Featured February 9, 2026 New year, new era of government reform Back to Blog What Schedule Policy/Career means for the federal workforce Date February 10, 2026 Authors Chris Piper Tags Workforce Tens of thousands of federal employees may soon lose their job protections under a newly finalized rule that could represent the most significant shift in the federal civil service in decades. On Feb. 6, the Office of Personnel Management issued its final rule on Schedule Policy/Career, a new employment classification that allows the administration to remove job protections and appeals rights for certain “policy-influencing” employees. While framed as a targeted tool to address performance issues, Schedule Policy/Career represents a thinly veiled attempt to centralize executive power over the civil service and move toward a modern spoils system. The administration has fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem: Legitimate performance management challenges in the federal government do not stem from insufficient presidential control over federal employees. Effective reform requires better performance management tools and clearer accountability for leaders and employees—not the elimination of independent oversight and merit-based protections. What the new rule does While OPM estimated that the new policy will apply to approximately 50,000 employees, the rule gives OPM and agency leaders broad discretion to recommend which positions—and how many—will be affected. Ultimately, the president will decide who will be transferred. Regardless of the final scope, the policy is expected to convert tens of thousands of career roles into at-will positions. This is in addition to the 4,000 political appointees spread across the federal government that presidents can hire and fire at will. In addition, the rule eliminates independent oversight of personnel complaints, including whistleblowing, potentially placing politically appointed agency leaders in the position of investigating complaints against themselves. This includes reviews and appeals by the Office of Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protection Board. Administration rationale and emerging risks The administration has stated that the “purpose of Schedule Policy/Career is to remove adverse action appeals and facilitate greater accountability to the President.” However, OPM Director Scott Kupor claims that the administration will use Schedule Policy/Career in a narrow, limited fashion—as a “scalpel” to remove specific individuals who are viewed as poor performers or resistant to Trump administration priorities. He insists the policy will neither be used to remove employees based on their support of the president and his policies nor to pursue mass firings. But the policy includes no limiting principle to prevent broader use. Without independent appeals or review—protections currently available to most federal employees—employees classified under Schedule Policy/Career will have no recourse if they believe they have been fired for politically motivated reasons. The Trump administration’s own statements and actions suggest this authority could be used to remove large segments of federal employees perceived as misaligned with the president’s priorities. The administration has made clear that it believes a fundamental reshaping of the federal workforce is needed to accomplish its agenda. “We’re inundated every day in the federal government with misconduct and poor performance by civil servants. It’s a crisis,” said one OPM official recently. This perceived crisis—and recent workforce reduction efforts—reveal intentions far broader than the “scalpel” Kupor described. Furthermore, existing research disputes claims from Kupor, the administration and other supporters that at-will employment increases employee accountability and makes it easier to address poor performance. For example, the Partnership for Public Service’s recent study finds no consistent performance gains and an increased risk of politically motivated personnel actions in state government at-will systems, including the removal of employees in “strategically important positions.” The larger strategy: Unilateral control of the federal workforce Schedule Policy/Career is part of the administration’s larger strategy to pursue unilateral presidential control over the federal workforce. For example, the administration made changes to the federal job application process to include essay questions about the applicant’s favorite Trump administration policy or executive order. The administration also made adherence to the president’s policies the “most critical element” of performance reviews for members of the Senior Executive Service. Kupor’s own rationale for Schedule Policy/Career suggests that any employee responsible for executing the law—presumably most federal employees—should be appointed and controlled by the president. This position, reflecting a constitutional doctrine known as the unitary executive theory, would effectively return the civil service to the 19th-century spoils system. Despite claiming that the employees transferred to Schedule Policy/Career will not be political appointees, the logic of the unitary executive theory applied consistently would make all federal employees serve at the pleasure of the president. The administration also claims that Schedule Policy/Career employees are not political appointees because they are not overseen by the Presidential Personnel Office. But that is a distinction without a difference—there is no statutory requirement that appointed positions be governed by PPO, and the administration itself emphasizes that the president must retain constitutional authority to fire these officials. This means the only operational difference between Schedule Policy/Career and a political appointee is whatever appointment procedures the administration chooses to impose on itself to replace preexisting statutory protections. Balancing reform and safeguards The question facing policymakers is not whether reform of federal performance management is needed, but whether concentrating removal authority in political hands—without the checks that have defined the professional civil service for over a century—will produce better government or merely a more politically compliant workforce. Improving performance management and addressing poor performance are legitimate goals. However, concentrating removal authority without independent oversight creates vulnerabilities that can undermine the very performance, morale and public trust such reforms claim to enhance. Effective performance management reform must address the full lifecycle of federal employment while preserving the safeguards that sustain a professional, merit-based civil service. Learn more about the Partnership’s Government for a New Era initiative, which develops reforms for a more effective, responsive and accountable government. Chris Piper leads the Center for Presidential Transition’s work on transition related process reforms and reducing the number of Senate confirmed positions.
