Politics
Democratic lawmakers condemn looming reclassification of career civil servants
Democratic members of Congress are calling on the Office of Personnel Management to abandon its planned revival of Schedule F, which may be just weeks away from reality for career federal employees in policy roles.
In a letter sent to OPM this week, a bicameral group of 27 Democrats said they believe OPM’s recent proposed regulations to bring back the Schedule F employment classification — now called “Schedule Policy/Career” — will upend decades of positive civil service reforms.
“The proposed rule will allow agencies to reclassify thousands of dedicated federal workers from the competitive service into the excepted service and therefore strip them of their civil service rights and protections,” Democrats wrote in the letter, addressed to OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell. “Rescheduling nonpartisan positions undermines the ability of federal agencies to fulfill their vital missions and ignores over 140 years of civil service precedent.”
The letter comes as OPM’s proposed regulations remain open to public comments for about another week, with the comment period scheduled to end May 23. At the time of publication, the proposed regulations had nearly 10,000 public comments — far exceeding the average of about 22 comments per proposed federal rule within the last year. Once the comment period closes, OPM plans to finalize the regulations and President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order to push agencies forward in converting employees to Schedule Policy/Career.
The Trump administration’s move to reinstitute Schedule F policies center on reclassifying some career federal personnel to essentially “at-will” employees — making them easier to fire than current merit-system principles allow. OPM estimated that roughly 50,000 career federal employees would be reclassified. However, other estimates have shown the new employment classification could impact upwards of 200,000 personnel.
“OPM’s failure to adequately define what factors constitute ‘confidential, policy-determining, policymaking or policy-advocating character’ leaves interpretation largely up to each agency and risks the policy being much more broadly implemented than initially disclosed,” the Democrats wrote in their letter. “Already, agencies have begun taking the broadest approach to evaluating which positions to reclassify into Schedule Policy/Career.”
OPM did not immediately respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment on the letter from Democrats. But in its justification of the proposed regulations to revive Schedule F, OPM wrote that reclassifying career employees would “strengthen employee accountability and the democratic responsiveness of American government, while addressing longstanding performance management challenges in the federal workforce.”
In opposition to OPM’s proposal, the Democrats also touted their recently reintroduced bill, called the Saving the Civil Service Act. If enacted, the legislation would enshrine federal workforce protections and prevent any policy similar to Schedule F from resurfacing. In practice, the bill would ban agencies from reclassifying career federal employees without congressional approval.
Proposed cuts to federal benefits
At the same time, House Democrats on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee have been calling attention to Republicans’ proposed cuts to federal benefits, which are slated for potential inclusion in the GOP’s upcoming budget reconciliation bill.
On Wednesday, committee Democrats held a roundtable with federal unions and employee organizations on the series of proposed changes to federal benefits and retirement. The Oversight committee recently advanced six proposals, mostly along party lines, to be considered for inclusion in the reconciliation package.
Democratic lawmakers hold a roundtable with leaders of federal unions and employee organizations on the proposed series of cuts to federal benefits. (Source: Oversight Committee Democrats)
“Unfortunately, the Republicans’ reconciliation print is an effective green light for the administration to continue to attack the federal workforce,” Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Ma.), a member of the Oversight committee, said Wednesday. “It will reduce the pay of federal workers; it will break promises on entitled retirement benefits; it will deter current and federal employees from seeking justice against wrongful employment actions; and it will provide a back-door Schedule P/C, formerly known as Schedule F, to purge the federal workforce in Trump’s favor.”
Committee Republicans, however, said the proposals would put federal retirement and benefits more on par with the private sector, while also saving an estimated $50 billion over 10 years. In support of committee Republicans’ efforts, the National Taxpayers Union said the Oversight proposals “revise federal employee benefits to levels more commonly found in the private sector.”
The Foundation for Government Accountability, another supporter of the federal benefits cuts, also issued a statement on the potential changes. “It’s time the federal workforce played by the same rules and delivered the same results expected in any real-world job. The reconciliation bill presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to bring the federal workforce to heel and rein in the unchecked power of unions.”
The proposals, if included in the final legislation, would charge feds a fee to file a claim with the Merit Systems Protection Board, eliminate the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) annuity supplement and move retirement calculations from a “high-3” to a “high-5,” among several other changes cutting federal benefits.
Many federal unions and organizations harshly criticized the GOP proposals, saying they would create a chilling effect on federal recruitment and retention, in addition to hurting employees close to retirement.
“Our members have spent 25 to 30 years building a stable future based on longstanding agreements with the government, and now they’re questioning whether they can afford to retire. One manager described it as ‘changing the terms of the mortgage the day before closing,’” Kelly Reyes, executive director of the Professional Managers Association, said in a statement following the roundtable this week.
“Federal employees are not the cause of the government’s debt nor deficit,” said Marcus Hill, president of the Senior Executives Association. “It is short-sighted to impose pay cuts that will only make the government less competitive and attractive as an employer for the talent needed to serve America, now and into the future.”
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