In light of the ongoing issuance of directives, orders, firings, freezes to government funding, immigration raids, threats of action against specific groups and communities, and the list goes on, this report will be Part 1, and updated as well vetted information and documents are available, likely daily.
The termination of an as yet unknown number of career civil servants [these actions are ongoing] began quickly after Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025. The whiplash fast, well organized and extensive firings, without notice, align actions described as goals and objectives detailed in Project 2025, the almost 1,000 page transitional document spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation. As it states: “If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration. That is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project…With the right conservative policy recommendations and properly vetted and trained personnel to implement them, we will take back our government,” the project continued…”
Project 2025 has demonstrated that it is the playbook for a plethora of deeply interconnected, calculated actions to forcefully undermine the Executive Branch of the United States government. Exercising a two prong strategy, the new administration is in the process of firing, without cause or advance notification, career civil servants who have been identified as non-loyal, and the unbridled use of fear and harassment to motivate other employees to resign, retire, and for others to report on their colleagues. The second prong requires replacing the leadership and critical staff of the 15 executive departments with persons who have demonstrated “loyalty” to President Trump. The research and documentation by ProPublica,and published in the October 1, 2024 report, Heritage Foundation Staffers Flood Federal Agencies With Thousands of Information Requests, clearly identifies individuals, agencies, groups, as well as Office of Personnel Management (OPM) framework, knowledge, skills and abilities (SKAs), targeted for removal from federal government positions by Project 2025. As ProPublica’s research revealed:
three investigators for the Heritage Foundation had deluged federal agencies with thousands of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) over the past year, seeking a wide range of information on government employees, including communications that could be seen as a political liability by conservatives (MAGA). Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, “climate equity,” “voting” or “SOGIE,” an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump won the presidential election…An analysis of more than 2,000 public-records requests submitted by Aamot, Howell and Jankowski to more than two dozen federal offices and agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Trade Commission, shows an intense focus on hot-button phrases used by individual government workers. Those 2,000 requests are just the tip of the iceberg, Howell told ProPublica in an interview. Howell, the executive director of the Oversight Project, estimated that his group had submitted more than 50,000 information requests over the past two years. He described the project as “the most prestigious international investigative operation in the world.”
Beginning immediately after the January 20, 2025 mid-day inauguration, Project 2025 actions were initiated. Reporting on the lightening fast targeting and firing of federal government employees that ensued has been selective and circumscribed, as some media outlets have muted the consequences as a side step perceived or intended backlash from the administration. In light of the number of unprecedented actions that are “flooding the zone” as planned, this report has a specific and focused goal. This initial report will accurately identify and link to as many primary documents and associated legal commentary relevant to actions taken as of January 27, 2025.
The job termination actions now underway target government employees across agencies, job titles, and levels of seniority, with a total disregard for labor laws and union contracts, and OPM policies. But one action quickly grabbed headlines perhaps due to fact that it so obviously violated the law respective to government oversight. This was the dismissal of as many as 18 U.S. Inspectors General (IGs) without the requisite 30 day notice to Congress, as explained in this CRS In Focus, May 22, 2024: The 30-day notice requirement was established under the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-409), and the requirement that notice include a “substantive rationale” was added by the Securing Inspector General Independence Act of 2022 (Title LII, Subtitle A, of P.L. 117-263). Further, in most cases, the President must provide Congress with written notice 15 days before placing an IG on non-duty status and cannot do so at all during the 30-day notice period before removal of an IG without a specific finding regarding the potential threat posed by the IG to employees or the interest of the government.
For additional facts on the IG firings, please listen to Talking Feds host and founding Contrarian Harry Litman’s one-on-one conversation with the Honorable Mark Lee Greenblatt, “who began his tenure as the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) in 2019. Since then, Greenblatt has led a nationwide workforce of investigators, auditors, evaluators, attorneys, and support staff in providing independent oversight to promote accountability, integrity, economy, efficiency, and effectiveness within the DOI.” Litman and Greenblatt discuss whether the recent blitz of Trump firing 18 IGs from more than a dozen federal agencies—presumably to make room to install loyalists in those positions, is legal and is there any precedent? The Washington Post reported, Trump ousts at least 15 independent inspectors general in late-night purge [gift article], January 24, 2024, “The White House late Friday [January 24, 2025] fired the independent inspectors general of at least 14 major federal agencies in a purge that could clear the way for President Donald Trump to install loyalists in the crucial role of identifying fraud, waste and abuse in the government. The inspectors general were notified by emails from the White House personnel director that they had been terminated immediately, according to people familiar with the actions, who like others in this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private messages. The dismissals appeared to violate federal law, which requires Congress to receive 30 days’ notice of any intent to fire a Senate-confirmed inspector general. Oversight of some of the government’s largest agencies was affected: the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy, Commerce, and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration…”
As reported by Politico, January 25, 2025 – “In a letter obtained by Politico, Hannibal “Mike” Ware, the chairperson of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, informed the White House on Friday that he does not believe the removals of him and others are legal because of the ignored notice period. “I recommend that you reach out to White House Counsel to discuss your intended course of action. At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General,” Ware wrote. He is the IG for the Small Business Administration and acting IG for the Social Security Administration.”
The New Republic [TNR] published this article, Trump Just Broke the Law. Blatantly. And He Might Get Away With It. [When Trump last week fired a slew of inspectors general in the executive branch]…He broke a law that Congress passed as a reform because of his own earlier behavior as president. What he did flings the door wide open to run-of-the-mill corruption and potentially far worse. He doesn’t care, and it seems unlikely that the broader public will care. And there’s surely more of this kind of thing on the way….But once you know a little history, Trump’s purge gets even worse than it seems. Inspectors general came into being in 1978 as a post-Nixon accountability reform intended to prevent—or at least discourage—a president from stacking agencies with cronies, steering contracts to friends, and so on. In other words, it’s a guardrail against the abuse of executive power that was put into place because of the only other law-flouting Imperial President in this country’s modern history besides Trump. It is important to understand the the IG firings are the tip of the spear – with this unprecedented purge of highly skilled civil servants, TNRs editor Michael Tomasky states, “the president broke the law. Clearly and unambiguously. On his fifth day in office. In what democracy is that not an issue?”
But the OIG firings, to date there is no verification of total numbers and names, is not the only headline grabbing news. There are a number of other significant actions that have occurred in the short period from January 20, 2025 to January 27, 2025. In what follows I am focusing on each action starting from the most current actions announced, with the first announcement having been made on January 20, 2025. All of these actions have a tangible impact on federal civil servants but also on millions of Americans to whom a wide range of services are provided, and who benefited from changes to laws and regulations made by the previous administration.
Actions to terminate civil service employees, freeze funding for critical health and medical programs, and “the “day one” executive order terminating “illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear,” have been conducted using three types of communications: Executive Orders, OPM issued Memorandum, and emails sent directly to government employees by individuals and entities rather than the agency for whom they work, and through those in their chain of command. Two emails, one sent on January 24 and one on 27, 2025 were sent to all federal government employees, from a “beta” email address, styled as <[email protected]>. There is no such authentic government email address, and employees in receipt of the emails were confused, upset and many were frightened. The emails requested that each recipient reply to each email, stating “yes” to being in receipt. Responding to an email from an unknown entity is contrary to all cybersecurity training policies and procedures taught to federal employees. Responding to what clearly appears to be phishing emails can cause a cybersecurity nightmare.
Molly White, author of Citations Needed published the emails as well as screenshots of the metadata capture identifying the actual authors of the unprecedented emails, which were not sent by OMB or any member of the federal civil service workforce. This is part of her report on the origin of the mass email to federal government employees. “The people who are now in charge of the Office of Personnel Management apparently don’t know how to scrub PDF metadata, and have exposed the original authors of the guidance they’re publishing. Two have links to the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025. Noah Peters is the author of the OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell’s January 27 memo (archive) providing guidance on the “Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce” executive order, which is being described as the “Schedule F” order because it effectively reinstates that policy under a new name (“Schedule Policy/Career”). Peters also authored the January 20 memo (archive) from Ezell, which exploits loopholes to bypass limits on political appointments. Both of these memos are clear steps towards achieving a primary goal of Project 2025: to expand President Trump’s power, and to replace career civil servants with Trump loyalists. As far back as 2023, The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 was recommending Peters for a position in Trump’s second administration. Peters had previously been appointed by Trump in 2019 as the Solicitor at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, where he “aided and defended Trump appointees’ anti-union FLRA policies that went against decades of the agency’s own precedents” according to Court Accountability Action and State Democracy Defenders Action.4 Peters returned to private practice in 2022, but recently quietly updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect a new title of “Senior Advisor” to the Office of Personnel Management. This appointment does not appear to have been announced anywhere else.”
And lastly, at least today, via Wired Elon Musk Lackeys Have Taken Over the Office of Personnel Management. Sources tell WIRED that the OPM’s top layers of management now include individuals linked to xAI, Neuralink, the Boring Company, and Palantir. One expert found the takeover reminiscent of Stalin.
Lawsuit alleges new Trump administration email system for federal employees raises privacy concerns. CNN, January 27, 2025. A lawsuit brought by two federal employees alleges that the Trump administration has set up an email distribution system for the entire federal workforce that raises security concerns for workers’ private data. The lawsuit accuses the US Office of Personnel Management – which handles many personnel operations for the federal government – of failing to do an assessment required by federal law to understand and mitigate any privacy risks in how the alleged new email system is collecting data of federal employees. The new legal challenge comes as the Trump administration has launched a multi-front effort to overhaul how the federal workforce operates, including initiatives to weaken federal workforce protections and to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, among other actions. According to the new lawsuit, federal employees in recent days received emails from the email address [email protected] that purported to be running tests for a new “distribution and response list.”…“Plugging in a new email service for the sole purpose of sending messages directly to every federal employee is an invitation to be hacked, and every employee out there needs to know how much of their data is at risk,” Kel McClanahan, the executive director of National Security Counselors said, adding that the system should be shut down “until OPM treats this data with the security it warrants.”
DOJ fires officials who worked on Jack Smith’s Trump investigation. Washington Post, January 27, 2025. The Justice Department fired more than a dozen career [prosecutors/employees] officials [Smith built a team of at least 40 lawyers to investigate Trump]. The team investigated Trump’s alleged mishandling of national defense secrets after he left the White House in 2021 and his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.] Both cases resulted in indictments, but Smith dropped the cases against Trump after the election, citing long-standing federal guidelines that prohibit the prosecution of a sitting president. who worked on the special counsel team that investigated Donald Trump in two separate criminal cases, a spokesman said. Acting attorney general James McHenry informed the officials of their firings and said that he “does not trust these officials to assist in faithfully implementing the President’s agenda.”…Those people have protections as career government employees, and it is unclear what — if any — legal ramifications the Trump administration could face because of the firings.” The employees fired are career employees who have protections of the merit system [Merit System Protection Board].
Trump administration targets wide range of positions for removing federal job protections. Federal news Network January 27, 2025. Agencies have until April 20 to recommend federal employee positions to be converted into the new “Policy/Career” classification, according to an OPM memo. Agencies have a 90-day deadline to review and create lists of federal positions to potentially be converted to the Trump administration’s new “Schedule Policy/Career” federal employee classification, in effect defining who in the career federal workforce will see many of their job protections removed. In a memo published Monday morning, Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Charles Ezell detailed how agencies should move forward with implementing President Donald Trump’s executive order on “restoring accountability to policy-influencing positions within the federal workforce,” while also announcing the suspension of portions of the Biden administration’s regulations aiming to prevent a return of the Trump administration’s previous Schedule F policy. Ezell clarified that agencies have until April 20 — or 90 days after Trump signed the executive order — to submit their initial recommendations of the career positions to be converted into the new “Policy/Career” classification. “Agencies are encouraged to submit recommendations on a rolling basis before this date,” Ezell wrote in the memo. OPM did not immediately respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment.
In Exacting Retribution, Trump Aims at the Future as Well as the Past. The New York Times, January 27, 2025. “The president made good on promises to seek revenge against enemies during his first week back in power, signaling in the process that anyone who crosses him in the future could also suffer. Taken together, the moves send a clear signal that Mr. Trump feels unconstrained about punishing the disloyal, that he is potentially willing to go further against his enemies than he had pledged on the campaign trail and that there will be a price for any opposition to come.”
Trump officials issue quotas to ICE officers to ramp up arrests. Washington Post, January 27, 2025. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been directed by Trump officials to aggressively ramp up the number of people they arrest, from a few hundred per day to at least 1,200 to 1,500, because the president has been disappointed with the results of his mass deportation campaign so far, according to four people with knowledge of the briefings. The quotas were outlined Saturday in a call with senior ICE officials, who were told that each of the agency’s field offices should make 75 arrests per day and managers would be held accountable for missing those targets. The four people spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal briefings.
Federal Workers Ordered to Report on Colleagues Over D.E.I. Crackdown. The warning came one day after the administration ordered that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the government be shut down by 5 p.m. Wednesday. The New York Times, January 25, 2025. The Trump administration on Wednesday threatened federal employees with “adverse consequences” if they fail to report on colleagues who defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies. Tens of thousands of workers were put on notice that officials would not tolerate any efforts to “disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.” Emails sent out, which were based on a template from the Office of Personnel Management, gave employees 10 days to report their observations to a special email account without risking disciplinary action. “There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information,” the template sent to agency heads said. “However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.” The message also said: “These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars and resulted in shameful discrimination.”
Government Executive, January 24, 2025 – Congressional Republicans mull plans to gash feds’ pay, benefits and job security – As Republican lawmakers craft a wide-ranging budget reconciliation bill to lock in and potentially expand President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and fund expanded immigration enforcement, federal workers are once again in the crosshairs. A 50-page document, compiled by GOP members of the House Budget Committee and first reported by Politico, outlines a list of provisions that could be included in the package, which would not be subject to the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold, includes a litany of proposals increasing federal workers’ contribution to their retirement and health care benefits, in exchange for worse payouts. First is a proposal to standardize the amount Federal Employees Retirement System enrollees pay toward their defined-benefit annuity at 4.4%. Currently, FERS participants contribute 0.8% of their basic pay to their retirement if they were hired in 2012 or prior, 3.1% if they were hired in 2013, and 4.4% if they were hired in 2014 or later. The document also suggests eliminating the FERS supplement for employees who retire before reaching Social Security eligibility at age 62, a provision that would disproportionately impact federal law enforcement officers, who are mostly required to retire when they turn 57 years old. And it revives a proposal from Trump’s first term to base federal retirees’ annuity payments on the average of the highest five years of an employee’s salary, compared to the current “High-3” calculation. Another proposal would require newly hired federal workers to choose between better retirement benefits and the civil service protections that most federal employees currently enjoy. “This option would require future federal employees to elect between two classification systems: the current system with merit-based civil service protections or a new at-will classification,” the document states. “If an employee elects to be classified as an at-will classification, they will maintain a lower FERS annuity contribution rate (4.4% or lower). However, for employees that elect to be classified under the current merit-based civil service system, their annuity employee contribution would be increased to a higher rate.” On health care benefits, the House GOP proposes replacing the current system, by which the federal government pays for a percentage of health care premiums through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and the new Postal Service Health Benefits program, with a “voucher model.”
The following ten official government documents were issued by the Office of Personnel Management, January 20 – January 27, 2025.
Guidance Regarding Deferred Resignation Program, Tuesday, January 28, 2025 sent by Charles Ezell, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies.
Pursuant to its authority under 5 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1) and (a)(5), the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) is providing guidance to agencies regarding OPM’s government-wide deferred resignation program. This program provides employees with an option to submit a deferred resignation letter with resignation effective on September 30, 2025. Deferred resignation exempts those employees who choose it from return-to-office requirements. Employees who accept deferred resignation should promptly have their duties re-assigned or eliminated and be placed on paid administrative leave until the end of the deferred resignation period (generally, September 30, 2025, unless the employee has elected another earlier resignation date), unless the agency head determines that it is necessary for the employee to be actively engaged in transitioning job duties, in which case employees should be placed on administrative leave as soon as those duties are transitioned.
Guidance on Implementing President Trump’s Executive Order titled, “Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce” Monday, January 27, 2025, sent to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies by Charles Ezell, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
On January 20, 2025, the President signed an Executive Order entitled, “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce (“Restoring Accountability”).” This Executive Order reinstates and amends Executive Order 13957 of October 21, 2020.1 It creates a new Schedule Policy/Career in the excepted service for
positions that are of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character (policy-influencing positions) and filled by individuals not normally subject to replacement or change as a result of a Presidential transition. Such career positions will be rescheduled into Schedule Policy/Career and thereby exempted from the adverse action procedures set forth in chapter 75 of title 5 of the United States
Code.
Updated January 27, 2025 – Via Politico: “Minutes before the directive from Trump’s budget office was to take effect Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan blocked the Trump administration from implementing it for now. AliKhan’s order will expire Feb. 3 at 5 p.m. The Trump administration cannot suspend disbursement of any congressionally appropriated funds until then. The judge described the move as a “brief administrative stay” intended to maintain the status quo while further litigation can play out.”
Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs, January 27, 2025, sent to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies by Matthew J. Vaeth, Acting Director, Office of Management and Budge, U.S. Office of Personnel Management. *** Please Note – this Memorandum was RESCINDED on January 29, 2025.
The American people elected Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States and gave him a mandate to increase the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar. In Fiscal Year 2024, of the nearly $10 trillion that the Federal Government spent, more than $3 trillion was Federal financial assistance, such as grants and loans. Career and political appointees in the Executive Branch have a duty to align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities. Financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing Administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing, ending “wokeness” and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again. The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.
This memorandum requires Federal agencies to identify and review all Federal financial assistance1 programs and supporting activities consistent with the President’s policies and requirements. For example, during the initial days of his Administration, President Donald J. Trump issued a series of executive orders to protect the American people and safeguard valuable taxpayer resources, including Protecting the American People Against Invasion (Jan. 20, 2025), Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid (Jan. 20, 2025), Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements (Jan. 20, 2025), Unleashing American Energy (Jan. 20, 2025), Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing (Jan. 20, 2025), Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Jan. 20, 2025), and Enforcing the Hyde Amendment (Jan. 24, 2025). These executive orders ensure that Federal funds are used to support hardworking American families. To implement these orders, each agency must complete a comprehensive analysis of all of their Federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that may be implicated by any of the President’s executive orders. In the interim, to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.
Steve Vlade “The Impoundment Crisis of 2025 The Trump administration’s Monday spending freeze is likely to provoke a crisis over the constitutionality of “impoundment”—one that the justices could well have to resolve *very* soon. ck In essence, the Trump administration is claiming the unilateral power to at least temporarily “impound” tens of billions of dollars of appropriated funds—in direct conflict with Congress’s constitutional power of the purse, and in even more flagrant violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA).”
Guidance on Implementing President Trump’s Executive Order titled, “Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce”, January 27, 2025, sent to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies, by Charles Ezell, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
On January 20, 2025, the President signed an Executive Order entitled, “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce (“Restoring Accountability”).” This Executive Order reinstates and amends Executive Order 13957 of October 21, 2020. It creates a new Schedule Policy/Career in the excepted service for positions that are of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character (policy-influencing positions) and filled by individuals not normally subject to replacement or change as a result of a Presidential transition. Such career positions will be rescheduled into Schedule Policy/Career and thereby exempted from the adverse action procedures set forth in chapter 75 of title 5 of the United States Code.
Guidance Regarding RIFs of DEIA Offices, Friday, January 24, 2025, sent to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies by Charles Ezell, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Pursuant to its authority under 5 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1) and (a)(5), the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) is providing the additional guidance to agencies regarding the President’s executive order titled, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” In accordance with that order, each agency, department, or commission head shall take action to terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and “environmental justice” offices and positions within sixty days. OPM’s initial guidance required agencies to submit written plans no later than January 31, 2025, for executing a reduction-in-force (RIF) action regarding the employees who work in a DEIA office. However, agencies can and should begin issuing RIF notices to employees of DEIA offices now. Agencies are reminded to define the competitive area solely in terms of the DEIA office where the employees worked. See 5 C.F.R. § 351.402…
Guidance on Presidential Memorandum Return to In-Person Work, Wednesday, January 22, 2025, sent to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies, by Charles Ezell, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
The President’s PM directs agency heads to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis” “as soon as practicable.” It allows agency heads to “make exemptions they deem necessary” and directs that the directive “be implemented consistent with applicable law.” The PM reflects a simple reality. The only way to get employees back to the office is to government.10 Seeking to cajole individual agencies to try to get employees to return to the worksite has not succeeded.
Initial Guidance Regarding DEIA Executive Orders, Tuesday January 21, 2025, sent to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies, by Charles Ezell, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Pursuant to its authority under 5 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(1) and (a)(5), the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) is providing the following initial guidance to agencies regarding the President’s executive orders titled Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions, which repeals Executive Order 14035, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce…
Federal Civilian Hiring Freeze Guidance, Monday, January 20, 2025, sent to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies by Matthew J. Vaeth, Acting Director, Office of Management and Budget, Charles Ezell, Acting Director, Office of Personnel Management…
1. Purpose. This memorandum provides additional guidance regarding the freeze on the hiring of federal civilian employees as directed by the President on January 20, 2025, via Presidential Memorandum (PM) entitled “Hiring Freeze.” This guidance clarifies immediate actions to be taken by Heads of executive departments and agencies to implement the PM and provides information on the types of exemptions authorized under this hiring freeze as well as instructions on how departments and agencies can request exemptions from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for critical situations where additional exemptions may be warranted.
2. Coverage. This memorandum applies to all Executive departments and agencies regardless of the sources of their operational and programmatic funding and to all types of Federal civilian appointments, regardless of the length of the appointment, except as provided for below or otherwise provided in law. No vacant positions existing at 11:59 A.M. on January 20, 2025, may be filled and no new positions may be created, except in limited circumstances. For the purposes of this memorandum, a position is not considered vacant if an individual has been given an offer of employment prior to noon on January 20, 2025, has signed an offer letter in acceptance of the position, and has a designated start date on or before February 8, 2025. All positions that are not exempt from the hiring freeze must be unlisted from USAJOBS.gov and any other applicable websites no later than January 21. Any recruiters seeking to fill positions on behalf of the government must cease correspondence with candidates no later than January 21….
Guidance on Probationary Periods, Administrative Leave and Details, Monday, January 20, 2025, sent to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies by Charles Ezell, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management…The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is providing the following guidance to agencies regarding critical potential personnel actions. Specifically, this memorandum deals with 1) probationary periods, and 2) administrative leave and details.
I. Probationary Periods – Probationary periods are an essential tool for agencies to assess employee performance and manage staffing levels.1 Employees on probationary periods can be terminated during that period without triggering appeal rights to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
2 Generally, employees in the competitive service with less than one year of service, and in the excepted service with less than two years of service, can be terminated without triggering MSPB appeal rights.3 This applies to temporary employees on appointments “not to exceed” a date certain.4 No later than January 24, 2025, agencies should identify all employees on probationary
periods, who have served less than a year in a competitive service appointment, or who have served less than two years in an excepted service appointment, and send a report to OPM listing all such employees to [email protected], with a copy to Amanda Scales at [email protected]. In addition, agencies should promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency…
Temporary Transition Schedule C and Schedule C Authorities and Noncareer Senior Executive Service Appointing Authorities, Monday, January 20, 2025, sent to Heads and Acting Heads of Departments and Agencies by Charles Ezell, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
To support agencies’ transition needs, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is providing the following hiring flexibilities regarding Temporary Transition Schedule C and Schedule C appointments, and Noncareer and Limited Term Senior Executive Service (SES) appointment authorities. Schedule C positions are excepted from the competitive service because of their confidential or policy-determining character, and most Schedule C positions are at the General Schedule (GS)-15 or lower grade level. Schedule C positions above the GS-15 level are either Senior-level (SL) positions or are specifically authorized in law. The SES is a personnel system applicable to the highest-level executive, managerial, supervisory and some policy positions in most Federal agencies.