On May 23, FMA National President Craig Carter submitted comments for the public record in opposition to the Office of Personnel Management proposed rule titled “Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service.” The proposed rule furthers President Trump’s effort to create a new classification of federal employees – Schedule Policy/Career – that would make an estimated 50,000 federal employees “at-will,” stripping them of existing due process rights.

FMA’s comments are among the more than 33,000 to be submitted so far.

Under the proposed rule, federal employees whose jobs are deemed as “policy-determining, policy-making, policy-advocating, or confidential duties” would be reclassified into Schedule Policy/Career, losing civil service protections. These employees will be “at-will,” stripped of adverse action procedures or appeals. In a fact sheet, the administration says, “this rule empowers federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of presidential directives.”

The fact sheet says reclassified employees are “not required to personally or politically support the president,” but “must faithfully implement the law and the administration’s policies.” This proposed rule does not immediately move these feds into the new classification system; feds will be moved there via a different executive order after the final rule is issued.

FMA noted strong support for strengthening management in the federal workforce, “including the stated goals of the rule: improving performance, accountability and responsiveness in the civil service.” We cited multiple examples of efforts President Trump pushed in his first term that FMA supported, including minimizing the burden on supervisors when addressing poor performers, calibrating and tailoring the penalty for misconduct based on facts and circumstances, calibrating disciplinary action, and giving agencies discretion to take into account an employee’s past misconduct when taking disciplinary action.

We object to Schedule Policy/Career as a unilateral, short-sighted overhaul approach to the workforce that overturns a century and a half of precedent from the Supreme Court and Congress. As the rule itself points out, more than fifty years ago the Supreme Court held that a federal employee has a constitutional due process interest in continued federal employment. And Congress has consistently legislated on this issue, most notably with the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and subsequent amendments.

“Both Congress and the administration should endeavor to maintain America’s non-political civil service,” we argued. “The unacceptable elimination of due process for affected federal employees leaves feds solely at the whim of politicians – intolerable under any administration, Democratic or Republican. A hallmark of America’s civil service is the foundational, fundamental understanding that federal employees swear an oath to the Constitution and provide services to all Americans, regardless of political party. The federal government cannot function effectively without this nonpolitical civil service capable of preserving institutional memory and competence across administrations.”

The rule furthering Schedule Policy/Career cites a handful of news stories of federal employees resisting or undermining the policy agenda of the administration as a justification for the action. We at FMA agree that resisting or undermining a duly-elected President’s policy agenda is unacceptable. It is also already against the law. Insubordination and failure to comply with a lawful order or policy can and should be punished, up to and including termination. Misconduct, such as unauthorized use of government property, failure to safeguard classified or sensitive materials, providing false information, misuse of position, and ignoring or defying direct orders are prohibited. We view Schedule Policy/Career as a solution in search of a problem.

We cited a December 2016 report from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) titled Addressing Misconduct in the Federal Civil Service: Management Perspectives, which found “supervisors want the process of taking adverse actions to be easier while keeping employee protections.” The report states, “supervisors overwhelmingly want a merit-based system where employees are protected from managers who either make mistakes or act in bad faith.”

Among the other concerns we outlined, we gave significant weight to the negative impact on recruitment and retention to the federal workforce, and the likely deterioration of the services Americans rely on if Schedule Policy/Career is implemented.

The proposed rule itself states:

“It is true that adverse action procedures and appeals give federal employees greater job security than exist in most other jobs. To the extent that workers value this job security, Schedule Policy/Career's removal of adverse action procedures would reduce the relative value of the total federal compensation package. However, OPM no longer believes that this change will significantly impair federal recruitment or hiring.”

The rule then proceeds to outline the “more generous” benefits package federal employees enjoy. However, we noted the significant cuts to benefits Congress was considering at the time, including elimination of the FERS annuity supplement, a fee to exercise appeals rights to the Merit Systems Protection Board, and more. [We are pleased that FMA successfully prevented several of the other egregious proposed cuts, including significant increases to pension contributions for all federal employees – a large tax and pay cut on every federal worker – and a shift from the High-3 to a High-5.]

“The proposed rule explicitly says it would reduce the value of the total federal compensation package, while Congress simultaneously works to reduce federal employee retirement benefits,” we wrote. “Meanwhile, federal pay has not kept pace with inflation and the Federal Salary Council reported in November 2024 that federal workers earn nearly 25 percent less than their private sector counterparts. Reducing job security and benefits, combined with a freeze in pay that will further widen the gap between the private sector and the civil service, is a recipe for disaster for the American taxpayers.”