President Donald Trump has carved out a new category of federal employment attempting to create a supplemental class of agency employees dedicated solely to implementing the White House\u2019s policy agenda.<\/p>\n
An executive order<\/a> Trump signed Thursday evening establishes a Schedule G employment classification in the federal government. The new hiring pipeline will let agencies onboard non-career federal employees to focus specifically on policy-making or policy-advocating work.<\/p>\n Although the federal government already has an employment classification reserved for political appointees \u2014 called Schedule C \u2014 the White House said the existing hiring authority leaves a \u201cgap\u201d in the administration\u2019s ability to appoint individuals for key policy roles.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump believes creating non-career Schedule G positions will enhance government efficiency and accountability and improve services provided to taxpayers by increasing the horsepower for agency implementation of administration policy,\u201d the White House wrote in a fact sheet<\/a> Thursday.<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n Regulations with more details on how agencies will actually implement the new Schedule G classification are still forthcoming. But generally, the new employment category will broaden the scope for agencies to hire political appointees beyond the avenues currently available to the administration to pick its own staff members. In its fact sheet, the White House described a need for \u201cstreamlining appointments,\u201d particularly at the Department of Veterans Affairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n The creation of Schedule G is the second new federal employment classification that Trump has added for the federal workforce. On his first day in office, Trump also created Schedule Policy\/Career<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a revival of the previous Schedule F<\/a> employment category from Trump\u2019s first term. Schedule Policy\/Career is reserved for career members of the civil service. Any employees moved into that category lose their civil service protections, making it easier for agencies to fire them.<\/p>\n Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland\u2019s school of public policy, described the new order on Schedule G as a way to give the Trump administration a \u201cblank check\u201d for adding political appointees across government.<\/p>\n \u201cThe administration clearly has in mind a fundamental reset of the basic\u00a0policies and protections that have been in place for 140 years,\u201d Kettl said in an interview.\u00a0\u201cIt is hard to underestimate the enormity of the issue here \u2014 and the potential implications that could be coming down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n In each administration, Presidents typically make over 4,000 political appointments \u2014 encompassing a combination of Senate-confirmed leadership positions, non-career Senior Executive Service members and Schedule C appointees.<\/p>\n Federal employees hired through Schedule C comprise the largest portion of political appointees. Through the existing Schedule C authority, administrations can make a generally unrestricted number of political appointments, but are still limited in part by agency budgets and certain agency-specific statutory restrictions. Most presidential administrations will appoint about 1,550 Schedule C employees, according to the Partnership for Public Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership, said Schedule G not only adds another layer to the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to politicize the career federal workforce, but also \u201cmakes an overly-complicated system even more confusing.\u201d<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear that this decision was made without consultation of experts who fully understand the consequences of creating these redundancies that will disempower our apolitical, merit-based career employees,\u201d Stier said Friday<\/a>. \u201cOur nonpartisan civil service is critical to keeping the services we rely on running continuously, even when political administrations change. Adding even more political appointees \u2014 who will only be in government for a few years \u2014 means that effective, stable service delivery will suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House said any employees hired through Schedule G would \u201cgenerally be expected\u201d to leave their positions once the President who appointed them leaves office. But one current federal human capital leader raised concerns about the possibility of more political appointees \u201cburrowing<\/a>\u201d into agencies at the end of a presidential administration.<\/p>\n \u201cWith a traditional Schedule C appointment, those individuals know their time is up,\u201d the federal official, speaking anonymously for fear of professional retribution, said in an interview. \u201cWith Schedule G, are they going to put those same requirements in there?\u201d<\/p>\n Some also warned that implementing Schedule G would lead to a further loss of talent across the federal workforce. Already, tens of thousands of federal employees \u2014 including feds in more senior-level roles \u2014 have left their jobs this year through a combination of reductions in force<\/a>, attrition and other voluntary separation incentives<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis administration is taking a number of steps to politicize what were once known career positions throughout government, and add a level of partisanship to the work that was once seen as a nonpartisan, cross-administration body of work,\u201d said Loren DeJonge Schulman, a senior advisor at the Federation of American Scientists, and former White House official during the Biden administration. \u201cThat puts at risk a lot of that technocratic, really important knowledge that many of them bring to bear, no matter who is serving at the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n The Schedule G executive order piles onto many other efforts already underway to overhaul the federal workforce. The Trump administration has made changes ranging across the entire federal employee lifecycle, including revising hiring<\/a> expectations for new federal employees, changing performance management standards<\/a>\u00a0and expanding firing authorities<\/a> for agencies.<\/p>\n \u201cThis all has to be seen as part of a single strategy,\u201d Kettl said. \u201cCreating a system where people can be fired at-will, where people can be hired as political appointees. And at the core of all this is an increasing politicization of the federal government and the federal civil service.\u201d<\/p>\n Rob Shriver, managing director of Democracy Forward\u2019s Civil Service Strong initiative, and former acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, viewed many of the Trump administration\u2019s workforce overhauls as part of a broader picture to change the federal workforce for the long-term.<\/p>\n \u201cThe end game here,\u201d Shriver said, \u201cis to get as many folks as possible out of the job who take an oath to the Constitution \u2014 and bring as many folks as possible into the job who are loyal to the President.\u201d<\/p>\n ]]><\/p>\n