Interview transcript

Terry Gerton Timely payments, rescinding stop work orders, and monitoring long-term impacts are top priorities as agencies restart operations. We’ll also look at key takeaways from PSC’s Vision Conference with CEO Jim Carroll. Jim, thanks for joining me.

Jim Carroll Terry, thank you so much for having me on.

Terry Gerton You are coming off two days of the PSC Vision Conference. Let’s start there. What were the biggest insights that you heard over those two days of discussions?

Jim Carroll Well, I’ll say three insights. One was it was a brutal way to start the Monday after Thanksgiving holiday … But, we had to accommodate the really great speakers on — including really some wonderful keynote speakers. Next year it will not be the Monday after Thanksgiving. So for all of our members, you know, for this event, we’re thankfully able to get a better date. But more importantly, as I mentioned, really was hearing from some of the leadership in the administration about, what is their projections for 2026 and how the money, as being appropriated by Congress, as the budget request and where they expect it to go. And so, one was just the amount of money, which is something worth talking about. The other thing and is really the use of AI and how the embrace of AI by the federal government is rapid, but it’s also a bit unknown. We’re moving forward in this space of the government using AI without everyone necessarily understanding all the implications. So I think so far those are the two big takeaways that we’ve been able to summarize. And, it’s a great event for our members and a few guests.

Terry Gerton What did you hear about this administration’s take on industry partnerships?

Jim Carroll You know, I think we have to sort of look back at DoD. I think DoD with Secretary Hegseth is a good example of that. As you recall, in November, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth met with our members and the folks that do defense contracting and said that they really do want to do a radical revolutionary overhaul of the FAR, and especially, in the sense of producing deliverables and measuring outcomes based on performance and getting this done right and how the military, how the branches within DoD have been tasked with coming up with orders … by mid-January, 60 days, in terms of how they think we can best streamline the process. And our hope is that this proposal really has legs. And we think it does. There’s support in Capitol Hill. There’s support in the administration. And of course, we — the leading trade association for companies that do business with the federal government — we’re completely supportive of most of these changes. There are things that we’ve been asking for for years that would really expedite the awards. Hopefully, with the grace of God, cut down on the number of appeals following an award, which seems to be a bit of an epidemic of companies now just expect there to be an appeal. And so we’re really very hopeful that this will stick and we’re optimistic that it will. And so that’s one of the major things, and then of course, as I mentioned, the amount of money in government services. And there was discussion about that … this week from the assistant secretary of war, that you know, there really is going to be an extraordinary amount of money, $850 billion at DOD with at least $180 billion toward services. And that’s what our very, and I’m proud to say, patriotic, companies that want to do the right thing for the war fighter and the taxpayer are eager to jump on board.

Terry Gerton Speaking with Jim Carroll, CEO of the Professional Services Council. Jim, tell us more about what you heard about the deployment of AI from the government agencies and within the contractor community.

Jim Carroll Yeah, so within the government we had speakers from across the government. As I said, Assistant Secretary of War, Michael Cadenazzi, who handles the industrial base policy, talked about an initial $180 billion, $200 billion in services, and how the use of AI and services can change and how there needs to be flexibility because of AI, that when some of these contracts call for a hundred seats to be filled, that there is enough flexibility that contractors can come back to the government and say, hey, we’re gonna use some, you know, AI, some other advanced technology. We can reduce the number of personnel from a hundred to eighty people. And in the past there’s been some resistance. Both the Department of War and some of the other departments, you know, really stressed that they want flexibility because of AI. I’ll say one thing that was interesting, and we’ve seen and heard this from members, is that there are a fair number of new companies who have never put in bids for government work that are using AI to not only write their proposals, but as I mentioned, also the use of AI to appeal. I mean, it just seems like it’s a press of the AI button, if you will, and an appeal is generated. And we need to get away from that, you know, for valid, justifiable awards, let’s move forward and deliver good results. And so we’re very optimistic. The recognition that AI has some limitations to it, but that it can deliver fast results is something that will be very interesting to see in 2026.

Terry Gerton Jim, one of the things that you and I have talked about, we’ve talked about it with a lot of contracting folks on the show is the uncertainty about the federal government workload for contractors. I’m wondering what you heard from your members over the course of this conference, especially as we’re sitting right now just post-shutdown and possibly pre-shutdown in January. What what are you hearing and what is PSC’s advice?

Jim Carroll Terry, don’t jinx us. No more government shutdowns. No, we’re tracking January 30th very closely. We had very senior meetings in the White House in the West Wing with a couple different meetings because of the shutdown to talk about the impact that it is having on results and the impact it is having on protecting the homeland. And so, what we told them in addition to the impacts is when the government gets up and running, because shutdowns end. This was a record-breaking one, but shutdowns do end. And as soon as they end, you know, it’s to tell the individuals in the departments, immediately start processing these invoices, get these payments out the door. You know, there are a fair number of companies, especially in the small to mid-size, that really did not have stable cash flow. They really were hurting. We saw some layoffs or at least, you know, sidelining of key employees, and it really presented a huge financial strain on the companies, which flows down to the employees, which flows down to the communities. And so that’s what we asked for. We asked, in addition, that the momentum on getting contracts, new contracts out the door, be, you know, jump-started as fast as possible. Historically, it takes quite a while after a shutdown for things to resume sort of a normalcy. And, we don’t have time for that. In addition to the financial impact, truly the impact on national security. The world is facing new and dangerous threats that seem to be magnifying every day. And our contractors are able to deliver world-class results and protection. And unless they get up and running immediately, you know, those threats are very real.

Terry Gerton Are you seeing that kind of activity coming out of the government agencies now a couple of weeks on from shutdown?

Jim Carroll You know, we’re actually pleasantly surprised. And I hate to say that word surprised, but in the past, it does seem to be a bit of a lag. Our message seems to be delivered. We’re getting payments out quickly. Maybe not all and not every department, but it seems to be beating historic records in in terms of getting payments out. Obviously, some companies are still hurting, you know, waiting to get paid for work that they performed. But we’re happy so far. But Terry, I can’t believe you brought up January 30th of next year. You know, is this a lull between shutdowns? I hope not. I hope that they’re able to resolve, you know, some of the significant issues, healthcare, things like that. But as we’ve talked about, there’s not a lot of workdays up on Capitol Hill, and we just cannot have another shutdown.

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Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have advanced a slew of federal workforce bills, one of which aims to make some significant changes to the federal probationary period.

The GOP-led EQUALS Act was one of about a dozen bills that passed favorably out of the committee on Tuesday. If enacted, it would require new federal employees to serve a two-year probationary period, doubling the length that most newly hired or promoted currently face.

Under the bill, agencies also would have to actively certify that a probationary employee “advances the public interest” before the employee can become officially tenured, while those who are not certified would be removed from their jobs. The legislation advanced in a party line vote of 24-19.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas), who introduced the legislation, said the EQUALS Act builds on an April executive order from President Donald Trump, which similarly required agencies to review and actively sign off on probationary workers’ continued employment.

“President Trump could not be more right,” Gill said. “Probationary periods and trial periods are long-standing, essential tools to ensure newly hired federal employees are sufficiently performing before their appointments are finalized permanently.”

Democrats on the committee criticized the Republicans’ bill, arguing that extending the length of the probationary period would negatively impact federal recruitment, as well as open the doors to more terminations of new hires in the government.

“This bill would double the time during which federal employees have limited due process and appeal rights as probationary employees. During this time they could be fired within 30 days’ notice, they have limited rights to an attorney or representative and they generally cannot appeal their removal,” Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (R-Calif.) said Tuesday. “At a time when Donald Trump is attempting illegal mass firings and purging experts from agencies across our government, this bill is a dangerous step in the wrong direction.”

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) added that the EQUALS Act would “give the Trump administration yet another tool to weaponize against federal employees who they perceive as ideological threats, and to continue efforts to destroy the non-partisan civil service.”

Gill, however, argued that the bill would not lead to mass terminations, but instead only make sure that new federal employees are carefully reviewed. He also pointed to a 2015 report from the Government Accountability Office, as well as a 2005 report from the Merit Systems Protection Board, both of which call for reforms to the probationary period.

“An employee can often work for the federal government for over 25 years,” Gill said. “Having an extra year of probationary status to ensure the right employee becomes tenured is a common sense, good government measure.”

During the committee meeting, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) motioned to strike the EQUALS Act and replace it with legislation to first require GAO to review effects of prior probationary period extensions before making any long-term changes. Lynch’s amendment was struck down by the committee’s Republican majority.

Legislation on official time advances

Committee Republicans also advanced a bill that would require agencies to report in greater detail the use of official time by federal employees governmentwide. The Official Time Reporting Act passed out of the committee in a vote of 24-19 along party lines.

If enacted, the bill would require all agencies to submit reports on how much official time is used in each fiscal year, and justify any potential increases in official time that may occur.

During the committee meeting, Republican lawmakers argued that official time takes away from employees’ job responsibilities. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the lead co-sponsor on the bill, also criticized the lack of agencies’ reporting on official time over the last several years.

The bill “will let the American people know exactly how much of their hard-earned money is spent not providing valuable service, but on federal employee union activities,” Foxx said.

Some committee Democrats, however, described the legislation as an attack on union rights. The lawmakers emphasized that official time is used for activities that support federal employees, while raising concerns about the possibility that the bill could let the Trump administration further limit union rights.

“This year under the Trump administration, federal employees have faced job insecurity, financial strain and the loss of collective bargaining agreements. This bill will make matters worse,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said. “We all benefit when unions and their members are empowered to prevent and address retaliation, discrimination and sexual harassment.”

Generally, official time hours can go toward negotiating union contracts, meeting with management, filing grievances or representing employees dealing with management disputes. Under law, federal unions are allotted specific amounts of time and resources to conduct these activities.

Federal unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, have pushed back against the Trump administration’s characterization of official time as “taxpayer-funded union time,” calling it a misrepresentation.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Garcia argued that official time leads to lower staff turnover and higher employee morale, while also preventing potential legal costs down the road.

“Official time is work time that employees are allowed to use for making the workplace safe and protecting workers from discrimination or harassment,” he said.

Committee approves some bills with bipartisan support

In contrast, some legislation that the committee approved on Tuesday gained strong bipartisan support from lawmakers. That includes bills on training for federal supervisors, skills-based hiring of federal contractors and amending the system for relocation payments for federal employees.

The Federal Supervisor Education Act, for instance, unanimously advanced out of the Oversight committee in a vote of 43-0. If enacted, the legislation would require agencies to work with OPM to create training programs for newly hired or promoted agency managers and supervisors.

Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.), who introduced the legislation in October, argued during Tuesday’s meeting that many federal supervisors step into leadership roles without enough training, and with no clear expectations for how to adjust to a managerial role in government.

“Agencies promote strong technical employees into supervisory jobs, and then send them in blind,” Timmons said. “That leads to low productivity, uneven standards and a system where good employees feel unsupported and bad employees rarely face consequences.”

Timmons added that the legislation would result in “real, meaningful training,” rather than being “a slideshow or a checkbox exercise.”

Although he said he mostly agreed with the bill’s intentions, Walkinshaw proposed striking one provision of the legislation. The initial bill text included a requirement that supervisory training programs must include additional training on the probationary period — something that Walkinshaw argued was outside the bill’s scope.

Committee Republicans agreed to adopt Walkinshaw’s amendment, after saying that it would result in stronger bipartisan support for the bill. Ultimately, the legislation advanced unanimously, with the amendment included.

“I am a strong supporter of the goal of this legislation,” Walkinshaw said. “Almost all of the language will provide supervisors within the federal workforce the appropriate training and resources to ensure there are strong leaders within their respective agencies.”

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Following the federal workforce reductions that have occurred this year, the Trump administration is now telling agencies to rethink how many senior executives they will need on staff as a result of those cuts.

A Nov. 24 memo from OPM encouraged agencies to consider reducing their staffing allocations for senior-level positions within their workforces.

No later than Dec. 19, OPM said agencies should submit a workforce assessment, detailing their current staffing allocations for various senior-level positions, and by how much they plan to reduce those allocations going forward — if at all. The memo includes a template that OPM expects agencies to fill out with more details on their projected allocations.

Agencies’ staffing assessments should reconsider allocations for Senior Executive Service (SES) members, as well as Senior Level (SL) and Scientific/Professional (ST) positions, OPM said.

“This review is especially important in light of headcount reductions and workforce restructuring, which may lead to a corresponding reduction in the need for SES, SL and ST allocations,” OPM wrote in its memo, addressed to agency chief human capital officers.

OPM said the senior-level staffing assessments should also take into account how agencies are reaching “optimal implementation of presidential priorities.”

“These assessments should also inform whether SES, SL and ST positions are appropriately classified and designated,” the memo reads.

OPM’s memo comes in response to an Oct. 15 executive order from President Donald Trump, which maintains limits for agencies on their recruitment efforts. Agencies have spent most of the year under a governmentwide hiring freeze, with a few exceptions carved out for positions in immigration enforcement, national security and public safety.

Trump’s executive order from October mandated that each agency create a “strategic hiring committee,” composed of senior officials and political appointees who will have to ensure that any hiring that does take place going forward is focused on “agency needs, the national interest and administration priorities.”

Already, the Trump administration has surpassed its goal of reducing the federal workforce by more than 300,000 employees during 2025. After reporting that approximately 317,000 federal employees have so far left the government this year, OPM is now pushing agencies toward their next steps for staffing plans.

At the same time that it’s encouraging a reduction of senior-level staffing, the administration has taken steps to give agencies more leeway in hiring politically appointed senior leaders instead. Over the summer, the White House created a new “Schedule G” employment classification, focused in particular on hiring non-career feds for roles in policy-making or policy-advocating work.

OPM’s new memo on senior executive allocations also comes after those in higher-level positions across government have seen a number of other changes from the Trump administration this year.

Most recently, OPM launched two new training series, in part focused on teaching senior leaders more in-depth about how they can best implement Trump’s workforce priorities, and to ensure they are adhering to “President Trump’s executive orders and other executive branch priorities.”

The Trump administration earlier this year also overhauled performance standards for senior executives, making adherence to the president’s priorities the “most critical element” of their reviews. Agencies are now being directed to set stricter limits on how many executives can be considered top performers.

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Approximately 317,000 federal employees left the government this year, while 68,000 joined, according to a recent blog post from Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor. 

The volume of separations is beyond Kupor’s previously shared targets for workforce reduction. In August, Kupor told WTOP News that he expected the government to shed 300,000 employees by the end of 2025 — down to a total of 2.1 million employees.

Kupor’s post didn’t include specific targets for reduction or hiring in 2026.

Along with sharing the workforce levels, Kupor’s blog post provided further implementation details of President Donald Trump’s executive order from Oct. 15, which outlined new federal hiring expectations. 

The goals he outlined reflect the current Trump administration’s emphasis on “maximum efficiency” and adherence to administration priorities within the federal workforce.

“We want to make sure the government has the right talent focused on the key priorities of the administration and that we are eliminating wasteful taxpayer expenses in areas that are inefficient, no longer required, or in direct contradiction of administration priorities,” Kupor wrote. 

Trump’s executive order last month instructed agencies to create an annual staffing plan for fiscal year 2026 and submit it to OPM and the Office of Management and Budget by Dec. 14. 

“In addition to all the things we care about in terms of where are [agencies] investing their resources, there are administration priorities that we’ve asked them to focus on and make sure that they talk to us about, one of which certainly is the merit hiring plan and how they’ll incorporate that in their hiring,” Kupor said Friday in an interview with Federal News Network. 

The headcount plans align with the Trump administration’s target that for each person hired into the federal government, four people leave, Kupor wrote. He said the government exceeded that ratio this year with the amounts of new hires and departures. 

An OPM spokesperson declined to comment on whether the Trump administration would seek to further reduce headcount in 2026 after already surpassing its goal of 300,000 departures.

Kupor emphasized that OPM will not prescribe headcounts to agencies under the new hiring guidelines. He said the headcount plans will instead give OPM a “pan-government view” of hiring needs, allowing OPM to centralize recruitment efforts and shared certification plans. 

In a memo to agencies on Nov. 5, Kupor and OMB Director Russell Vought said the staffing plans should also cover agencies’ current workforce and staffing needs, gaps in skills areas and strategies for recruitment. The plans should also factor in opportunities for reorganization or reductions. 

Kupor also acknowledged the lack of early career employees hired into the federal government.

“We do have a challenging demographic problem in government where we’re not replenishing the pipeline of new hires of people starting their career at the same rate as we have people who will be retiring over the next five to 10 years,” Kupor told Federal News Network.

The federal government has faced an imbalance of early career employees for several years, and prioritized early career recruitment and development programs to address it. But earlier this year, the Trump administration cut several of those programs, like the Presidential Management Fellows program and U.S. Digital Corps, and fired tens of thousands of probationary employees, many of whom were young staff members.

After submitting initial hiring plans, agencies must submit updates to OPM and OMB on the progress of their plans each quarter, beginning with the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Agencies can also coordinate with OPM and OMB to update their staffing plans.

Kupor called on agencies in his post to change “default” patterns in hiring plans by basing them off of historical levels or budget allowances. 

In creating the annual headcount plans without these “default” behaviors, Kupor wrote that agency leaders should ask themselves, “[W]hat are the functions my agency performs that are in line with presidential priorities or statutory obligations, how many people do I need to provide that service level, and how does that staffing level compare to our current headcount?”

Kupor and Vought directed agency heads to promptly notify OPM of approved new hires. 

Other key elements within the new hiring expectations include the establishment of strategic hiring committees, adaptation of the merit hiring plan and reduction of reliance on contractors. Trump’s executive order directed agencies to form the strategic hiring committees — made up of senior agency leadership — by Nov. 17. 

The committees must approve the creation and filling of vacancies within agencies, and overall ensure that agency hiring aligns with the merit hiring plan, agencies’ annual headcount plans, and “national interest, agency needs, and administration priorities.” 

Kupor wrote that the hiring committees must ask the “right” questions of candidates to “[make] sure that highly skilled people are being hired into the agency and [ensure] that they are thinking about a broad set of solutions with efficiency in mind.”

The ultimate focus in agency hiring, he wrote, should be on delivering to the American people at the lowest cost — not simply reducing headcount levels.

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The Department of Government Efficiency, the driving force behind the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce and executive branch spending, isn’t wrapping up operations sooner than expected, according to several administration officials.

Reuters published a story on Sunday claiming that DOGE no longer exists, about eight months ahead of the deadline set by President Donald Trump. The story drew strong reactions from Trump administration officials, who rejected claims that DOGE is ending before its final day on July 4, 2026.

A DOGE spokesperson told Federal News Network on Tuesday that DOGE and its longer-term, tech-aligned counterpart, the U.S. DOGE Service, both remain — and that the latter organization is moving forward with a full slate of modernization projects.

The spokesperson, in response to written questions, confirmed DOGE still exists as a temporary organization within the U.S. DOGE Service, and that Amy Gleason remains the acting administrator of USDS.

In addition, the spokesperson said the U.S. DOGE Service — a Trump-era rebranding of the U.S. Digital Service — is working on several cross-agency projects. The spokesperson said USDS is actively involved in these projects, but the agencies in charge of these projects oversee staffing and hiring. The list of projects shared with Federal News Network closely resembles the type of work that USDS was involved in before the Trump administration.

“The U.S. DOGE Service remains deeply engaged across government-modernizing critical systems, improving public services, and delivering fast, practical solutions where the country needs them most,” the spokesperson said.

Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor wrote on X that “DOGE may not have centralized leadership under USDS,” but the “principles of DOGE remain alive and well.”

Those principles, he added, include deregulation; eliminating fraud, waste and abuse; and reshaping the federal workforce.

Kupor wrote that DOGE “catalyzed these changes,” and that OPM and the Office of Management and Budget “will institutionalize them.”

It’s not clear that DOGE leadership ever set exact demands for its representatives scattered across multiple federal agencies. Current and former DOGE representatives publicly stated that DOGE leadership played a hands-off role in their day-to-day work, and that they identified primarily as employees of their agencies. Former DOGE employees said they rarely heard from Elon Musk, DOGE’s former de facto leader, once they completed their onboarding to join the Trump administration.

DOGE wrote on X that “President Trump was given a mandate by the American people to modernize the federal government and reduce waste, fraud and abuse,” and that it terminated 78 contracts worth $335 million last week.

The DOGE spokesperson said the U.S. DOGE Service is working on a project to use AI to process over 600,000 pieces of federal correspondence each month, and is working with the General Services Administration to advance “responsible AI governmentwide.”

Current U.S. DOGE Service projects include:

• Supporting 18 million students by modernizing the FAFSA system and implementing major student loan and Pell Grant changes.
• Improving access to benefits with a streamlined, public-option verification tool that helps states accelerate community engagement requirements for Medicaid and SNAP approvals.
• Transforming the non-immigrant visa process to support Olympic and World Cup travel with a more reliable, adaptable digital platform.
• Reducing delays for over 600,000 veterans each month through a modernized VA disability compensation application.
• Building a modern National Provider Directory to speed Medicare provider enrollment and enable nationwide interoperability.
• Launching new patient-facing apps and data access tools, first announced at the White House and rolling out beginning January 2026.
• Digitizing the National Firearms Act process, replacing outdated paper systems.
• Using AI responsibly to process over 600,000 pieces of federal correspondence monthly.
• Strengthening Medicare’s digital experience with better security, fraud reporting, caregiver access and reduced paper burden.
•  Improving VA appointment management with integrated scheduling, check-ins, notifications and after-visit support.
• Advancing responsible AI government-wide through partnership with GSA.
• Rapid-response deployments for Customs and Border Protection, FEMA, Medicare claims modernization, FDA data consolidation.

Gleason said in September that agencies don’t have enough tech talent to deliver on the administration’s policy goals, and they would need to boost hiring

“We need to hire and empower great talent in government,” Gleason said on Sept. 4. “There’s not enough tech talent here. We need more of it.”

Under the Trump administration, federal employees have faced mass layoffs and incentives to leave government service. The Partnership for Public Service estimates that, as of October, more than 211,000 employees left the federal workforce this year — either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Gleason, who also serves as a strategic advisor for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said tech hiring is essential to help CMS “build modern services for the American people.” She said the agency, at the beginning of this year, had about 13 engineers managing thousands of contractors.

“If we could hire great talent for tech in the government, I think in five years, we can really transform a lot of these systems to be much more modern and user-friendly, and easy for citizens to engage with what they need,” Gleason said. “But we have to take advantage of hiring.”

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© AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Interview transcript

Terry Gerton You’ve been tracking and reporting on the Trump administration’s cuts to advisory panels. Before we get into the details of what you’ve found, I’d love for you to just say, what are these panels? What are they supposed to do? How are they created?

Robert Iafolla Across the federal government, it’s something like 1,000 different federal advisory panels and they’re staffed by experts in the particular field. Some of them can be quite wonky and quite precise in the subject matter that they’re dealing with and they typically meet a few times a year. They help agencies develop their rulemaking agendas, you know, depending on the agency, Their, sort of, research agendas, the agency might task them with specific questions. Can you help us understand how to approach issue X, Y, or Z in a better fashion, a more efficient fashion? They will sometimes include members of the public on them. The meetings they hold are open to the public. But I think the most important thing when you think about these expert panels is that they bring expertise to agencies that agencies don’t have already and they do so for essentially free.

Terry Gerton And so what has your reporting turned up in terms of how the Trump administration is handling these and how many of them have been terminated?

Robert Iafolla Yeah, myself and a few colleagues dove into some data on a federal database called the FACA database. It’s named after the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which is the federal law that sort of governs these committees. And what we found was the Trump administration is terminating these committees at a historic clip. Essentially, there’s been about 160 of these committees formally terminated during the Trump administration so far. There’s data in the database going back to, I think, 1997. Past administrations would cull this herd of advisory committees as they became obsolete, but it would be more on the order of, say, 40 a year, whereas here we have 160. And then in addition to those that were formally terminated, we found that some of the expert panels were basically emptied out. All their members were either fired or those that their terms had expired and they were not renewed. Some are just sitting idle. And, you know, it is of a piece with sort of the administration’s approach towards the administrative state, sort of hacking at it at a rate that we hadn’t seen before.

Terry Gerton You mentioned that a number of these panels exist to provide technical expertise that might not be present in an agency itself. Are there particular departments in the executive branch that have a lot of these relative to some who have very few?

Robert Iafolla Yes. So the Department of Health and Human Services has the most. Some of these agencies are created by statute. Sometimes the agencies themselves will create them. With HHS, they have — or had — a load of panels that were in charge of reviewing grant applications for research or for continuing education and other matters. But I think it’s something like 50 or so agencies [that] have at least one advisory committee. You know, I think a good example of this is, at the Labor Department, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a few technical panels. One of them specifically helps the BLS figure out how to keep on top of [the] changing economy and also the intense funding shortfalls that the agency faces and helps them with, you know, statistical models and things like this on how to, how to to keep good data. The BLS, one of the — actually both of these BLS technical committees were among those terminated.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Robert Iafolla, he’s principal legal reporter for Bloomberg Law. Your reporting shows that a lot of these cuts happened despite agency opposition, like agencies wanted to keep them and the Trump administration terminated them anyway. What was the conflict there and why did they get terminated instead?

Robert Iafolla About a third of the terminated expert panels were ended over the advice of the agencies involved. As far as why these agencies were terminated, whether it be over the advise of the agency or not, there was a lot of different justifications given. We’re not exactly sure sometimes, like with HHS, the HHS secretary said that some of these panels had conflicts of interest. In other instances, members of these boards were told that it was a cost-cutting measure. In other instances, like with [one of] the BLS technical committees, they were told their mission was done. They were no longer needed. So we asked the White House directly for some more information on this and they were not forthcoming with that information.

Terry Gerton As agencies lose this expert advice, what happens to their internal decision-making? Does that shift to other panels or committees? Does it fall more to political appointees or other members of the organization?

Robert Iafolla Yeah, yeah, I mean, again, the design of these committees is to give expert advice. The agencies were never required to accept the committee’s advice. So this is not a group of outsiders telling the agencies what to do, but instead, looking over the information and giving them insight on what may be the best policy, what may be the most feasible way forward as far as generating consensus around something, reducing the litigation risk, providing justifications that would make agency action more durable in court. So the political folks that are going to be making the decisions instead of doing it without that guidance will be doing it without it. I talked to some people who suggested perhaps you don’t want expert committees that might contradict what you already want to do. You know, when you have your mind set on something, you don’t want somebody telling you it’s a bad idea to do that. It’s unclear whether that’s the reason for these committees getting chopped, but it certainly seems feasible.

Terry Gerton You mentioned that some of these panels are statutorily created. Have we seen any legal challenges to any of these terminations?

Robert Iafolla I’m not aware of any legal challenges. I’m also not aware of the administration, as they have in other areas, going ahead and countermanding the will of Congress and trying to do something by executive fiat that actually needs legislation in order to do it. So there are some committees, like I said earlier, that have been emptied out or have been idled rather than formally terminated.

Terry Gerton As you look at this past, and if past is prolog, what are you expecting in the future? Will this trend continue?

Robert Iafolla That’s a great question. The data shows that there are sort of these periodic spikes in these committees being terminated, so we don’t know if there are more that are going to be on the chopping block. The administration has created a handful of new committees. It’s on a much smaller scale than previous administrations have done as far as creating new committees to deal with emerging issues. The pattern is certainly one of shrinking and generally hacking away at the administrative state and not necessarily placing a premium on expertise or experience. So it seems reasonable to think that this may continue a pace.

Terry Gerton You also mentioned that most of these panels are covered under FACA, and there’s a lot of reporting requirements and transparency requirements that go along with that law, reporting on the deliberations of the panels and sharing that. What does this administration’s approach to these panels and the termination of them mean for transparency and public access to this kind of information?

Robert Iafolla Yeah, you’re going to lose that guarantee of public access. In one sort of tranche of these committees that have been terminated at HHS, as I mentioned before, there’s a group of these HHS expert panels that review grant applications. And what our reporting told us was that the department has terminated some of these committees that had to comply with the strictures of FACA, including the transparency requirements. They didn’t get rid of the grant review process, but have instead shifted that work over to these more ad hoc working groups that are reviewing them that apparently are not subject to the same transparency requirements. So that is suggestive of work that’s being done in the public interest out of a place where the public can find out what’s going on and into something that’s more of a black box.

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Interview transcript

Terry Gerton I want to start with a big picture question because the last few months of downsizing in the federal workforce and the ramifications that has had on contractor workforces have really had a significant impact on military veterans and military spouses. Can you help us understand why those groups are so vulnerable in those particular sectors to downsizing.

Dan Clare Absolutely. I mean, veterans comprise a large percentage of the federal workforce. There is some preference given to disabled veterans, veterans who have certain decorations from their service if they’ve been on campaigns and things like that. And there are federal set-asides as well for government contractors. There’s a lot of disabled veterans, particularly, who are working for the federal government. And those folks, some of them faced a fork in the road — some of them have been furloughed for a long period of time, some of them are looking for different career opportunities now that the government doesn’t seem maybe as steady as it used to be. So we’re hearing from a lot of veterans who [are] just looking at other opportunities, basically. And some of them have been without work for a good while. So we are helping them out. And then on the contracting side, both as employees and as business owners, veterans are disproportionately affected by interruptions in contracts, by government shutdowns, all those sorts of things.

Terry Gerton And the federal government had a special hiring authority for military spouses, correct?

Dan Clare It’s a great question because military spouses are always disadvantaged, they’re always sacrificing for our country alongside their loved one, whether that be a man or woman. And those folks, the portability of their careers is very important to them. So for them, having opportunities in employment, having opportunities to have a business that they can take with them as they go along their journey, those are both very important things for them.

Terry Gerton How is DAV engaged in the veteran employment space? That might not be the first place that folks would expect the Disabled American Veterans Group to be involved.

Dan Clare You would think, but you know going back a hundred years — DAV has been around for a long time — that was one of the original issues that we faced from World War I veterans coming home. Veterans who are changed as a result of their service — they’re at a disadvantage sometimes when they’re looking for jobs, so … we’ve always advocated for employment opportunities, program services for veterans, but this is a chance for us to connect veterans directly with employers who want to hire them, who recognize the unique skills and talents that they bring. So we’re so proud as an organization to be able to partner with these employers who recognize that value and they’re making it a serious effort to hire and retain veterans.

Terry Gerton What are some of the lessons you’re learning through that involvement about today’s employment market? What are big opportunities? What are employers looking for and how do veterans fit in?

Dan Clare Well, I think one of the things we tell veterans frequently is that you’re in military service and you might have a job specialty or an occupational specialty that doesn’t seem like it translates particularly well to civilian life. Some do. You know, if you’re a firefighter in the military, being a firefighter or a crash rescue guy on the civilian side lines up pretty nice. But we find that there are a lot of soft skills and real talent and job experiences that veterans have that help them out a lot. So we’re talking to all industries right now when we’re talking about our employers. And there are so many different positions that they offer and so many different talents that veterans bring. I mean, people think about maintenance, aircraft maintenance, they think about logistics, but there’s great management opportunities. There’s people who’ve worked with budgets in an operational environment. There’s all kinds of different reasons why veterans are uniquely suited to be resilient as job searchers.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Dan Clare. He’s chief communications and outreach officer at the Disabled American Veterans. Dan, DAV is hosting a nationwide virtual job fair next week. Tell us about that.

Dan Clare It’s a virtual career fair. These are awesome events. You’re going to find some great opportunities there. We have AT&T, Department of Energy, Wells Fargo, Border Patrol, Discount Tire. Those are some of the top level companies who we think of, you know, they have names that are pretty recognizable to most of us, but there are a lot of other employers who are gonna be there. And as a veteran or spouse who is looking for a job, you might think, well, I’m not gonna work in the waste management industry because I’m disabled and for me, hiking trash cans isn’t gonna be a career for me. But you have to recognize that all of those companies have different opportunities and different positions within them that might be a perfect fit for a veteran’s experiences so far.

Terry Gerton What helpful hints would you have for veterans and military spouses who are interested in participating? How can they best prepare?

Dan Clare Well, I mean, having a good resume is very important. If you’re going in advance and looking at the job fair, there’s a page there. You can look at the types of positions that are out there and kind of earmark some opportunities specifically. And if you can, you can then tailor a resume a little bit more towards what the requirements are of that position. So those are important things. Veterans know how to dress nice, fortunately. So we have that going for us. You should look great going into it. And then developing a little bit of a pitch for yourself, an elevator pitch, where you say, this is who I am, this is what I’m about professionally, this is the kind of opportunity that I’m looking for, and this is what I hope to do through that opportunity for the company I work for … That’s some of the advice that we’re giving veterans to prepare.

Terry Gerton And not every veteran wants to work for someone else. Many of them want to start their own business. And DAV has a program, the Patriot Boot Camp, to help veterans understand how to start a business. Tell us about that.

Dan Clare It’s an incredible program. It’s cohort based, it’s two and a half days of very intensive training … you’re going be able to talk and interact with people about funding, which is one of the biggest, biggest shortfalls for veterans as entrepreneurs. We’re gonna talk about team building, sales, marketing, branding, and you’re gonna get mentorship. You’re going to get about four hours of mentorship with CEO-level professionals who can help you and they’re driven because they wanna help you avoid making the mistakes that they might have made earlier in their careers. And these people will fly across the country to be there with us. Our next event is Feb. 11 through 13 in Myrtle Beach. And I encourage people to travel for these events because sometimes as an entrepreneur, when you’re closer to home, it’s impossible to avoid some of the details and things that you need to work on for your venture. So Feb. 11th through 13, this is a free opportunity. And we want to get as many veteran entrepreneurs and spouses involved as possible.

Terry Gerton Do you give folks a real taste of the challenges of entrepreneurship? I mean, it’s not the easiest way to move forward.

Dan Clare No, it’s extremely risky. By definition, being an entrepreneur is being a risk-taker, and we recognize that. And we recognize, too, not all these ventures are going to succeed. But the veterans having the experience, getting involved — we find they’re naturally resilient, they’re creative. They’re good at strategy, good at planning. There are just some areas every veteran entrepreneur seems to have where they’re an A+ across the board. And then when it comes to marketing or sales, maybe they’re a D-. So we can address that there. And also they walk away with the community. Each cohort is its own network. And that includes all of the mentors who participate. So we’re really excited. What this does to transform a veteran’s life and make them someone who hires people is extremely exciting for us. And we’re always looking for mentors, always looking for veterans who want to get involved. And it’s extremely meaningful to be involved with.

Terry Gerton What message do you have for employers or business leaders who want to get involved from the hiring side in these activities?

Dan Clare I mean, it’s accessible to you too. Hiring veterans, the people who come to these career fairs, we have them there all the time. Tons of veterans coming through all the times. They tell us that the value is there. The reason why they’re there isn’t — I mean yes, they wanna do the right thing, they’re patriotic, they believe it’s right thing for America to hire veterans — but they’re also making a good deal. They’re finding people who are already trained or trainable. They’re finding people who are disciplined, who show up on time. They find people who’re great team workers and abnormally loyal to companies and institutions that they get involved with. I mean, it makes good business sense for you to hire veterans. If you visit our website, jobs.dav.org, we have an employer resource there where you can kind of validate that decision or make that decision if you want. We have a recognition program called the Patriot Employers Program. That you can access where we’re actually going to help you recruit because you’re going to be able to show veterans with a digital seal that it’s something that you’re focused on. So there are a lot of great ways to get involved. Hiring veterans is good for you and it’s good for our country.

Terry Gerton For veterans and military spouses who might be interested in participating either in the job fair or in the Patriot Boot Camp, where do they go to find out more?

Dan Clare You can find more at jobs.dav.org. There’s all kinds of stuff on there, so check it out. You can hear about success stories, hear about things that are working for other folks, and just visit us … Nov. 25, that virtual career fair could change someone’s life, so we wanna get as many people involved as possible.

The post Two big opportunities are on the horizon for veterans: one to land a job, another to launch a business first appeared on Federal News Network.

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While much attention across the federal community has been focused on the Office of Personnel Management’s strategy to consolidate 119 different human capital systems across government, the agency, at the same time and with little fanfare, kicked off another major human resources modernization effort.

OPM is planning to revamp the USA Hire platform, which provides candidate-assessment tools for agency hiring managers, with the goal of making evaluations more efficient and leading to higher-quality applicants.

OPM, working with the General Services Administration, issued a request for information on Oct. 7 and has been meeting with vendors over the last few weeks to determine what commercial technologies and systems are available. The RFI closed on Oct. 21.

“This RFI is part of OPM’s ongoing effort to ensure agencies have access to cutting-edge, high-quality assessment tools that help identify and hire the best talent across the federal government—advancing a truly merit-based hiring system in line with the president’s Merit Hiring Plan and Executive Order 14170, Reforming the Federal Hiring Process and Restoring Merit to Government Service,” said an OPM spokesperson in an email to Federal News Network. “OPM also anticipates making additional improvements to USAJOBS and USA Staffing to enhance the applicant experience and better integrate assessments into job announcements.”

OPM says in fiscal 2024, USA Hire customer agencies used the program to assess approximately 1 million applicants for over 20,000 job opportunity announcements.  It provides off-the-shelf standard assessment tests covering more than 140 federal job series, access to test center locations worldwide and a broad array of assessment and IT expertise.

“USA Hire currently offers off-the-shelf assessment batteries covering over 800 individual job series/grade combinations, off-the-shelf assessment batteries covering skills and competencies shared across jobs (e.g., project management, writing, data skills, supervisory skills), and custom assessment batteries targeting the needs of individual agencies, access to test center locations worldwide, and a broad array of assessment and IT expertise,” OPM stated in the RFI.

In the RFI, OPM asked industry for details on the capabilities of their assessment systems, including:

• Delivering assessments in a secure, unproctored asynchronous environment
  Delivering online video-based interviews
• Using artificial intelligence/machine learning in assessment development and scoring
• Minimizing and/or mitigating applicant use of AI (e.g, AI chatbots) to improve assessment performance
• Integrating and delivering assessments across multiple assessment platform

“OPM seeks an assessment delivery system that can automatically score closed-end and open-ended responses, including writing samples. The online assessment platform shall be able to handle any mathematical formula for scoring purposes,” the RFI stated. “Based on the needs of USA Hire’s customers, OPM requires an assessment platform that supports static, multi-form, computer-adaptive (CAT), and linear-on-the-fly (LOFT) assessments delivered in un-proctored, in-person, and remote proctored settings.”

An industry executive familiar with USA Hire said OPM, through the RFI, seems to want to fix some long-standing challenges with the platform.

“RFI suggests OPM will allow third parties to integrate into USA Staffing, which has been a big problem for agencies who weren’t using USA Hire. But I’ll believe it when I see it,” said the executive, who requested anonymity in order to talk about a program they are involved with. “Agencies are not mandated to use USA Hire, but if they don’t use it, they can’t use USA Staffing because of a lack of integration.”

USA Staffing, like USA Hire, is run by OPM’s HR Solutions Office on a fee-for-service basis. The agency says it provides tools to help agencies recruit, evaluate, assess, certify, select and onboard more efficiently.

RFI is a good starting point

The executive said this lack of integration has, for some agencies, been a problem if they are using other assessment platforms.

For example, the Transportation Security Administration issued a RFI back in 2024 for an assessment capability only to decide to use USA Hire after doing some market research.

“USA Hire is adequate for most things the government does. It’s fine for certain types of programs, but if you get out of their swim lanes, they have trouble, especially with customization or configurations. I think getting HR Solutions to do any configurations or customization is a yeomen’s effort,” the executive said. “My concern about USA Hire is it’s a monopoly and when that happens any organization gets fat and lazy. Maybe the Department of Government Efficiency folks kicked them in the butt a little and that’s maybe why we are seeing the RFI.”

The executive said the RFI is a positive step forward.

“It could be good for some companies if it comes to fruition and OPM brings in a legitimate way for other providers with some unique competencies or services to expand the offering from USA Hire,” the executive said. “It’s too early to tell if there will be a RFP, but if they do come out what are they buying? Are they trying to bring on new assessment providers? I think a lot of us would like to know what OPM is looking for or what holes they are seeking to fill in these new solutions.”

Other industry sources say OPM has laid out a tentative schedule for a new USA Hire support services solicitation. Sources say OPM is planning to release a draft request for proposals in January with a final solicitation out in October.

This means an award will not happen before 2027.

“Due to the complexity of requirements and the amount of market research that needs to be conducted, the USA Hire PMO expects the competition timeline to be more than a year long,” OPM said in a justification and approval increasing the ceiling of the current USA Hire contract. “The government estimates that transition could take up to two years depending on the awardee’s solution.”

OPM adds $182M to current contract

OPM released the J&A at the same time it issued the RFI. In a justification and approval, OPM increased the ceiling of its current USA Hire support contract with PDRI, adding $182.7 million for a total contract value of $395 million.

OPM says the need to increase the ceiling is because of the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) adoption of USA Hire and its need to fill thousands of vacant positions after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Because of the EO, the need for USA Hire assessments has far exceeded the initial estimated amount, which has grown at a pace far faster than anticipated when the contract requirements and needs were first drafted and awarded,” OPM stated in the J&A. “OPM planned for the steady growth of USA Hire throughout all options of the contract; however, TSA alone has consumed 95% of the requirement in option year 2 and option year 3. The government issued a modification to realign ceiling value to support the additional assessments; however, the delivery of the assessments has increased significantly.”

An email to PDRI seeking comment on the increased ceiling and the RFI was not returned.

The OPM spokesperson said the agency expects the use of USA Hire to continue to grow over the next few years as agencies implement skills-based assessments as required under the Merit Hiring Plan and Chance to Compete Act.

OPM said in its J&A that it expects USA Hire to provide assessment services to 300,000 applicants for TSA, 10,000 entry level investigators for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with smaller customer agencies spanning cybersecurity positions, tax fraud investigations, entry level credit union examiners and HR specialists.

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The Trump administration is looking to hire thousands of federal law enforcement personnel, as part of expanded immigration enforcement efforts.

But the courts handling these cases aren’t seeing the same surge in resources. Several immigration judges recently fired by the Justice Department say the court system is losing staff, and is unable to address a multi-million case backlog.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has intensified operations across the country, and detention facilities are full of individuals waiting for their cases to be heard.

The One Big, Beautiful Bill Act passed this summer gave the Department of Homeland Security billions of dollars to hire 10,000 new ICE agents, as well as 5,000 customs officers and 3,000 Border Patrol agents.

The legislation bill also authorized DOJ to hire about 100 new immigration judges, bringing their total headcount to about 800 nationwide.

But the total number of immigration judges is dwindling under the Trump administration, according to data tracked by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and its affiliate, the National Association of Immigration Judges.

According to the unions, the total number of immigration judges this year has dropped from 700 to 600. The Trump administration terminated more than 80 immigration judges since taking office, while others have retired or accepted voluntary separation incentives.

Recently terminated immigration judges say their colleagues still on the job don’t have the resources needed to address a backlog of about 3.4 million cases.

Before he was fired in September, Ted Doolittle, a former immigration judge at the immigration court in Hartford, Connecticut, was one of two judges handling about 46,000 cases.

Doolittle said he received his termination email one afternoon, as he was preparing for a docket of 57 cases the next day.

“The caseload is crushing. I think it’s probably one of the most overburdened court systems,” Doolittle said Thursday at an event at the National Press Club.

In order for the Justice Department to meaningfully address the backlog, Doolittle said the department needs about 2,000 or 3,000 immigration judges — not the few hundred currently working.

“That’s what’s going away, is the right of these people to have their cases heard fairly,” he said.

Emmett Soper, a former immigration judge in Virginia, who was fired in August after serving nine years on the job, said the widespread terminations are leading to a “chaotic situation,” where courts are scrambling to reassign cases to remaining judges.

“Each immigration judge is responsible for hundreds or thousands of these cases, and every time the administration unlawfully fires an immigration judge, they’re no longer there. Their cases have to be redistributed to the judges who remain at the court,” Soper said. “This is not a fair way to run a court system.”

Anam Petit, former immigration judge in Virginia, who was fired in September, said judges are hearing, at a minimum, 25 cases a day — sometimes 50 or more cases — in multiple languages.

“You can have a docket with five different languages,” she said.

Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, said that the “lion’s share” of firings have been targeted at immigration judges who were hired during the Biden administration.

“Immigrants in this country are entitled to due process, and by firing these judges, you’re denying them their due process,” Biggs said.

To address the backlog, DOJ is training hundreds of military lawyers to temporarily serve as immigration judges. But Biggs said most of these don’t have a background in immigration law.

“We appreciate their service to our nation, and it’s no disrespect to them, but they should not be in these positions,” he said.

Federal News Network reached out to DOJ and DHS for comment.

The former judges said defendants are also failing to show up for court dates this year, because they are afraid of being detained by ICE agents afterward. Petit said that it was a “daily occurrence” for defendants in her courtroom.

“It has a huge chilling effect,” she said. “People are afraid to come to court because they’re seeing people get detained in the hallways.”

Defendants who don’t appear for their court date automatically receive a removal order, and have no legal avenue to appeal that decision.

Doolittle said ICE agents prefer making arrests in courthouses, because individuals have gone through security and been screened for weapons. He recalled that toward the end of his tenure, ICE agents repeatedly tased a suspect in the court’s lobby before bringing him into custody.

“Many of the court staff lost sleep — like physically, weren’t able to sleep for a period afterwards. And of course, it makes them question whether that’s a job they want to continue,” he said.

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The longstanding CyberCorps program is at a crossroads, as scholars struggle to find internships, jobs and support during the Trump administration’s governmentwide hiring freeze.

The CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service program is funded by the National Science Foundation and administered through the Office of Personnel Management. The program provides scholarships for up to three years to support an undergraduate or graduate student. In return, CyberCorps students agree to serve in government for a period of time equal to their scholarship.

The program has provided federal agencies with a steady pipeline of much-needed cyber talent since it was established in 2000.

But this year, CyberCorps scholars are struggling to find any open opportunities after the Trump administration instituted a governmentwide hiring freeze for most positions in February. The White House recently extended that freeze indefinitely.

Some CyberCorps scholars had received tentative job or internship offers that were revoked or paused with little explanation. Cyber-related opportunities at federal agencies have largely dried up, especially for entry-level positions, amid the hiring freeze and downsizing at agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Several students are now staring down the possibility of having to pay back their scholarships if they can’t find qualified work. CyberCorps participants are typically required to start a qualifying job within 18 months of graduating.

More than 250 current students and CyberCorps alumni have now organized to share information and press the administration for more information on the future of the program and their job prospects, according to multiple scholars involved in the group. Multiple scholars said that OPM has had little communication with them about the major changes in the federal hiring landscape.

“Many scholars feel we are being strongly armed into unwillingly owing the government hundreds of thousands of dollars for failing to find work with them, when the government is the one cutting jobs, slashing budgets, and eliminating roles we were intended to fill,” one student told Federal News Network.

In a statement, OPM Director Scott Kupor said “bringing top cybersecurity and AI talent into the federal government are critical to our national security.”

“OPM is committed to the success of SFS and is working closely with the National Science Foundation to ensure CyberCorps participants are supported during this challenging time,” Kupor said. “Once the shutdown ends, we will issue guidance to agencies encouraging them to fully leverage the program to bring these highly skilled professionals into public service.”

A spokeswoman for OPM added that “no scholars have been sent to repayment.”

“After the shutdown ends, OPM will collaborate with NSF on a mass deferment to give graduates more time to secure qualifying positions and further guidance to encourage agencies to make use of the SFS program for their hiring needs,” the spokeswoman said.

But CyberCorps scholars say they have a lot of questions about the plan for deferring their post-scholarship employment requirements, given that few federal jobs are available beyond those geared toward immigration enforcement and other Trump administration priorities.

Federal News Network spoke with five CyberCorps scholars about their experience with the program and the challenges they’ve encountered this year. They were granted anonymity because they fear retaliation for speaking out.

Scholar 1 is graduating with a master’s degree in 2026; Scholar 2 is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in December 2025; Scholar 3 is graduating with a master’s degree in December 2025; Scholar 4 graduated in May 2024 with a cybersecurity degree; and Scholar 5 is graduating with a master’s degree in August 2026.

(These conversations were edited for length and clarity.)

FNN: Why did you join CyberCorps, and what do you hope to do as far as government service?

Scholar 1: “The principal investigator of CyberCorps at my school told me about CyberCorps while I was finishing my undergrad degree. I wanted to pursue cybersecurity and data privacy. My PI pitched it to me as, get a free degree and get excellent work experience, and actually do stuff I think is valuable, rather than just working in industry. . . .

I wanted to work with CISA. I’m really interested in critical infrastructure and passionate about securing rural infrastructure, making people conscious of cybersecurity and how it affects them.”

Scholar 2: “I have experience working with the government. I served in the Air National Guard in a technical role. . . . I also had the opportunity to work in an internship with the federal government, and that’s when I discovered programs like CyberCorps.

Having that familiarity with the hands-on experience inspires me and encourages me to keep learning . . . I’m not specifically interested in any particular agency, but anywhere there’s an opportunity in the federal government . . . more or less keeping the bad guys out. I view it as a puzzle.”

Scholar 3: “I chose my entire university based on this scholarship. . . . I’ve been looking for ways to break into cybersecurity for a few years. The CyberCorps program was heavily recommended online. And I also had relatives who worked in government. I just wanted to give back to my community.

I worked an internship at CISA in the summer of 2024.  . . . I wanted to work at CISA. I had verbal offers to come back. In my internship, I got full marks. . . .  I wanted to find work in protecting critical infrastructure and just wanted to serve my country.”

Scholar 4: “For me it was a chance to serve my country outside of active duty service. I was consistently encouraged to apply by another military-affiliated student. . . I did research while I was in the program. I’m interested in secure software engineering and embedded systems security. I appreciate the ability to blend two different fields together.

I went in with the mindset of, I’m going to be open to all the possibilities that are coming my way. I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself with a specific agency. I wanted to get an interview with an agency and see how their culture worked. I was open to computer science roles, as well as cybersecurity roles.”

Scholar 5: “Initially, I had entered college with medical school in mind. . . . Ultimately, I was able to finish a bachelor’s in computer science, and helping people was still at the forefront of my mind. At the end of the day, that’s why I joined CyberCorps – I thought it would be a gateway to a fulfilling, lifelong career in public service.

I’ve had my eyes set on a position with the Air Force Civilian Service. To me, there isn’t a job in this field that would be more meaningful than working alongside our troops to protect American interests.”

FNN: What challenges have you encountered with the CyberCorps program over the past year?

Scholar 1: “I had interviews with CISA and MITRE for internships. . . Everything was looking fantastic from my perspective. This all happened prior to the January 2025 job fair.  That was the first week of January, right before the inauguration.

Afterward, there was no contact. Most of my applications and things I had applied for, they still say it’s in processing or being reviewed. They haven’t been rejected. They’ve been permanently paused.”

(OPM in a recent email told CyberCorps scholars to “get creative” with their job search.)

Scholar 1: “The NSF doesn’t really communicate. It’s mostly through OPM – they just said keep trying, keep looking. They’ve even encouraged us to look out for non-federal agencies. In the ‘get creative’ email, they specifically say to widen our search to state and local governments and nonprofits, when just months prior, they were all but forbidding us from doing that.”

Scholar 2: “Everybody is suffering, because not only are there barely any jobs … but if there are any, we now have to compete with people who are displaced from the shutdown or got let go. All that has made it hard.

It’s very sad to me, because when people are curious about this program, I’m telling them to not do it, because I don’t want to feel like I’m screwing them over by having them sign a contract and then if they can’t find a job, they’re on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.”

Scholar 3: “Getting any kind of response at all has been difficult, even before the government shutdown. When the hiring freeze went into action, the 250 to 300 of us now in same situation couldn’t get any responses. We were emailing OPM and SFS – we either got no response, or a response that said, ‘get scrappy.’

I got two tentative offers. I had the first offer come in just before the freeze, and I accepted it. When freeze started, my would-be supervisor at CISA said, ‘Hey, hold on.’ . . . But then the supervisor told me they were probably leaving CISA. The other offer was with another agency. That tentative offer is still there, for an internship last summer.”

Scholar 4: “I had been proactive in securing two tentative job offers before I graduated. I made my choice and got started on the clearance process as soon as I could. . . . I kept checking in with the agency for updates. When I asked for guidance on the timeline with OPM, they told me it could take up to a year. . . . I was told by sponsoring agency that they wouldn’t send a firm job offer or interim until my clearance was fully determined.

Around January of this year, they ceased all communications with me.”

Scholar 5: “Communication has been infrequent, lackluster and untimely. . . . Historically, OPM has not allowed private internships to count towards our summer internship requirement. They decided to bend the rules this summer. Sounds great, but my cohort wasn’t informed until late spring. By that time, it was entirely too late to secure an internship with a private company for that summer.”

FNN: How have those challenges changed your career outlook and view of public service? And with OPM recently announcing plans for a ‘mass deferment’ of SFS deadlines, what questions or concerns do you continue to have about the future of CyberCorps and your prospects for finding approved work after graduation?

Scholar 1: “We appreciate the rapid response, especially in light of the shutdown, and are thankful for the first piece of substantial information that’s come out of the SFS office in months. Although we are grateful for the acknowledgement from OPM, their statement has still left hundreds of people concerned about their future. Post-shutdown deferments will do little to help our situation – our biggest blocker is the crusade against federal hiring and public sector cybersecurity overall. We have legitimate concerns and reservations, that are validated by the lack of communication and support that’s been received over the past ten months. Thank you for the response. Please, let’s keep this conversation going.”

Scholar 2: “We would be more comfortable if there were more flexibility. There are a lot more opportunities working the same role, but as a private contractor working for the government. In the past, they’d say no, you can’t be a private contractor. They’d want you to be a federal employee. But with the job freeze, it feels like that’s the only way.

If there are no jobs, they’re not upholding their end of the contract. . . The general consensus is that there needs to be more transparency. We just want to have a simple conversation with OPM to see what they can do, not just with the deferment but with flexibility.”

Scholar 3: “We should be doing everything we can to encourage and attract talent. I’ve met some of the smartest people I had ever met in my life through this program, who don’t know what to do and are looking at going private rather than doing what they originally intended.”

(Federal job applications now include essay questions asking how candidates would “advance the President’s executive orders and policy priorities.”  Federal employee unions are suing the Trump administration over those questions.)

Scholar 3: “I used to say I don’t care what administration I serve. I wanted to serve my neighbors. But these questions aren’t framed around serving the country. It’s serving a person.

I saw one role I wanted to apply to two weeks ago. When I saw those loyalty questions, I sat there and thought, I don’t have the ability to go through this right now. I didn’t want to put that on my plate.”

Scholar 4: “The first question a lot of us would have is, what’s the time frame? How much time are they actually allotting us? Even if we’re given additional time, if I can’t get a clearance or we get another freeze and they’re not able to process that, it further puts a halt on this process, and I’m left in the same situation.

Even once you secure a job, you have to maintain the job. That goes for a new hire when you’re in the probation period, assuming you don’t get laid off then. I think it just puts additional stress and strain on us mentally.

I don’t think people are considering that factor and OPM hasn’t provided any true reassurance.”

Scholar 5: “I have now started the process of commissioning as an officer with the Navy. My family worries that I’m choosing this path because I feel like I have no other way out — and truthfully, it’s hard for me to parse through my own thoughts on the matter; however, I am choosing to remain excited about the prospect.”

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Interview transcript: 

Terry Gerton Well, we’re now in the midst of the longest lapse in appropriations in our government’s history at the federal level, so we kind of were tuned in to the impacts right away on federal workers and contractor workers. What are you seeing now that this has gone on for over a month?

Andrew Turnbull [It’s] really creating a lot of challenges for federal contractors and their employees. I think we’ve seen, unfortunately over the last decade or so, a number of different government shutdowns. And so I think it’s not surprising to either federal contractors or employees that there was going to be a shutdown potentially this time. I think what is surprising at this point is how long it’s going on. And so this is really causing a lot of issues for contractors and their employees. You know, certainly from the contractor side of the house, some are experiencing stop work orders; they’ve already had those. They’re getting delays in contracts, awards and payments. And obviously this impacts their cash flows, their project timelines, how are they going to do the work that they’re contracted to do, but it also has a lot of ripple effects for their employees. We are seeing a lot of cases where certain contractors’ employees have been permanently laid off. In a lot of other cases they’re just being furloughed and some of them are being asked to use their PTO during this period of time to kind of cover their pay. But, you know, this is continuing to go on and so that PTO is running out and that is causing a lot of unique issues for contractors to have to navigate. And so there’s a lot of business and legal issues for contractors to consider here. They need to think through various federal and state compliance issues like wage and hour issues, providing advanced notice for layoffs. If they have unionized workforces, maybe there are going to be issues with having to comply with their collective bargaining agreements or potentially bargaining with their unions. And then from the business side of the house there are a lot of practical issues in terms of trying to have good employee relations here. You know, they want to certainly treat their employees the right way and also try to retain the talent so when the shutdown hopefully ends and they get the work back they can have everybody back in the seat and retain the good people.

Terry Gerton Talk us through some of those labor law issues that apply to the private sector that are different from how federal employees, furloughed federal employees or accepted service are are affected.

Andrew Turnbull One of the big issues that comes up here is wage and hour compliance. And that applies sometimes to federal employees as well, but also certainly to private contractors. And there’s a federal and state overlay that can sometimes have conflicting rules on certain things. A lot of contractors have had to furlough employees so they don’t have work for them at a certain point in time. And if you’re talking about non-exempt employees, employees who are eligible for overtime and are hourly workers, it’s generally, from a wage and hour perspective, pretty easy for compliance because if they’re not working, you don’t have to pay them. Now that could not be the case, particularly if you have a collective bargaining agreement, there may be issues where you have to bargain with the union or comply with that. But it becomes much more complex where you have exempt employees who you pay a salary to and you don’t have to pay overtime to. Exempt employees, per federal and state law, have to receive their full salary for any week in which they perform any work. Now, this is regardless of the number of days or hours that they work in a week, and you can’t deduct from their salary for like partial day absences. So, you know, essentially what contractors have to do is make sure that they don’t perform any work during a work week during a furlough, or they could be on the hook to pay their entire salary. And if you fail to comply with this, you potentially could lose the exempt status for that employee. And in some circumstances, you may lose that for all employees who are in the same position, so it’s a big issue to comply with. And this creates a lot of practical challenges because we all know during shutdowns, there’s a lot of ongoing work where things kind of ramp up, may shut down, or maybe it’s periodic. And so how do you comply with this? How do you tell people, hey, you can’t work at all, or you can only work these amounts, and making sure that you have the funds to pay for these things. And in some cases, the government’s not going to pay you for all the idle time that they’re doing. And then it creates practical challenges from a compliance and also a business perspective. Another issue that can come up too is that some contractors, unfortunately, due to being cash-strapped, may have to ask certain employees to take salary reductions. And they can do that under federal law. State laws may differ on some of this, but they have to be very careful in terms of how they do these salary reductions. Obviously, there’s an employee relations issue to that, but from a wage and hour perspective, they can’t reduce it below a certain minimum salary threshold, or they can void that exempt status. And they also can’t kind of fluctuate their salary back and forth because if they do that, then they’re considered more like hourly employees, and they may also lose the exempt. PTO can also create some interesting issues as well. Most companies that have PTO policies, they have to make a business decision. Do we want to force our employees to use their accrued PTO during this period of time? You know, that’s not an easy question for all companies. Employees sometimes view that very negatively, but from a compliance perspective, most of the time, employers can have a right to force their employees to use their PTO subject to certain exceptions. Certain state laws may have certain rules around when you can have employees use their PTO. For example, PTO may include paid sick leave and some states have mandatory paid sick leave thresholds, and it could violate paid sick leave laws to mandate that an employee have to take a paid sick leave for something like a furlough, which is not a covered reason for that sick leave.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Andrew Turnbull. He’s the co-chair of the employment and labor practice at Morrison and Foerster. It sounds like from a corporate HR perspective, this is a really tricky time. And on top of that, the federal Wage and Hour office is mostly furloughed, so there’s less oversight and really not anybody to call if you have questions. How are companies navigating in this time frame?

Andrew Turnbull Yeah, I think at this point a lot of companies are having to make sure that they look at their compliance. There are a lot of areas that you can misstep, and even though maybe some of these federal regulators right now are not looking at these claims, certainly the plaintiff’s bar is. And employees know how to contact attorneys and enforce their rights. And in some cases, these attorneys are not going to go through federal enforcement agencies, they’re gonna go straight to court, particularly for wage and hour issues. Another issue that can come up here is the federal WARN Act. And states have a lot of WARN laws, and that creates a lot of issues. So these WARN laws typically require contractors to provide advanced notice if they are going to lay off and, in some cases, furlough employees for a certain period of time. Under the federal WARN Act, if there is a mass layoff or a plant closing, you have to provide sixty days advanced notice. Now you could, in some instances, pay in lieu of, but that’s a bigger chunk of money if the company can’t provide that advanced notice. The good news is under federal WARN, they do have an exemption for furloughs. So, if it’s not an actual employment loss, you do and plan as the employer to call back these individuals to work, there is a six-month period of time where you could furlough someone without triggering WARN. We hope that this shutdown does not go past six months, so for most federal contractors, you may not trigger federal WARN. But not all states follow that same exception for their many state WARN laws. For example, California famously does not follow that. If you have furloughed employees for a certain period of time and you trigger that law from a WARN perspective, you may still have to comply with it. It creates a very nuanced kind of patchwork of laws that you have to kind of think through in this area. And that’s just one example of the many things that contractors have to continue to navigate.

Terry Gerton It sounds like there’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of variability in how these wage and hour laws apply to companies depending on where they are, how long their folks might be off the job and when they might alert them to come back. Are there best practices that you suggest for companies as they’re trying to communicate with their employees about what’s happening?

Andrew Turnbull Yes, I think it is hard for a lot of contractors to [spend] a lot of time in these in these types of situations. You may receive a stop work order and have to immediately stop work and make decisions on that.  But I think this is where trying to get as much advanced planning as possible is very key here. There are a lot of issues to consider and plan for, as we’ve talked about: wage and hour issues, WARN issues. And a lot of times when you have contractors, there are a lot of stakeholders that you have to consider internally, both from a management and executive capacity. You may have other types of subcontractors and other entities that you may need consider what to do with. There are a lot of decisions to be made. Planning as early as possible is very key here. And, working closely with your internal or external counsel to understand what the landmines are that you need to navigate here. As you mentioned, communication is key, and that goes for multiple levels. One of those is making sure you communicate with your customer, the government customer, what are the expectations here from the government customer? Is it completely stopping work? Is it stop and start? What are their expectations? They may not know all of these things, but certainly trying to have good communication with them to understand what they are being pressured to do at this point in terms of their funding, what do they expect. And that will hopefully give you some insight to plan a little bit better. Also, understand in past government shutdowns, some contractors were not reimbursed for days their employees were idle. I don’t know if agencies are going to have clarity on that here, but maybe talk with your contracting officers to understand if that is going to be the case going forward. They may not have received any direction on that yet, but [it’s] certainly something to cover with your contracting officer. Also, make sure you communicate with, obviously, impacted employees. Retention and employee morale is key here. It’s a difficult time for everyone and I think [it’s beneficial] having some sensitivity with your employees, making sure that your communications are clear, consistent, transparent. Obviously, you may not know all the details of everything, but try to be as transparent as possible. Make sure they understand the rules of the road that you’ve set in place and make sure that managers understand those things as well. We talked about the wage and hour compliance issue earlier, and if you have employees who are exempt employees, who are furloughed in a week, and you don’t want them to perform any work during that work week so you don’t have to actually pay their full salary. You want to make sure that you have communications in place to inform employees: do not perform any work. You may even want to think about taking a step further and saying, we’re just going to cut your system access during this period of time so you can’t actually work. You might want to hop on an email and we don’t want to have to pay you for that. These are all things that you have to kind of think through as a best practice [in these scenarios]. I think the other thing is there are a lot of things that can come into play here from a contractual and legal perspective. Sometimes we will find that in the haste of doing things, people may forget, oh yeah, this employee actually has an employment agreement that requires severance. Maybe it’s for good reason if you diminish their duties at all, and a furlough may trigger that. [You should] making sure that you know where all the different traps could be can take time to pull these things together. So checking all those boxes. And then this is obviously a fluid situation. Be prepared to monitor and adjust and ramp back up and ramp down as need be.

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Three unions representing federal employees are suing the Trump administration for including a new essay question on thousands of federal job applications, asking candidates how they plan to advance the Trump administration’s policies.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, is led by the American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and National Association of Government Employees.

One of several essay questions, outlined under the administration’s Merit Hiring Plan, asks candidates how they would “advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities,” and to name “one or two executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you,” and how they would help implement them if hired.

The unions claim the inclusion of a “loyalty question” on federal job applications runs counter to the nonpartisan nature of the civil service, because it allows the “Trump Administration to weed out those who do not voice sufficient support for President Trump and reward those who do.”

“Potential federal job applicants who want to serve the United States but do not personally support the president’s executive orders and policy initiatives — or simply prefer not to share their political beliefs and views when applying for a career federal job — will be compelled to speak in the form of a written essay praising the president’s orders and policies (in order to better their chances of employment), risk being punished for answering honestly, or be chilled from speaking at all,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit seeks to bar the Trump administration from using the “loyalty question” in federal hiring decisions or “relying on answers to the loyalty question in any manner.”

The unions claim the essay question violates the free speech rights of job candidates, because it “compels applicants to voice certain viewpoints and opinions, to self-censor, or to decline to apply for positions they are otherwise interested in.”

“That is by design. The current administration has a stated goal of removing civil servants it deems to be disloyal and replacing them with loyalists,” the complaint states. “By directing the use of the loyalty question in job applications for most career positions and instructing politically appointed agency leaders to review applicant responses, the administration appears to be trying to fill nearly every level of the civil service with political loyalists.”

The unions also claim the question violates the Privacy Act, because it “collects unnecessary and irrelevant information about the exercise of applicants’ First Amendment rights.”

The Office of Special Counsel, in its response to a complaint filed this summer, determined that the Merit Hiring Plan’s optional hiring questions did not amount to a prohibited personnel practice, and that guidance from the Office of Personnel Management ensured the questions do not constitute a loyalty test.

The lawsuit states that the Education Department has included the essay question on job applications, after shedding about half of its employees through layoffs and voluntary separation incentives this year. The Education Department is also one of several agencies that sent additional layoff notices to employees on Oct. 10.

“In other words, after firing hundreds of Department of Education employees, the agency simply re-posted the same jobs, now with the requirement to answer the loyalty question. In order to even attempt to recover their old jobs, civil servants must subject themselves to the loyalty question, regardless of their political beliefs, or remain out of work,” the complaint states.

The Trump administration released its Merit Hiring Plan in May to ensure that “only the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans are hired to the federal service.”

In follow-up guidance, however, the Office of Personnel Management downplayed the importance of the essays as just one piece of a candidate’s overall application. The HR agency said it’s optional for job candidates to answer the essays, and that candidates won’t be disqualified from consideration if they skip them.

OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement Friday that the Merit Hiring Plan “reinforces the nonpartisan character of the federal workforce,” and that “we have been very clear that hiring decisions cannot consider political or ideological beliefs.”

“The Merit Hiring Plan strengthens the career civil service by ensuring agencies evaluate applicants based on skills, experience, and commitment to public service. As part of the plan, we have recommended agencies use four optional, free-response essay questions that give candidates an opportunity to provide additional information about themselves, their background, and dedication to public service,” Kupor said.

OPM’s guidance states the essay question is non-mandatory, but “encouraged.” OPM’s guidance states that the question should not be used as a “political litmus test,” and that answers will not be scored or ranked. The unions, however, say there’s evidence that candidates’ responses will determine whether they advance to the next stage of the hiring process.

OPM’s guidance says that responses will be reviewed by hiring managers and political appointees. The lawsuit says that suggests “the answers will play some unknown and unspecified role in the hiring process.”

“Of course the loyalty question will play some role in hiring: otherwise, why include it at all?” the complaint states.

An OPM official told federal human resources officials in August that it is “mandatory” for agencies to include the essay question on job applications, but optional for candidates to answer.

The complaint states the essay question has appeared on over 5,800 federal job applications so far — and that 1,700 of those job posts have been posted since the start of the government shutdown, now the longest funding lapse in U.S. history.

The essay question appears on a wide range of job applications — from a meatcutting worker at the Defense Department, to a research biologist at the Agriculture Department, to a laundry worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The complaint states that “an applicant’s ability to perform these and other career civil service roles competently is entirely unrelated to the applicant’s personal political views.”

The post Unions sue Trump administration over ‘loyalty question’ added to federal job applications first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton: Melwood has been a leader in disability employment for nearly six decades. How would you describe the mission today and how has it changed over that time?

Larysa Kautz: Well, today Terry, Melwood is actually a family of companies with a shared vision of a world in which people with disabilities are fully included. For about six decades, we were one nonprofit entity and recently we restructured in a way so that we can serve more people, have a greater impact and grow the number of individuals that we serve.

Terry Gerton: Tell us about that restructuring and what it looks like today.

Larysa Kautz: So today it looks like Melwood Inc. is our parent holding company, where we have all of our shared services, which we then flow down to our subsidiary companies, one of which is a federal contractor, a social enterprise through which we employ nearly 900 individuals with disabilities on 60-plus federal contracts around the D.C. region. And we have Melwood Community Services, which provides license services to individuals like day programs. We have a camp for children with and without disabilities. We do after-school programs. We’re working on affordable housing now. So we have a number of companies with different missions, but all basically united by this vision that people with disabilities will have every opportunity that they’d like to be included in the community.

Terry Gerton: It sounds like it’s more a life cycle of care.

Larysa Kautz: Absolutely. We started doing a lot of workforce development and employment. That was the goal that began our nonprofit. But the more you work with that one pillar of the stool that makes up anyone’s life, the more you see the need for health care, housing, community and other aspects of what helps any person reach their full potential and live a life in the community that they choose.

Terry Gerton: Let’s go back to the specific vocational support services that you offer. What are some unique capabilities that you provide to help individuals with disabilities really succeed and grow?

Larysa Kautz: Absolutely. So we start from the pre-work world, which is workforce development, and we have done boot camps and trainings in a variety of different industries, including IT and tech, cybersecurity, AI. The construction trades, including as well as custodial, landscaping, mail room, will help train anybody with a disability in any field that they would choose to enter. Then we help them find a job, either with Melwood or with an employer in the community. And then we stay with them as a job coach, as someone that helps them integrate into the workforce, have hard conversations with your supervisor. How do you write an email when you’re angry and frustrated and work with transportation needs, housing needs, other things that arise that really do throw barriers and pitfalls in your road as you try to continue your career.

Terry Gerton: That sounds like training all of us could use a little bit of a refresher on.

Larysa Kautz: I think that’s right. I mean, I think the needs of every person with a disability are not unique. I think a lot of the needs are the things that we see. And we do a lot of training for employers as well and individuals who do not have disabilities on how to help accommodate, be inclusive and really listen to the needs of their employers and colleagues.

Terry Gerton: So as you bring these folks into the federal contractor space at Melwood, what are the toughest adaptations that they go through and how then do you work with government agencies to make sure that they’re effectively using the talents of these individuals?

Larysa Kautz: So one of the hardest barriers to overcome is taking yourself from your home environment, which you have managed to accommodate to your comfort level, to your sensory needs, to accommodate any physical needs, and to then find yourself in a job, 9 to 5, every day of the week that wasn’t necessarily crafted or created for a variety of different disabilities. And so we certainly work in our buildings as well as in government buildings to create opportunities to have a quiet space, to have a space where you can go kind of decompress if that’s something that’s needed during the day or to be able to go run around and get out some of the stimming type of behavior that someone might need to be able to re-regulate and just continue doing their work. I think remote work and hybrid work has helped quite a bit. A lot of our employees and other employees that we see out in the working world to be able to have some days where you can focus without colleagues around, without a lot of noise on the work that you’re doing. And it makes it easier to make it through the days that you do have to go in and have some of that social interaction, especially if you’re not necessarily an extrovert by nature.

Terry Gerton: I’m speaking with Larysa Kautz. She’s the president and CEO of Melwood. Larysa, I want to go back a couple of years because Melwood partnered with MITRE and the University of Washington to launch a neurodiversity at work playbook and pilot with some federal government agencies. Can you tell us what you learned from that pilot and how it’s playing out in the work that Melwood is doing now?

Larysa Kautz: Absolutely. So we created a training program called abilIT about seven years ago to teach neurodivergent individuals the skills they need to get a certificate in a cybersecurity field and then to be able to enter that field. And we worked with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to help them fill openings that they had for cybersecurity specialists and worked with them to understand the value of having someone who looks at things a little bit differently, is neurodivergent and found that the skills that they bring to the table are unlike other skills that organization had seen where they can catch mistakes, they can see patterns, they can really catch issues that weren’t being caught. So it worked wonderfully and we were able to adapt kind of the autism-at-work playbook for neurodiversity in the federal government playbook, which we hope to continue to do in the future. Right now, we’re taking our abilIT program nationwide and teaching other nonprofits around the country to do the training so that we can help fill the labor needs of national companies that are looking for cybersecurity, as well as now, AI technicians and individuals that can get certificates in those fields. And I think the neurodivergent population is perfect for the job.

Terry Gerton: It seems like such a crucial enabler because so many times folks who are neurodivergent have a difficult time getting through the hiring process, right?

Larysa Kautz: Absolutely, and that’s part of the program. It’s a 14-week program. A lot of it is on the substantive IT skills to get your certificate, but half of the time is spent on developing the skills that you need to get through an interview, to get though orientation, and then to grow your career and to be able to communicate with supervisors.

Terry Gerton: I want to also point out a recent study with Virginia Tech showed that Melwood’s model outperforms other employment mechanisms in both quality and cost effectiveness. What is it about the Melwood model, maybe the key ingredient to your soup, that makes it work so well?

Larysa Kautz: A lot of it is the wraparound supports and the professional development supports that we offer, not just to our students, but also to the employers. So having employers at the front end that have needs for the workforce really helps make sure we have the pipeline of workforce development training all the way through the job and then we stay with the individuals and we will coach them and if they don’t make it in the first job, we will help them find a second job. And maybe find a different line of IT tech to go into if the first one that they chose didn’t work.

Terry Gerton: I know you’ve been in this space for a while, but I’m wondering, are there still things that surprise you in encounters with employers as they encounter this population?

Larysa Kautz: Well, one of the employers that we’ve worked with, Enabled Intelligence in Falls Church, they do data annotation and labeling for computer vision models, teaching AI, essentially, to recognize what is on a picture or on a map. And they have both higher quality and speed in the work that they’re able to do. As a for-profit company, they’re recognizing the return on investment that they have by making their hiring practices inclusive of the neurodivergent population. So there really is an economic reason to do this.

Terry Gerton: And what would you recommend as best practices for other employers, public or private, who want to build more inclusive workforces?

Larysa Kautz: I would encourage them to not be afraid of the word disability and to include a conversation about inclusion and accommodations right up front in their job descriptions, in their hiring practices, in their orientation and create space for people to feel comfortable asking for accommodations, which frankly usually cost less than $400 per employee, often are free and will create an inclusive culture for all of your employees.

Terry Gerton: And find a workforce that’s liable to stick with them for a long time, right?

Larysa Kautz: Absolutely. You’ll find loyal employees that will not job hop, but will stay in a place where they feel welcome.

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