wide-ranging discussion on FMA’s legislative priorities, as well as topics related to performance management, the President’s Management Agenda, as well as FMA’s longstanding opposition to the Schedule Policy/Career.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a final rule creating the excepted service “Schedule Policy/Career” (Schedule P/C) category, first introduced as Schedule F in October 2020. FMA has loudly criticized this action since 2020, and has consistently supported legislative attempts to prevent its return. Most recently, FMA submitted comments in opposition of this rulemaking during the comment period. A full 94 percent of the more than 40,000 comments submitted to the rulemaking were in opposition.

As he promised on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) on the first day of his second term reinstating Schedule F as Schedule P/C. It is a federal job classification for positions deemed “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character that are not normally subject to change as a result of a Presidential transition.” Career civil servants reclassified into this schedule will essentially be “at-will” employees, stripped of statutory procedural rights. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), who published the rule pursuant to the new EO, expects 50,000 feds will be impacted, while others believe the number of feds could be much higher.

In January 2026, the White House told agencies to further widen considerations for roles affected by Schedule P/C, including:

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently updated its shutdown guidance, removing language that guarantees federal employees furloughed during a government shutdown will receive back pay. As recently as September 2025, OPM guidance assured both excepted and furloughed feds would be provided back pay as soon as a funding lapse ended – as included in the 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, signed into law by President Trump in his first term.

Administration officials were non-committal about back pay during the 2025 government shutdown, which set a dubious record as the longest shutdown in American history. However, Congress explicitly ensured all federal employees would receive back pay at the conclusion of the shutdown.

Reporting by Federal News Network found the guidance currently available from OPM removes “references to back pay for furloughed employees, including in sections on federal retirement, health insurance and unemployment benefits.” Instead, the guidance reads “Congress will determine via legislation whether furloughed employees receive pay for furlough periods.”

The Department of Defense and nearly all other federal agencies expressed significant concerns with a potential Office of Personnel Management proposed rulemaking that would limit how many employees can be ranked “above average,” and other efforts to revamp performance management, including removing the level 2 (minimally satisfactory) rating, among others.

Government Executive researched comments on OPM’s proposal, revealing near unanimous pushback from all agencies, who argue a “forced distribution” of performance ratings would cause issues in the workplace and goes against merit system principles.

The Department of Defense (DOD) strongly recommends retaining the prohibition on forced distribution, writing, “decades of management research, and the subsequent reversal of this policy by many private sector organizations, confirm that forced ranking systems degrade organizational effectiveness.” The ban on forced distribution has been in place for more than thirty years. DOD references merit systems principles in its comments, noting performance must “be assessed against an individual’s own success in meeting objective criteria, not their standing relative to others in a mandated quota.”

On January 13 the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo offering further guidance on the “Rule of Many” changes for federal hiring first announced in September 2025. The memo, titled “Reinvigorating Merit-Based Hiring Through Candidate Ranking,” provides guidance on the effort to modernize federal hiring, replacing the “Rule of Three” selection method with the “Rule of Many.” OPM states this change will give hiring managers more flexibility and is more merit focused.

“The Rule of Many provides agencies with a broader pool of qualified candidates for competitive and excepted service appointments, ensuring selections are grounded in practical skill and merit as measured through skills-based assessments,” the memo reads. “This new process uses a numerical ranking system. Applicants are assigned scores (augmented for veterans’ preference) and placed in rank order. Agencies then make selections from a pre-determined number of the highest-ranked qualified candidates. In doing so, the Rule of Many combines the strengths of the rule of three and category rating procedures. It enables agencies to make finer distinctions among candidates based on their relative qualifications, while also broadening the range of applicants from which hiring managers may select.”

American taxpayers are facing delayed returns and slower than usual service this tax season, and employees without direct tax experience are being reassigned on an unvoluntary basis in an effort to prepare for this year’s tax season, according to a warning from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Inspector General.

The reduction in IRS staffing – down nearly 20 percent since this time last year – as well as leadership turnover and delays resulting from the government shutdown are contributing to the concerns voiced in reports by the National Taxpayer Advocate and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The coming tax season is also more complicated due to massive tax law changes required by the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Join us on Thursday, February 19, at 8:00 PM Eastern, for a Federal Managers Association Issue Briefs discussion. FMA’s Government and Public Affairs Director Greg Stanford will present on the current state of FMA Issue Briefs for the coming year, and highlight areas where we believe we can make progress in the second half of the 119th Congress. Attendees are encouraged to come prepared to ask questions and discuss these issues.

Click here to review FMA’s draft 2026 Issue Briefs. Please reply with proposed changes or additions by Thursday, February 26, 2026.

FMA's 88^th National Convention & Management Training Seminar will be held March 22 - 25, 2026, at the Hilton Alexandria Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia. The theme this year is Managing Through Difficult Times and registration is now open. The hotel is conveniently located across the street from the King Street Metro Station and near the FMA National Office.

You can also make your hotel reservations now. For the most up-to-date information, including the convention agenda, visit FMA's convention page regularly.