The Office of Personnel Management is trying to address what it says are concerns from some managers and supervisors who worry they may be held personally liable for disciplining federal employees deemed poor performers.
In response to those concerns, a Nov. 21 memo from OPM clarified that managers and supervisors are generally acting on behalf of an agency when they “manage employees’ job performance and address unacceptable performance.” There is an “extremely limited scope” where managers or supervisors would be held individually responsible for those actions, OPM said.
When a manager puts an employee on a performance improvement plan, demotes an employee or removes an employee from their job for poor performance, that’s technically considered the action of the agency, OPM said, and not the individual manager’s responsibility. If an employee challenges one of those actions, OPM said that the agency, not the manager, would be responsible for responding.
“In the unusual event that a manager or supervisor is sued personally for actions within the scope of their employment, the Department of Justice (DOJ) typically provides representation,” the memo reads.
But if a supervisor or manager misuses their authority — for example through discrimination, harassment or whistleblower-related prohibited personnel practices — OPM said the individual can then be held personally accountable for their actions.
In its memo, OPM also reminded supervisors and managers of the availability of professional liability insurance, which may help protect them in the rare cases where they may be held liable. Supervisors and managers are usually eligible for a government reimbursement amounting to up to half the cost of the insurance.
“But even in these situations Congress did not give employees the right to hold their managers or supervisors personally liable for any performance or conduct-related adverse action,” OPM said.
OPM’s clarification comes after the Trump administration earlier this year set new expectations for measuring federal employees’ job performance. In June, OPM told agencies they don’t have to use “progressive discipline” and that they should not substitute a suspension when a full removal of an employee from their job “would be appropriate.”
The administration’s new performance management standards also attempt to more strictly delineate between different levels of employee performance and encourage agencies to rate fewer employees as high performers.
OPM Director Scott Kupor has repeatedly argued that the government has inflated performance ratings, and has targeted the rating system as a key area for OPM to update.
“In the real world we are not all equally successful and differences in performance from one person to the next are in fact real,” Kupor wrote in a Sept. 15 blog post. “We simply can’t all get A’s because not everyone’s contributions to the success of the organization are the same. Some people simply perform better than others — whether by luck or skill.”
More recently, OPM also announced a new mandatory training program for all federal supervisors, intended to educate supervisors on how to better manage performance of federal employees. The one-hour online course will cover topics including recognition, awards, hiring, firing and discipline of federal employees, according to a memo OPM sent to agencies Wednesday.
“At the end of the training, supervisors will be ready to set clear expectations, deliver quality feedback, document fairly, reward excellence, and take timely action when needed—all while building an engaged, high-performing team through transparency, accountability, and collaboration,” the memo stated.
Federal supervisors are required to complete the training by Feb. 9, 2026, OPM said.
The required supervisor training comes shortly after OPM also launched two optional training programs, designed to educate senior executives in the federal workforce, while incorporating common themes from the Trump administration on “accountability,” performance management and adherence to the president’s priorities.
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Federal executives may soon see even more changes coming from the Trump administration. The Office of Personnel Management is now encouraging agencies to consider possible reassignments of Senior Executive Service members. In a new memo, OPM argued that the SES has not served as a “mobile corps” of managers, and members are instead being “entrenched” at agencies. The new memo comes after OPM also advised agencies to consider lowering their staffing allocations for senior-level positions.
More than 118,000 Defense Department employees under the Federal Wage System are finally getting their long-delayed 2024 pay raise. The Pentagon’s Wage Committee met last week for the first time this year and approved updates to roughly 1,600 wage schedules across 250 wage areas. The panel had been unable to meet since March, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth paused all advisory committees for a broader review. Wage grade employees haven’t received a pay increase since 2023. The approved pay raises will be retroactive, and may not show up in paychecks until January 2026.
The Pentagon said it’s ready to launch a new plan to spend about $1 billion on small, inexpensive drones over the next two years. A request for information the Defense Department issued to industry this week ask for input on the possibility of building 300,000 small drones for one-way attack missions. DoD wants to start testing potential systems by February as part of a series of “gauntlets.” Up to 12 vendors could get awards after the first gauntlet.
A bill to overhaul the federal probationary period has cleared a hurdle in the House. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced the so-called EQUALS Act along party lines on Tuesday. If enacted, the bill would double the length of the probationary period from one year to two years for most new federal hires. Committee Democrats criticized the legislation, saying it could open the door to more terminations of probationary workers. The EQUALS Act was one of about a dozen federal workforce bills the Oversight committee approved for further consideration in the House.
Thousands of post offices across the country have closed over the past few decades, according to a recent data analysis. The startup Use Postal estimates that 8,000 post offices have closed since the 1960s. It also estimates that out of the nearly 40,000 to have existed, about 67% of them are still operational to this day. Post office closures have disproportionately impacted states like Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia.
The State Department is telling employees targeted by mass layoffs this summer that their official separation date is imminent. The department’s human resources office told laid off Foreign Service employees that they will be officially separated from the agency this Friday. State Department attorneys determined that a recent stopgap spending bill passed by Congress does not require the agency to rescind any RIF notices that were sent before the government shutdown. These Foreign Service employees were originally on track to be separated from the agency on Nov. 10. But the department said it’s extending their administrative leave to address “administrative errors."
The General Services Administration made its 14th deal under its OneGov initiative. Through a new contract with SAP, agencies would receive up to an 80% discount off of Schedule prices for the company's database, integration, analytics and cloud software titles. GSA said this could save the government $165 million dollars over the agreement's 18-month duration, calculated against current government rates. GSA said this agreement is available to existing SAP customers for renewals, expansions or modernization projects.
The federal offices are back open and hundreds of thousands of federal workers have returned to work after the longest shutdown in history. But nothing is back to normal. Federal workers say morale and trust in leadership are at an all-time low, tensions are high between furloughed staff and those who worked through the shutdown, schedules are slipping and projects are being pushed back. More people are accelerating their retirement plans or leaving federal service altogether. But the recent shutdown has exacerbated the existing problems, and added to what federal workers described as an already extremely trying year for the federal workforce. “As if morale wasn’t already non-existent, it sure is now,” one government worker said.
U.S. and agency flags fly outside the Theodore Roosevelt Building, location of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024, in Washington. Former President Donald Trump has plans to radically reshape the federal government if he returns to the White House, from promising to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally to firing tens of thousands of government workers. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is convening Tuesday morning to mark up a slew of bills, many of which would impact the federal workforce in one way or another.
Tuesday’s meeting will be the first legislative markup session the committee has held in nearly two months, with the last being prior to the 43-day government shutdown. Any bills that the committee approves during the markup will advance to the full House for further consideration.
Several other legislative changes may be on the horizon as well. Here are three key bills up for the committee’s consideration that may bring significant changes for the federal workforce:
Probationary period, federal workforce changes
One Republican-led bill, introduced by Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) in October, aims to cement many of the changes the Trump administration has made to the government’s rules for the probationary period in the federal workforce.
If enacted, the so-called EQUALS Act would require most new federal employees to serve a two-year probationary period — a time in which employees have limited appeal rights and are easier to remove, before their employment in the federal workforce can be solidified.
Part of the bill would compel agencies to evaluate their employees regularly throughout the federal probationary period. And in the last 30 days of that two-year period, agencies would have to certify — and get the Office of Personnel Management to approve — that the probationary employee “advances the public interest,” before the employee can become tenured.
Any probationary employees who are not actively certified by their agency would be terminated, according to the GOP-led legislation.
The bill also states that when making a decision on whether to keep a probationary employee, agencies can additionally consider performance and conduct; the “needs and interests” of the agency; and whether the employee would advance “organizational goals” or “efficiency.”
The EQUALS Act aligns with efforts from the Trump administration earlier this year to overhaul the rules for the government’s probationary period. In April, President Donald Trump called for the creation of “Civil Service Rule XI,” which similarly required agencies to review and actively sign off on probationary workers’ continued employment before they can be moved out of a probationary period.
Trump’s executive order also expanded the reasons that probationary period employees can be fired. In June, OPM further clarified that probationary employees can be terminated based on broader reasons than the previous limitations set only to performance or conduct.
The House bill also comes after the Trump administration fired tens of thousands of probationary employees earlier this year, stating that the removals were due to “poor performance.” But in September, a federal judge found that OPM unlawfully directed the mass probationary firings. The judge ordered agencies to update employees’ personnel files to reflect that their firings were not due to performance or misconduct.
An eye on official time
A separate bill teed up by Republicans would compel agencies to provide much more detail on federal union representatives’ use of official time to both Congress and the public on an annual basis.
The Official Time Reporting Act from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) 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.
The legislation would then require OPM and the Office of Management and Budget to create and send a joint report to Congress, and make publicly available online, the details of official time governmentwide. Those reports would have to cover how much official time each federal employee used, as well as provide data on official time hours calculated against the total number of bargaining unit employees for an “official time rate.”
Under the GOP-led legislation, those annual reports would additionally have to detail the specific purpose of all official time, the amount of money withheld for union dues, the cost of pay and benefits for all employees while they are on official time, and the office space and resources union representatives use while on official time.
Generally, official time refers to on-the-clock hours that go toward work such as negotiating union contracts, meeting with management, filing complaints or grievances against an agency, or representing employees who are dealing with disciplinary actions or other management disputes. Federal unions are allotted, by law, specific and limited amounts of agency time and resources to conduct activities on official time.
Official time by union representatives has been a major target of the Trump administration this year. Some agencies have either reduced or fully removed official time options, in response to executive orders from Trump calling for the termination of collective bargaining at the majority of executive branch agencies.
The administration’s actions have received major pushback from federal unions such as the American Federation of Government Employees, which said OPM’s characterization of official time as “taxpayer-funded union time” is false and stigmatizing.
Mandatory executive training
During Tuesday’s markup, Oversight committee lawmakers also plan to consider legislation that would require a mandatory training program all managers and supervisors across the federal workforce would have to take.
Under the Federal Supervisor Education Act, which Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) introduced in October, agencies would have to work with OPM to create training programs for agency managers, with at least some modules focused on goals like performance management, employee engagement and productivity.
The bill would also require the training programs to cover how supervisors should manage employees who have “unacceptable performance,” as well as how to make use of the probationary period. The bill also mandates that managers and supervisors receive training on how to address reports of harassment, prohibited personnel practices, employee rights, and more.
The legislation emphasizes that agencies should use “instructor-based” training as much as practicable. If enacted, supervisors would have to complete the training within one year of being appointed to a supervisory role, and would have to retake the trainings at least once every three years following that.
The Republican-led effort comes after OPM launched two federal workforce training programs for senior executives in November, incorporating common themes from the Trump administration on “accountability,” performance management and adherence to the president’s priorities.
Although both new programs are optional, OPM still told agencies to “set the expectation” that all career Senior Executive Service members should at least complete training modules on “returning to founding principles” and “implementing administration priorities” within the next year.
In the Oversight committee meeting Tuesday, all three federal workforce bills, along with many others, will be up for consideration and potential advancement in the House.
Nearly two weeks after the record-long government shutdown ended, some Defense Department civilian employees say they have yet to receive the back pay they are owed.
The federal government reopened on Nov. 13 after President Donald Trump signed a bill to fund the government through Jan. 30, ending the 43-day shutdown and allowing tens of thousands of DoD civilians to return to work.
At the time, the Office of Personnel Management said that checks for DoD civilians were slated to go out on Nov. 16. DoD civilians, however, were told to expect payment sometime between Nov. 17 and Nov. 20.
But with Thanksgiving week now underway, many workers say they are still waiting for as much as four weeks of back pay.
One civilian employee at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, who was furloughed during the shutdown, told Federal News Network that more than 150 people in their unit of more than 400 civilians have not been paid.
“When everybody got back to work, we were told that the next week — or mid-week — we would get paid. And a lot of people did get paid, but a lot of us have not. They keep saying, ‘It’s going to take a few days,’” he said Wednesday.
The Air Force employee said there has been no official guidance or clear communication, but their supervisor told them Wednesday to expect back pay on Nov. 29.
“There’s nothing in writing,” the employee said. “It’s all the leadership just walking around telling us, ‘Expect to get paid.’ There’s no email traffic — it’s just their own interpretation of when they think we’re going to get paid. But there’s been nothing official sent out.”
A DoD spokesperson told Federal News Network that all civilians whose updated time and attendance have been received have been paid.
“It is essential that civilian employees review their time and attendance reports, and their Leave and Earnings Statements (LES) for accuracy. Civilians with questions or civilian pay issues should contact their local Agency Customer Service Representative (CSR) or immediate supervisor. [The Defense Finance and Accounting Service] will continue to work with the military components to resolve any remaining payment issues,” the spokesperson said.
Another Air Force civilian in San Antonio, who worked through the shutdown, said many civilians in their unit of police officers are still waiting for back pay.
“Nobody in leadership has put out any message other than when I inquired with my person who handles the payroll. She just said we should be getting paid on the 23rd or 24th, but that didn’t happen. Now, we are going into past Thanksgiving, who knows when it’s going to be,” the Air Force civilian told Federal News Network on Wednesday.
He said he has been trying for weeks to get answers for himself and the employees he supervises. When he asked his own supervisor for help, he was told to consider filing a congressional complaint.
“That’s just laughable to me because we have a GS-13, we have a commander and active-duty commander. There’s a whole bunch of people between me and my congressman that could probably provide answers. But going to your supervisor hasn’t worked,” the Air Force employee said.
“I don’t understand why they can’t just put out a simple explanation, because communication really helps, whether it’s good or bad, but at least they could explain why or what the problem is, but they haven’t. It’s frustrating,” he added.
The bill that Congress passed to reopen the government reaffirmed that both furloughed and excepted federal employees would receive back pay. The Office of Personnel Management official guidance stated the agency “is committed to ensuring that retroactive pay is provided as soon as possible,” and that the retroactive pay for excepted employees “must be provided at the earliest date possible after the lapse ends.”
A defense official told Federal News Network last week that “DFAS is running continuous pay cycles to expeditiously pay civilians a one-time retroactive lump sum payment for pay periods missed during the government shutdown. Civilians and service members who have questions regarding their pay may contact their local finance office or chain of command.”
The Department of the Air Force did not respond to questions about how many Air Force civilian employees are impacted, the cause of the delay or when civilians should expect back pay.
With pay stalled for weeks, many federal workers were forced to dip into savings, rely on credit cards, seek out no-interest loans or take on part-time work to make ends meet. Military families have been turning up at food banks in greater numbers — the Armed Services YMCA, for example, reported a 30% to 75% spike in demand at its food pantries near military installations since the shutdown began.
“I’ve joked with my family and my kids that if I don’t get back pay, we might have to push Christmas til maybe January, but the impending loom of another shutdown at the end of January, it can’t get worse,” the Air Force employee from Laughlin Air Force Base said.
Defense Department civilians aren’t the only ones still waiting for their back pay.
“Smithsonian still has not managed to get us paid. They are wasting time making sure everyone has the correct time codes rather than getting people paid. It’s more important to them that they take a couple weeks to record we were furloughed. Can’t pay the mortgage, but at least they’ll have the correct time code,” a federal employee told Federal News Network on Nov. 22.
At the Federal Aviation Administration, one air traffic control employee reported receiving only partial back pay through the end of November.
Meanwhile, federal workers who have received back pay told Federal News Network they cannot verify whether the pay was accurate as they have not received an accompanying Leave and Earnings Statement.
“Not sure if it is accurate, as no LES are being created for the back pay,” one federal employee said.
“Without a LES, I have no idea. I just hope it’s right. It feels like it might be right, but I don’t know,” another employee told Federal News Network.
Others reported major errors — an employee who received their back pay said it was “taxed so incorrectly that my first paycheck after returning was missing about $500 and only one of two missed health insurance payments were taken out.”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.
FILE - The Pentagon in Washington, March 27, 2008. The Defense Department will install solar panels on the Pentagon as part of a Biden administration plan to promote energy conservation and clean energy. The Pentagon is one of 31 government sites that are receiving grants for the Energy Department program, which the administration says is intended to “reestablish the federal government as a sustainability leader” and promote President Joe Biden’s commitment to clean energy. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
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.
Customer satisfaction with benefits and services provided by the federal government is higher than it’s been in nearly two decades. That’s despite a tumultuous year where agencies have seen a major downsizing of the federal workforce. Scores are higher on average, but the latest scorecard from the American Customer Satisfaction Index does show a few agencies are seeing lower scores. The Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Homeland Security are among the agencies with lower customer experience scores.
More information may soon come to light on how agencies are implementing some of President Donald Trump’s executive orders. OPM said it will conduct studies to find out the latest on the administration’s return-to-office policy. It’s also going to look into agencies’ removal of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs. OPM is asking all agencies to respond by the end of today with a point of contact who can provide further information for the studies.
A new audit found that the Defense Department is falling short in catching potential fraud, misuse and abuse of its government travel charge card program. The Pentagon’s office of inspector general said the department is not effectively using Citi’s Electronic Access System, the main tool to flag suspicious activity. Officials often could not or did not use the mandatory reports as required by regulations for oversight of the travel program due to unclear policies and inadequate training. As a result, thousands of travel card accounts were not closed or transferred when personnel left or changed units. The inspector general warned that until the Defense Travel Management Office improves the travel program controls, oversight officials will continue to miss opportunities to identify misuse or abuse within the program.
Operation Homefront distributed holiday meals to D.C. Guard members and their families as food-related assistance requests surge. As part of their Holiday Meals for Military program, the organization provided families with all the fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, as well as Harris Teeter gift cards so families could purchase their protein of choice. With grocery prices rising and many service members still feeling the financial strain of the recent shutdown, the organization said demand for assistance has surged. Food requests alone are up 57% this year. “Our case work is up quadruple what it was 30 days ago," Operation Homefront said.
A Postal Service contractor has agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act. The Justice Department said Sky Lease falsely reported how quickly it was moving mail from domestic, Defense and State Department facilities to other locations around the world. Half the settlement amount is for restitution to the Postal Service.
After reports that it was wrapping things up early, the Department of Government Efficiency said that's not the case. A DOGE spokesperson told Federal News Network that DOGE and its longer-term, tech-aligned counterpart, the U.S. DOGE Service, both remain and that the latter organization is moving ahead with a full slate of modernization projects. The spokesman also confirmed that Amy Gleason remains the acting administrator of USDS. Reuters published a story on Monday claiming that DOGE no longer exists. That’s about eight months ahead of the schedule set by President Trump.
OPM said about 317,000 employees have left federal service so far in 2025, going beyond the Trump administration’s workforce reduction goals. Those departures compare to just 68,000 new hires during the same timeframe. OPM Director Scott Kupor also shared insight on newly required governmentwide headcount plans, which President Trump ordered as part of an initiative to make sure four employees leave federal service for every one that joins.
The Trump administration is telling agencies to rethink how many senior executives they really need. Agencies have until Dec. 19 to tell the Office of Personnel Management if they want to lower, or raise, how many staffing spots they’ll allocate for senior-level positions. A new memo from OPM said this headcount review is especially important, considering the major reductions to the federal workforce that have occurred this year. That may result in a corresponding need to reduce agency spots for senior executives, according to OPM.
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.
FILE - The Theodore Roosevelt Building, location of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, on Feb. 13, 2024, in Washington. The government's chief human resources agency has issued a new rule making it harder to fire thousands of federal employees. Advocates hope the rule will head off former President Donald Trump's promises to radically remake the workforce along ideological lines if he wins back the White House in November. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
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.”
FILE - Elon Musk flashes his T-shirt that reads "DOGE" to the media as he walks on South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, March 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
The Trump administration said it’s finished updating federal employee records to remove some of the negative consequences of this year’s mass firing of probationary employees. Federal agencies say the personnel records have all been updated to reflect the fact that those workers were not fired for performance reasons. That step was ordered by a federal judge, who found agencies wrongly asserted that employees’ terminations were connected to their performance.
The Postal Service is starting fiscal 2026 with more red ink. USPS said it ended October with a $545 million net loss. That’s more than double the net loss it projected for the month. USPS ended fiscal 2025 with a $9 billion net loss. The agency is heading into its busy peak season, which is also when it brings in the most revenue.
Recent reporting stating that the Department of Government Efficiency is dead has sparked some pushback from the Trump administration. Rather than DOGE being fully non-existent, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor said DOGE has simply taken on a new form. President Donald Trump’s initiative to cut the government’s size and spending may no longer have centralized leadership, but Kupor said the emphasis on efficiency remains “alive and well.”
Democratic lawmakers say agencies aren’t reinstating as many federal employees as they should be. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is leading the push for more RIF rescissions, along with several of his Democratic colleagues. They say employees who received reduction in force (RIF) notices before the government shutdown, but were on track to be officially separated from their agencies during the shutdown, should get their jobs back. This would all happen under layoff protection language in the spending bill Congress passed to end the funding lapse. Kaine was one of eight Democratic senators who broke ranks to pass the stopgap spending bill, only after Republicans agreed to include language that would protect federal employees from layoffs at least through Jan. 30, 2026.
A major update to one of the government’s largest data assets is on the horizon. The exact launch date for a new version of the Office of Personnel Management’s FedScope is unclear. But the agency said testing and development of the new website is underway, and a launch is “imminent.” Generally, the agency estimated that a new website for federal workforce data to replace FedScope would be published sometime “shortly after the new year.”
A new audit found that the Defense Department failed to properly manage its financial reporting system after retiring 10 finance and accounting systems. The Pentagon’s office of inspector general said the reporting system continued using data from 57 obsolete files which contained $4.2 trillion in balances that were not required for Treasury reporting and served no financial purpose. This happened because the Defense Finance and Accounting Service did not archive balances from retired financial management systems and did not fully migrate required information into active systems. Auditors warn that this unnecessary and unsupported data is complicating an already difficult reporting process and could hinder the Pentagon’s ability to achieve a clean audit by 2028. The inspector general issued six recommendations, including archiving unused balances and ensuring required data is properly transferred and documented.
President Trump is pushing a new initiative to use AI to solve engineering, energy and national security problems. An executive order the president signed yesterday launches what the White House is calling the “Genesis Mission.” The EO outlines a framework for collaboration between federal agencies, research institutions and private sector companies. The order tells the Energy Department and national labs to build a digital platform to concentrate the nation’s scientific data in one place.
Navy Secretary John Phelan is inviting venture capital firms and private investors to participate in an industry event introducing the Department of the Navy’s newly established Rapid Capabilities Office. The two-day event will cover the service’s most urgent operational challenges and how the new office plans to work with industry to solve those pressing issues. The first industry day, which will take place on Dec. 9, will be open to venture capital firms and technology companies. The second, classified session on Dec. 10 will welcome the investment community. The service is encouraging both existing and new industry partners to participate.
The Office of Personnel Management has launched a new training series, designed to educate senior executives in the federal workforce, while incorporating common themes from the Trump administration on “accountability,” performance management and adherence to the president’s priorities.
Two new training programs that OPM announced last week are targeted toward both career and political members of the Senior Executive Service, as well as GS-14 and GS-15 federal employees. The trainings largely reflect the Trump administration’s reshaping of the federal workforce this year, according to OPM Director Scott Kupor.
“We’re trying to move towards a performance-based culture in government. It’s only fair if we’re going to do that, that we give people the tools and the training necessary, so that they understand very clearly what they’re held accountable to,” Kupor said Friday in an interview with Federal News Network. “Now we have a mechanism ultimately to, as part of their performance review, make sure that [federal executives] are adhering to those principles.”
Through the new programs, OPM is aiming to inform senior leaders in more depth how the Trump administration has changed various federal workforce policies, and how senior leaders can best embed those changes at agencies.
As an example, Kupor pointed to the administration’s overhauls of the government’s performance management system. In February, OPM updated performance standards for the SES, to set much stricter limits on how many SES members can be rated as high performers, and make adherence to the president’s policies the “most critical element” of their performance reviews.
“For things that are within the bailiwick of what we expect managers to do, that are now represented in the form of executive orders, we want to make sure people really do understand both the derivation of those, as well as how we think about the appropriate implementation of those policies,” Kupor said.
In a memo last week, OPM called on agencies to encourage their senior leaders to sign up for the optional training programs, which are available governmentwide. Agencies have until Dec. 19 to inform executives that the trainings are open for registration on OPM’s website.
Details of OPM’s development programs
OPM’s two new programs for training federal executives differ in both content and cost. One of the new trainings, called the “Senior Executive Development Program,” uses a combination of video modules and “podcast-style discussions” among federal experts. It will train executives on topics like “constitutional governance,” budget, policy and strategic human capital management, according to OPM’s memo.
The SEDP is a fully online course that executives can complete at their own pace, for a tuition cost of $1,500.
OPM’s other new training program, called “Leadership for an Efficient and Accountable Government,” includes a combination of in-person and online trainings, costing $8,500 per registrant for the 80-hour course. OPM said the LEAG program is focused on “efficiency” and “accountability,” and includes modules centered on “President Trump’s executive orders and other executive branch priorities.”
“LEAG participants will gain essential skills to bridge policy and implementation, drive efficiency, uphold accountability, and expand their impact as senior leaders serving the American people,” OPM wrote in its memo.
Although both programs are optional, OPM still told agencies to “set the expectation” that all career SES members should at least complete training modules on “returning to founding principles” and “implementing administration priorities” within the next year.
Marcus Hill, president of the Senior Executives Association, said there is a continuous need for training among SES members, to “strengthen their ability to manage people, programs and resources responsibly.”
“Above all, these programs should reinforce what every federal leader swears to uphold: the obligation to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States’ and to ‘faithfully discharge the duties of the office’ to which they were appointed,” Hill said in a statement. “Understanding the legal and constitutional framework in which we operate is fundamental to maintaining public trust and carrying out our responsibilities with integrity.”
Next steps for federal workforce training
In part, OPM’s two new programs appear to replace prior opportunities from the Federal Executive Institute. The FEI was a long-time training program OPM ran for federal employees governmentwide — until President Donald Trump directed the dismantling of FEI in February.
When initially announcing plans to launch new trainings in August, OPM said the upcoming SES programs would be “radically different” from what existed previously through FEI.
Kupor told Federal News Network that FEI “was lacking in a couple areas,” and argued that the cost of the program surpassed its overall value to senior executives.
“It literally had a physical campus to it, so it required people to be away from office for several days in order to do it,” Kupor said. “Unfortunately, it was prohibitive both in terms of dollars, as well as just people’s time.”
Earlier this year, OPM eliminated its Center for Leadership Development through a reduction in force (RIF). The office was previously responsible for running various training and development programs for the federal workforce, but in the absence of CLD, the new training programs are being run through OPM’s Human Resources Solutions office, in partnership with the director’s office.
Some workforce experts, however, have previously questioned OPM’s internal capacity to manage new training programs. Since January, the agency has reduced its workforce by about one-third, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce headcount across government.
Jason Briefel, a federal workforce policy expert, said he generally considers the idea of a governmentwide SES training program from OPM to be a positive development. But he expressed reservations about what the trainings would actually entail — and what types of results the programs may deliver.
“With agencies shrinking their workforces, and with more demands being placed on executive leaders, how will they balance actually doing the training, and then applying what they’ve learned, while still trying to do their job?” Briefel said.
Briefel also questioned whether agencies would have the budget to afford the new OPM trainings, as most are still operating under a continuing resolution and uncertain of their long-term funding options.
Moving forward, Kupor said OPM plans to update the training modules over time, as well as expand the program to add more development opportunities for other sectors of the federal workforce.
“We will need help from external parties to do that — OPM doesn’t have this view that we need to own and develop everything,” Kupor said. “There are plenty of organizations external to OPM who, to the extent they have ways in which they can help us further develop the curriculum, we’re very open to that.”
Scott Kupor, left, President Donald Trump's pick to be Director of the Office of Personnel Management, speaks as Eric Ueland, right, Trump's pick to be Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget, listens during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Capitol Hill, Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Eric White We’re talking about the new [Online Retirement Application (ORA)] system, or I guess, is it “Or-uh” system? I’ll let you … Correct my pronunciation for federal retirees. Obviously, that system is going to get used a lot over the next coming months, if what has been happening recently is any sign of what’s to come. Tell me about what’s going on with this system and what feds are saying — of the ones that have been using it — about it.
Thiago Glieger Yeah, Eric, this new system — so we call it O-R-A; I think that’s how most people are calling it, as you said — this is a brand new system. And honestly, it’s been confusing a lot of people … it’s replacing the old paperwork that a lot federal employees had to fill out — really the SF-3107 — as they were going to retire from their agencies. But I think the big problem here, Eric, is they’re finding that a lot of the HR departments are just simply overwhelmed … We had a lot of people [who] were leaving, we have bottlenecking of a lot people that are leaving on [the] [deferred resignation program (DRP)] as well, and so they just can’t provide the kind of support that they used to before. So a lot of these questions start to pile up. It’s a brand new system and there’s not enough people in place to help answer those questions. Retirement is already a pretty stressful process for people, right? So then on top of that, not having a clear process or information about a new system only adds to the anxiety … When it was first launched everyone hoped that OPM was going to say, this is going to be faster, it’s going to be smoother, it’s going to require less people. And OPM actually said the opposite. They said, at first, it might actually take longer … They are very hopeful that over time this is gonna be a good system but right now there [are] a lot of moving parts that have to come together for all of that efficiency to really start showing up. And as you guys have seen, Eric, there’s tens of thousands of federal employees retiring. We just had the first wave here on 9/30. We’re gonna have another wave here 12/31. And so it’s really, really tough for people to get answers to the system.
Eric White Yeah, sort of a “ready, fire, aim” approach that we love here in the USA. Walk us through what a federal employee should expect when they decide to retire under this new system. What are some of the major changes from the old system? Not that anybody retires more than once, hopefully, but you know, what exactly are they looking at from a landscape perspective?
Thiago Glieger Yeah, so what it used to be is that a lot of agencies would run the [Government Retirement and Benefits (GRB)] platform retirement estimator for federal employees retiring. And the GRB platform was effectively a repository of your federal service, and it would give you information on what retirement could look like, estimates of your pension, things like that. So then we run into problem number one: a lot agencies cut GRB. So now federal employees are saying, well, what does my retirement estimate look like? How many credible years do I have? That system is no longer there. So then agencies are not even able to provide that information. But presuming you’re still gonna move forward with the actual retirement process, [the] first step is you have to notify your HR office that you’re ready to retire. You can send them an email, generally, and say, I believe I’m eligible; I’d like to start the retirement process. And this is because the HR group has to initiate the ORA system in most cases. Every agency has a little bit of a different process, but this is what the majority of the groups are doing … You have to remember what’s different here is now HR is swamped. There’s tons of people retiring. There’s less of them around to be able to do this, which is causing some of the bottleneck. Once HR begins the ORA process, you’re given access to it. And again, this is gonna replace the SF-3107, which is the retirement form. And so now it’s actually easier because instead of filling out a government form, you’re just going through a system online and it’s asking you questions one by one. Everyone has filled out those kinds of forms before. So it’s actually pretty easy, as we’ve seen with some of our clients. And what it does is it takes your answers and pre-fills the form for you, which is a nice service. Once you submit that part, it’s really important that a federal employee stay alert because a lot of times, HR — they may kick it back if they need additional information — there’s something that’s missing, so you have to check to make sure you don’t need to do additional work on the ORA system for that. That’s when it moves to payroll. Once it moves to payroll, they finalize all of your hours, which can take a month to a month and a half just at payroll itself, before it goes to OPM. So if you think about it, we’re talking a month at payroll, [that] could be a month before HR actually gets around to being able to initiate the system for you. We’re At 2 months so far. Once it hits OPM, that’s when the official clock starts, as OPM likes to describe it. And there’s some uncharted waters here because OPM has not really handled, A, this new system before, and B, this many federal employees retiring all at the same time. So they release information — there is some congressional report that gets put out there that talks about how many applications are coming into the system and what is the average processing time month over month. We’ve been seeing that go up and up and up over the last three months. I expect it’s going to continue to get worse, right? So we’re talking three months at the agency level plus … whatever time OPM is going to need for themselves.
Eric White We’re talking with financial planner Thiago Glieger. So, other than those long timelines — well, we can call them unknown timelines, as you say — what are some of the other issues that federal employees are seeing so far with the system? It sounds like it is going through some growing pains, but are there any fundamental flaws with it that people are just not liking?
Thiago Glieger I think some of the challenging questions that the system asks them are things like, how much withholding do you want to do on your taxes? Or, what do you wanna do about life insurance? And before there was some guidance in the forms [about] how to be thinking about some of these things. The system is a little bit more streamlined and it just asks you the question. Well, if you haven’t gone through the process of creating a financial plan, how do you know how much insurance do you need? What kind of tax liability are you expected to have? So federal retirees are called upon to make these decisions in real time as they’re filling out the form and they don’t really have the information to be able to answer those questions. Okay, the other issue that we are running into, and this one hasn’t been too much, is that sometimes people don’t get the notification of additional action that they need. Sometimes it gets stuck in their spam email. So this is something that, again, it’s those bumps that they’re trying to pull together. There are a lot of systems in the background that have to coordinate with each other and, as any brand new system that gets launched, there’s always stuff that’s going to break. So I’m sure some of that’s gonna be a problem too.
Eric White Gotcha. All right. And so what can folks do if they are looking to retire? You’re a financial planner. I guess we’re talking to the right person. How can they financially prepare for any delays that might occur because … some of those dates don’t line up and you don’t want to be caught in-between paychecks, as they say, and without anything coming in? What sort of precautions can those looking to retire take?
Thiago Glieger Yeah, that’s a really good point, Eric. I think the first thing that federal retirees should remember is that you will get your annual leave lump sum. Okay, so that comes pretty quickly in our experience with clients, right after you leave. So you get your final paycheck and then shortly thereafter you get your lump sum, so depending on how many hours you have, you’re gonna get a big check that’s gonna help you to meet your expenses between when you leave and no longer have an income and when the pension actually fully starts. There [is] also, in most cases, an interim payment, where it’s a portion of your final pension; not the exact amount. But again, we don’t wanna count on that because there’s cases where people don’t get it. So the biggest thing is that, let’s say you’re planning to retire December 31st, now is the time to start boosting your cash reserves. So what do I mean by that? Cash in the bank is gonna be really important here. So … This might mean, and it sounds a little counterintuitive, but might mean maybe don’t put as much in the Thrift Savings Plan for the rest of the year, if you know you’re gonna retire, okay? Yes, you have access to the TSP if you are retiring within a certain age, the age is 55 for most people, but cash in the bank is that much easier to access … it’s already been taxed in most cases. So if you reduce your TSP contribution, that means your take-home pay goes up and you get to start accumulating that cash. I would also think about what kind of expenses maybe you have coming up, right? The general guide for people is we like around six months-worth of your monthly expenses in cash in the bank at all times. And because we might be looking at delays on your pension starting, you might wanna increase that a little bit more. So if you’ve got big renovations you were planning to do on the home, maybe postpone that for a little but until you get greater clarity around OPM’s timeline for the stuff. And the last one — and this one’s a little bit controversial as well, but it depends on how old you are — if you leave prior to the age of 55, which a lot of people have done this year, you technically don’t have access to the TSP funds un-penalized, unless you are law enforcement or special provisions, 1811s, things like that. So what you can look at is a potential TSP loan. You can get up to $50,000 and that comes without that 10% early withdrawal penalty, which is kind of nice because you can put that in your bank account, use it or don’t use it, but at least it creates extra cashflow for you. Of course, check with your financial professionals, make sure that this is something that is feasible within your plan, but that’s been a really solid one to help bridge people over.
Eric White Uncertainty is the word of the day for a lot of federal employees, particularly those that are retiring, even so. Any advice on handling that aspect of things? You’re already going through the anguish of entering into a new stage of your life, having all of this in the background of shutdowns and potential furloughs and things of that nature. What can you tell people that are going through this right now?
Thiago Glieger I would say for folks to rely on your planning. This is something that creates great peace of mind, just knowing what you’re gonna do in which scenario. So if this happens, if it takes longer, if the markets crash in the middle of your waiting for your pension, all of these things, if you can think ahead of what those potential problems may be and what you are gonna do if those things happen or what you gonna do in preparation to hedge some of those risks, that gives you great peace mind. We have to be careful about watching the economy and the news around the markets. The markets are very volatile and you always have different opinions and people talking about what the markets are gonna do next. We have to careful cause that creates a lot of anxiety for retirement. And I think too, the more information you have, the better. OPM has a really, really helpful retirement quick guide, which we can give you guys the link [to] … You can put it in the show notes. The OPM retirement quick guide is super helpful, [it] walks you through the process so you know what to expect. And in fact, there is one additional resource that is actually your benefits officer directory. This is something that OPM maintains pretty regularly and it’s the HR person in charge at your office. In case the process is just stuck and if you can’t get answers, you can get anywhere, this is a place you can look for to find out who’s in charge of your agency to get the answers you need.
The federal government’s ability to deliver results for the American people hinges on the effectiveness of its leadership. At the core of this leadership is the Senior Executive Service, a cadre of high-level officials entrusted with the responsibility of translating presidential priorities into operational outcomes. The stakes are high: Senior executive leadership affects whether the president’s agenda is properly implemented and whether agencies deliver on their missions. SES officials are the president’s senior-most career executives, and their leadership affects the lives of millions of Americans every day.
Given the gravity of their responsibilities, SES members must be equipped with the right knowledge and tools. Statutory mandates require both the Office of Personnel Management and federal agencies to provide ongoing executive development. And for good reason. Just as private-sector CEOs may benefit from executive development programs, our senior executives need the same level of preparation tailored to the constitutional role they hold and the scale of the missions they lead.
Historically, federal leadership programs have imitated academic or private-sector programs — many of which are expensive, time-consuming and not designed to meet the unique needs of government executives. With the closure of the Federal Executive Institute, OPM is refocusing and reimagining executive development, building on the best leadership development theories and practices with a renewed focus on the specific job knowledge, skills and tools SES officials need to be successful in their jobs.
Thus, to ensure the successful implementation of the president’s agenda by equipping SES through high-quality, targeted training programs, OPM has launched the Senior Executive Development Program (SEDP) — a targeted, administration-driven training initiative designed to ensure SES officials have the knowledge, context and clarity necessary to carry out the president’s agenda and best serve the American people.
The SEDP reflects a significant shift in how we approach executive development. More than just generic leadership training, the program will equip senior executives with the practical knowledge and skills to thrive as government leaders, covering topics such as constitutional governance, budget and policymaking, executive core qualifications, and strategic human capital management. Rather than relying on just generalized management theory one could get from academic or private-sector programs, this program provides high-impact, directly relevant training that speaks to the needs of today’s federal executives. The curriculum is designed around the constitutional role of the executive, the rule of law, merit system principles, and the operational realities of modern governance and leading responsive and efficient bureaucratic organizations. Participants will hear from seasoned career executive colleagues and administration officials on topics directly applicable to the complex missions and organizations they lead.
The SEDP is not a one-size-fits-all program. It’s designed to be flexible and scalable, leveraging high-quality recorded video modules delivered through OPM’s centralized learning management system. This approach allows executives to learn on demand, at their own pace, while maintaining full access to their day-to-day responsibilities. It also allows OPM to track participation and outcomes — ensuring transparency, accountability and a strong return on investment.
The goal is clear: to strengthen our federal leadership by ensuring every SES member has technical expertise and a true understanding of their constitutional responsibilities and the president’s vision. The success of any administration depends on its ability to act. And acting depends on leadership.
Through the Senior Executive Development Program, OPM is reaffirming its commitment to preparing that leadership – ensuring that America’s senior executives are ready, responsive and capable of delivering for the American people.
Scott Kupor is director of the Office of Personnel Management.
Scott Kupor, President Donald Trump's pick for director of the Office of Personnel Management, listens during Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee nomination hearing, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The National Treasury Employees Union is suing the Trump administration in an attempt to gain records of career federal employee positions that may be targeted for removal of job protections.
NTEU’s lawsuit, filed last week against the Office of Personnel Management, alleged that OPM violated the Freedom of Information Act by not responding to the union’s FOIA request from August. The union had requested documentation of employees who will be potentially impacted by the Trump administration’s “Schedule Policy/Career” order, which seeks to make tens of thousands of career federal employees at-will workers and easier for agencies to fire.
“The government cannot hide information that is critical to safeguarding workplace rights and protections for frontline federal employees in multiple agencies across the country,” NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement. “We expect OPM and the administration to identify as soon as possible which federal jobs are being targeted so we can do everything we can to stop the reclassifications.”
Under federal statute, agencies are required to respond to FOIA requests within 20 days. In “unusual circumstances,” that timeframe can be extended for an additional 10 days.
But NTEU said in its lawsuit that OPM has not responded to the FOIA request at all, and that the time period for responding has lapsed. NTEU submitted its initial FOIA request on Aug. 20.
“There is no legal basis for OPM’s failure to respond to NTEU’s request or for its failure to produce the requested records within the statutory time period,” NTEU wrote.
The federal union is arguing that OPM’s failure to respond to the FOIA request is unlawful, and calling for a release of the requested records.
An OPM spokesperson did not immediately respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment.
NTEU’s push for information comes after President Donald Trump in January signed an executive order to revive the federal employment classification previously known as “Schedule F.” Though it is now called “Schedule Policy/Career,” the effort mirrors a former executive order from Trump’s first term that sought to remove job protections from broad swaths of the career federal workforce.
OPM proposed regulations for implementing the new employment classification in April. Although the regulations are not yet finalized, they have been moved into the “final rule stage,” and are slated for possible publication by the end of November, according to the White House’s regulatory agenda.
The White House website states that the final rule will impact “policy-influencing positions” and that the rule’s implementation will “increase career employee accountability.”
All federal positions that are reclassified as “Schedule Policy/Career” will become at-will, and employees will no longer be able to appeal adverse actions against them.
“This will allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives,” OPM states in the regulatory agenda item.
The Trump administration has generally argued that the reclassifications will hold federal employees more accountable and provide more flexibility to agencies. But federal unions, as well as many lawmakers and workforce experts, have said reclassifying employees in this way will lead to politically motivated firings, and an erosion of the apolitical nature of the career civil service.
Earlier this year, OPM also published guidance to set initial expectations for agencies to implement the Schedule Policy/Career employment classification. The guidance targets a wide range of federal positions that may be subject to reclassification.
OPM has estimated that about 50,000 career federal employees in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, and policy-advocating” positions will be reclassified as a result of Trump’s order. But OPM’s latest estimate is on the lower end of the scale: Documents from Trump’s first term showed that around 200,000 career federal positions could have their job protections stripped.
NTEU previously sued the Trump administration in January after the initial Schedule Policy/Career executive order was released. The first lawsuit alleges that Trump’s order violates established federal hiring principles and the due process rights of federal employees.
Combined, Greenwald said the two lawsuits from NTEU “are about making sure that the American people have their government services delivered by federal employees who were hired based on merit and skill, not partisan affiliation.”
Alexis Goldstein, a member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union, speaks at a press conference outside the Supreme Court on Monday. Goldstein, in her personal capacity, joined several federal colleagues in urging Democrats to “say no to the bully.” The event, organized by the Civil Servants Coalition, criticized the Trump administration’s federal workforce overhauls this year.
A federal union is suing the Trump administration for not handing over a list of employees that agencies might be targeting to remove their job protections. The new lawsuit from the National Treasury Employees Union alleges that the Office of Personnel Management violated the Freedom of Information Act by not providing those details. The union’s legal action comes after the Trump administration earlier this year revived an effort to make large portions of the federal workforce at-will and easier to fire.
The Department of Homeland Security is giving bonuses to Transportation Security Administration employees who worked through the partial shutdown. More than 270 Transportation Security Officers at Logan airport in Boston are among the first TSA employees to receive a bonus from DHS for working without pay during the 43-day shutdown. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem awarded these TSOs a $10,000 bonus on Saturday in appreciation for their dedication and commitment over the last seven weeks. DHS said it is paying for these bonuses using carryover funds from fiscal 2025. Noem announced the administration's plan to give these bonuses on Friday.
About 4,000 federal employees who were previously told they were going to be laid off should be receiving a cancellation notice by the end of the day. The spending agreement Congress passed last week gave agencies five days to rescind all reductions-in-force that were announced during the shutdown. OPM said the cancellation notices to employees need to include how much back pay the workers will receive. The employees are owed payments equal to what they would have been paid, had they not been laid off in the first place.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisition system reforms could meaningfully reshape how the Pentagon does business, only if the department can avoid the mistakes of the past. Acquisition experts say the reforms could help to break down entrenched silos across the department’s acquisition enterprise and drive greater coordination and integration. But the success of Hegseth’s reforms will hinge on whether the department can change its culture and equip the workforce with the skills needed to operate differently. Otherwise, the system can quickly revert to its old ways. And whether the department has the workforce to support such a sweeping overhaul is unclear. DoD has already lost 5% to 8% of its civilian workforce since the start of the Trump administration.
SAIC continues its bloodletting, just three weeks after moving on from its CEO. The federal contractor parted ways with three more executives and consolidated business groups. The company said Josh Jackson, its executive vice president for the Army, David Ray, its space and intelligence EVP, and chief innovation officer Lauren Knausenberger will pursue other opportunities outside of the company. Additionally, SAIC will merge its Army and Navy business groups into one and bring its Air Force and Combatant Commands, and the Space and Intelligence business groups together to become the Air Force, Space and Intelligence Business Group.
Agencies are being reminded to patch unsecure devices that are being targeted by hackers. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said some federal agencies haven’t fully patched vulnerable Cisco devices. CISA directed agencies to update that software back in a September emergency directive. But in new guidance last week, CISA said it’s aware of multiple organizations that haven’t updated to the minimum software version. The cyber agency warned that the vulnerable Cisco device software poses a significant risk to all organizations.
The Department of Homeland Security is facing calls to release an unclassified report on security flaws in U.S. telecommunications networks. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) wrote Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, urging them to publish the report from 2022. They say not publishing it undermines the public debate over how to best secure U.S. telecom networks. The lawmakers point to the recent "Salt Typhoon" campaign, in which suspected China-backed hackers successfully broke into American telecom systems and devices.
The Department of the Navy’s new Innovation Adoption Kit lays out a unified framework for evaluating, implementing and scaling innovative technologies across the naval enterprise. The memo is designed to help commanders and program managers bridge the gap between emerging commercial solutions and mission-ready capabilities. It offers practical methods to accelerate the transition from pilot to program of record and tailor agile approaches to fit within the Navy’s operational and acquisition constraints. Officials say these tactics can be applied across a wide range of missions.
Participants in both the Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits programs may have more incentive than usual to take advantage of Open Season, as premium costs continue to surge in yet another year of double-digit percentage increases.
For 2026, FEHB premiums are rising by an average of 12.3% for enrollees, while those in PSHB will see their premium costs rise by an average of 11.3%. It comes after premiums increased by about 13.5% and 11.1% for FEHB and PSHB respectively in 2025.
Shane Stevens, associate director of healthcare and insurance at the Office of Personnel Management, acknowledged what he said was a “frustrating environment” for insurance enrollees who are facing continually rising premium costs.
“Health care costs have become somewhat unsustainable,” Stevens said during Federal News Network’s 2026 Open Season Exchange. “I’ve watched employees have to get second jobs to get insurance and cover it. I’ve watched where they’ve reduced the amount of coverage in order to afford it. In some cases, they’ve gone completely without insurance.”
Combating federal health insurance premium cost increases
To try to combat rising premiums costs, Stevens said OPM’s strategy will revolve around reducing “fraud, waste and abuse” in the government’s insurance programs.
“We have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers, to our plan participants, the retirees, the current federal workers. Yet we have very little insight into what we’re actually spending this coming year,” he said. “We’re working very hard to try and get all of this information, all of this data, to be able to make good decisions, which will help us to detect fraud, waste, abuse and overpayments.”
OPM is also on a one-year deadline to implement recently added requirements from the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act. One provision of the reconciliation bill, called the FEHB Protection Act, requires OPM to create a system for verifying the eligibility of FEHB enrollees. The bill also directs OPM to include eligibility audits in any fraud risk assessments of the program.
The push in Congress came after the Government Accountability Office in 2022 found that OPM may be spending up to $1 billion annually on ineligible FEHB enrollees. Removing ineligible members, however, would reduce costs to thegovernment but not necessarily lower premiums for beneficiaries directly.
“If we get the data and the information we need, I’m convinced that we could save approximately 7% to 8% per year,” Stevens estimated.
Addressing staff needs, other challenges within OPM
OPM’s insurance programs are facing other major challenges as well. The platform for the PSHB program in particular is at risk of an operational failure, according to OPM’s inspector general office. An OIG report over the summer found that staffing shortages at OPM this year, coupled with funding issues, may negatively impact enrollees’ experience or ability to change enrollments during Open Season.
On top of that, GAO recently reported that the staffing shortages at OPM are hindering the agency’s ability to address risks of fraud in the FEHB program.
When asked how OPM has responded to the watchdog’s concerns, “We do believe our staff can work effectively through everything,” Stevens said, adding, “In the short run, we’ve improved our systems and our processes to where we’re not concerned about delays or challenges.”
Stevens added that he plans to roll out more artificial intelligence tools for participants to use in the enrollment process for future years of Open Season.
Emulating the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ agenda
In addition to addressing fraud and saving costs, Stevens also described his goal of shifting the government’s insurance programs toward what he described as a “well care model,” as opposed to what he describes currently as a “sick care model.”
“We want to move more toward a holistic approach and something to where we’re not doing a pharmaceutical-first type of intervention, or where we have faith-based behavioral health care to where they can give true solutions,” he said.
“If we get healthier and we start making better health decisions, then we’re going to be able to reduce the costs, the premiums,” Stevens added.
It’s not yet entirely clear what OPM may change in the FEHB or PSHB programs based on the big-picture priorities Stevens outlined during the interview.
But for 2026, OPM already made one distinct change: Carriers were required to end coverage of all gender-affirming care, in line with an executive order from President Donald Trump earlier this year.
Enrollees who are mid-treatment for gender-affirming care can still continue receiving coverage, according to OPM’s new requirements, but the definition of “mid-treatment” is determined individually by each health carrier. Federal health plan experts have recommended that those impacted by OPM’s change check their carrier’s plan brochure for more details.
Going forward though, Stevens also expressed interest in reconsidering coverage of GLP-1 medications, a class of drugs that are prescribed to treat diabetes and obesity.
“We want to look at utilizing these as a tool for weight loss or for treatment of diabetes,” Stevens said. “However, we don’t want it to be viewed as the end-all be-all of, ‘this is going to save me.’”
Currently, OPM requires all carriers to cover at least one type of GLP-1 for enrollees, prescribed for weight loss. It’s a requirement that health care experts have said is a positive development and ahead of the curve compared with the private sector.
But Stevens said he wants to encourage physical exercise and nutrition over GLP-1s, through the government’s insurance programs. That type of change, he said, may also lead to some cost savings.
“I want to try and move away from that, move more to incentivizing providers to have good health outcomes for their patients versus prescribed medications,” he said.
Stevens’ approach for what he sees for the future of FEHB and PSHB mirrors goals of the Trump administration’s larger push toward the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Stevens, for instance, discussed what he views as a “broken” health care system that focuses on prescriptions first — emulating a sentiment that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has expressed and that has influenced some of the Trump administration’s major health initiatives.
RFK’s MAHA report from May outlined contentious views on vaccines, the nation’s food supply, pesticides and prescription drugs. The HHS report, parts of which have received strong criticism, additionally includes increased scrutiny of childhood vaccines and “fear-based” views on farming chemicals, while also blaming ultra-processed foods for unhealthy Americans.
“We truly have a secretary of health that’s fighting for the real overall well-being of health. We have a president that truly cares about it, and then we have a lot of appointees that are trying to make a big difference,” Stevens said. “It’s a massive shift in the paradigm of how we look at health care — really looking at outcomes versus prescriptions and a lot of the things that have made us an unhealthy population.”
Encouraging Open Season action
In the immediate term, Stevens encouraged participants in FEHB and PSHB over the next several weeks to take advantage of Open Season. Participants have until the enrollment window closes on Dec. 10 to spend time looking at plan brochures and comparing various insurance options that are available to them.
The push to take action during Open Season comes as relatively few insurance enrollees end up selecting a different plan each year.
“Change is tough, change is scary, and a lot of times I think people would just rather stick with their current plan and do the same, regardless of how much it could cost them more,” Stevens said. “It will surprise a lot of people in seeing that if they were to shift over to a different type of plan that they could save a substantial amount of money.”
For measuring this year’s Open Season success, Stevens said he will be looking for any potential shifts in the statistic that just 5% of enrollees change their plans each year.
“We encourage everybody to take the time — I’m talking maybe an hour of your time — to jump in and look at the different tools that we’ve created and make sure that you’re picking the plan that’s best for you,” he said. “We’ll take all of that in and see what we can do to improve our systems and processes to make it even better next year.”
It’s commonly cited that just about 5% of participants in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program change their plan during Open Season each year — so it may not be surprising to learn that many FEHB participants who take advantage of Open Season also tend to wait until the last minute to do so.
But during Federal News Network’s 2026 Open Season Exchange, Holly Schumann, principal deputy associate director for health care and insurance at the Office of Personnel Management, urged participants to get started on their research sooner rather than later.
“We do typically see a big surge of traffic on the last few days of Open Season, but I really encourage folks to take action earlier,” Schumann said. “Take the time to study all of the information. And that’s much easier to do if you’re not waiting until the last minute and feeling pressure to make a decision.”
Tips on how to research federal health insurance options
Schumann also gave some advice for where participants can get started on their studying. She recommended going first to OPM’s website. There, participants can find a plan comparison tool, as well as deeply detailed plan information across all health insurance carriers.
The plan brochures from FEHB carriers — as well as those in the Postal Service Health Benefits program — cover benefits changes for 2026, details on Medicare for each plan option, what the premium rates will look like beginning in January and much more.
“We don’t want anybody to be caught surprised by a change in their plan that they weren’t aware of,” Schumann said. “If you have a specific health care need, I really encourage you to take the time find the link on our website, download the brochure and take a few minutes to leaf through it.”
Beyond FEHB and PSHB information, enrollees can also see more details on OPM’s website about the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program, as well as FSAFEDS — the government’s program for flexible spending accounts. FSAFEDS allows current federal employees each year to set aside pre-tax dollars to go toward eligible out-of-pocket medical expenses.
Schumann strongly encouraged participants to consider enrolling in an FSA, to help save on out-of-pocket costs.
“It allows you to save essentially 20% or 30% on what you would pay for those things, when you consider the tax savings,” Schumann explained. “There is a ‘use or lose’ rule with a flexible spending account generally, but there are mechanisms where, on the health care side for example, you can roll over any excess funds up to a certain limit — assuming you enroll in a flexible spending account the next year.”
While benefits inevitably change year-to-year in FEHB and PSHB, there are also a handful of coverage updates coming from carriers in FEDVIP as well, Schumann said. That makes it all the more prudent for participants to take a look at what’s out there this Open Season.
“Among dental plans, there are some who are offering additional enhanced benefits for additional cleanings during pregnancy, for example,” she said. “On the vision side, there are some plans that are offering additional benefits for folks with diabetes, since we know that they require some enhanced vision services. Folks who might be interested in those benefits should take the time to look at OPM’s website and find out more information about those.”
OPM’s year-round work on health insurance
Although Open Season is the most public-facing time of year for OPM’s health insurance office, the work for the agency truly takes place year-round when it comes to the government’s various insurance programs.
Throughout the year, OPM issues call letters to collaborate with carriers on any changes to benefits or coverage for the following plan year, as well as to discuss priorities on premium rates and costs within the insurance programs.
The premiums are, in part, driven by costs of care from prior years, while also incorporating predictions of what health care costs will look like in the year ahead, Schumann explained. Based on the estimations, OPM’s actuarial team then negotiates the rates with carriers to reach the final values.
“Really what we’re seeking to do is to find the right balance of comprehensive medical coverage with affordability — we’re always trying to strike that balance,” she said.
In the weeks leading up to Open Season’s start date, OPM works to update all information on its website — including the plan comparison tool, as well as all carriers’ health plan brochures for the following plan year.
“We can add information, if needed, to make sure that people get what they need to make informed decisions,” Schumann said. “We also monitor the web traffic to our site to see where people are coming from and what information sources they are most interested in, so that we can adapt during Open Season.”
Then once Open Season ends, OPM works closely with FEHB and PSHB carriers to make sure any participants who changed plans during the open enrollment period are able to get their new insurance cards and all the information they need, ahead of the actual start of the new plan year in January.
Medicare Part D — and the final word
During Open Season, Schumann also stressed the importance of considering some key differences within Medicare Part D and how that will operate for participants depending on whether they are in the FEHB or the PSHB program.
“Many FEHB plans, though not all, provide a Part D prescription drug plan that works in conjunction with their plan. And if you’re eligible and Medicare-enrolled, you’ll be opted into that plan,” Schumann said. “But you can opt out, and you will still have coverage under the underlying FEHB plan, if you choose not to enroll in Part D.”
But for Medicare-eligible PSHB participants, there is an important caveat: PSHB enrollees can only access prescription drug coverage through the program if they have Medicare Part D.
All Medicare-eligible participants will be automatically enrolled, but there is no underlying prescription drug coverage for PSHB participants if they choose to opt out of Part D.
“Every PSHB plan offers a Part D plan that works in conjunction with the PSHB plan,” Schumann said. “Enrollees still have the option to go out on the retail market, if they prefer to choose a different plan than the one offered by their carrier, and purchase a Part D plan. But they just need to know that they have to have Part D if they want to have any sort of prescription drug coverage at all” through PSHB.
Ultimately, Schumann doubled down on her recommendation for studying up and getting an early start on Open Season to ensure participants find the best plan option for them.
“I know it can be daunting to make your way through all of this information about all of the benefit choices available to you, but it’s really time well spent to make sure that you get the coverage that’s right for you and for your family,” she said. “We welcome the opportunity to serve you, and we always welcome feedback on how we can make things better in the future. So take the time, make those decisions carefully, and we’ll look forward to a successful Open Season.”
More than 30,000 federal insurance enrollees may be in for some sticker shock next year, if they choose to do nothing during Open Season.
With eight plan options being discontinued in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program, participants currently enrolled with those carriers — most of whom are enrolled in plans from the National Association of Letter Carriers — will, in some cases, face more than a 200% spike in premium costs, if they accept the auto-enrollment plan option for 2026.
Typically, participants whose plans leave the FEHB program are automatically enrolled in the lowest-cost nationwide plan the following year. But for 2026, the Office of Personnel Management chose a different path forward.
The specifics behind OPM’s decision remain unclear, but an OPM spokesperson told Federal News Network the agency chose a plan that’s not the lowest-cost nationwide plan “because we determined it was in the best interest of the program to do so.”
“The default plan designation ensures enrollees who do not choose a plan during Open Season continue to have health insurance coverage, but OPM strongly encourages enrollees in terminating plans or plan options to review the plans available to them for 2026 and choose the one that best meets their needs,” the spokesperson said.
Under federal regulations, FEHB participants whose plans are discontinued — and who do not take action during Open Season — will be automatically enrolled in the lowest-cost nationwide plan that is not a high-deductible health plan (HDHP), and that does not include membership fees. But the regulations additionally state, “OPM reserves the right to designate an alternate plan for automatic enrollments if OPM determines circumstances dictate this.”
For 2026, the lowest cost nationwide plan that fits the statutory requirements is GEHA Elevate. But OPM made the decision to “exercise its authority” to make GEHA High the auto-enrollment plan instead.
A spokesperson for GEHA declined to comment for this story.
All enrollees have the opportunity to make a different plan selection during Open Season, if they choose to. Open Season began Nov. 10 and will run until Dec. 8, for changes that will take effect starting in January. More information on FEHB premium rates is available on OPM’s website and in carriers’ plan brochures. Participants can also use OPM’s plan comparison tool to weigh various options for 2026.
Comparing FEHB premiums, benefits
In total, eight plan options across six plans are leaving FEHB in 2026, which will impact roughly 32,000 participants. The vast majority of affected participants were enrolled in a health plan from the National Association of Letter Carriers. NALC had two plans — NALC High and NALC CDHP (Consumer Driven Health Plan) — in the FEHB marketplace. Neither will be available in FEHB for plan year 2026, although NALC will remain a carrier in the Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) program.
Between those two plans, about 29,000 total participants were enrolled in NALC for 2025. Nearly 26,700 were enrolled in NALC High. A smaller portion, just over 2,300 FEHB participants, were enrolled in NALC CDHP.
Regardless of which NALC plan they were in, all of those enrollees will have to either pick a new plan during Open Season, or be auto-enrolled by OPM. NALC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Outside of the two NALC options that will account for the vast majority of impacted enrollees, others from various smaller plans leaving FEHB will also be automatically enrolled in GEHA High, if they do not select a different plan during Open Season this fall.
The other plans leaving the FEHB program in 2026 are:
Health Alliance’s HMO Standard
AvMed Health Plan’s HDHP and Standard plans
Independent Health’s High plan
Blue Care Network of Michigan’s High plan
Priority Health’s High plan
In terms of premiums, the exact cost increase depends on a participant’s plan option.
For instance, an enrollee in the “self and family” plan option of NALC High has been paying $283.94 per biweekly pay period for their insurance in 2025. If that enrollee takes no action, and gets auto-enrolled in the “self and family” plan for GEHA High next year, the biweekly cost will increase to $525.18, beginning in January 2026 — an increase of nearly 85% in premium cost to the enrollee.
In a more striking example, an enrollee in the “self and family” plan option of NALC CDHP, who has been paying $146.26 per biweekly pay period this year, will see their premium cost surge by nearly 260% next year — paying a premium of $525.18 per biweekly pay period, if they are auto-enrolled into GEHA High.
By comparison, the average premium increase across all FEHB plans for 2026 is 12.3%, when taking into account the 47 carriers offering a total of 132 total plan options for next year. Not all plan options are available to all FEHB enrollees, as some are specific to certain agencies or geographic regions.
Premium costs, however, are far from the only factor that enrollees should be considering when making a plan selection, according to federal health plan experts.
“FEHB enrollees losing their NALC health plan should carefully consider which health plan will be the best fit for them,” said Kevin Moss, director of marketing and fundraising at Consumers’ Checkbook. “Besides reviewing the plan premium and out-of-pocket costs for benefits, make sure to check the website of the new plan you’re considering to see if your current providers will be in-network, and how any prescription drugs you may take will be covered.”
Notably, the lowest-cost nationwide plan, GEHA Elevate, has lower premiums, but also much lower coverage than GEHA High. NALC High — which the vast majority of those impacted by OPM’s decision are coming from — is more similar to GEHA High than it is to GEHA Elevate, but still with some differences in benefits.
For instance, an enrollee in NALC High who had a $300 deductible for a “self only” plan in 2025 would move to a $500 deductible in 2026 under GEHA High. By comparison, the enrollee’s deductible would increase to $750 under GEHA Elevate.
As another example, an enrollee in NALC High with a catastrophic out-of-pocket maximum of $3,500 for a “self only” plan would see that limit increase to $7,500 under GEHA High. The out-of-pocket maximum for GEHA Elevate, in contrast, is $10,600.
John Hatton, senior vice president of policy and programs at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), said a higher-premium plan with more coverage may be the best plan for some enrollees, but not necessarily others.
“Maybe the high premium plan with more coverage is the right choice for you, but you may want to look at some other alternative plans that might be cheaper. Because there are options, even with really low deductible plans, that have lower premiums than the main big dogs in the program,” Hatton said in a recent interview on The Federal Drive. “So it’s really critical that you look and choose what’s best for you.”
As the government begins to reopen after the longest shutdown in U.S. history, paychecks for Defense Department civilians who haven’t been paid in over a month are slated to be processed on Sunday, while service members are expected to get paid on time, according to an administration official.
President Trump signed a bill late Wednesday to fund the government through Jan. 30, ending the record 43-day shutdown and clearing the way for tens of thousands of Defense Department civilians to return to work.
While the administration official told Federal News Network that checks are scheduled to go out on Sunday, DoD civilians are being told to expect payment sometime between Monday and mid-week.
One DoD civilian told Federal News Network their supervisor said paychecks could “possibly” arrive on Monday, but the organization has yet to receive an official timeline. Civilian employees there were instructed to return to work Thursday after being notified late Wednesday night.
Another DoD civilian told Federal News Network their organization is still waiting on official guidance about when furloughed employees will be reporting back, but as of now they have no official return date.
Agencies have been told to “take all necessary steps to ensure offices open in a prompt and orderly manner on Nov. 13,” an Air Force Department spokesperson told Federal News Network.
It is unclear how many civilian employees were furloughed during this shutdown. The Air Force spokesperson said furloughs and exemptions were handled at the local level and the department does not have an aggregated number.
The Army did not provide details on when furloughed employees are expected to return to work or how many employees were furloughed during the shutdown — an Army spokesperson told Federal News Network the service has not yet lifted its communications restrictions.
The Department of the Navy referred inquiries regarding the return date for civilian employees to the Office of Personnel Management.
OPM said on social media platform X that federal agencies in the Washington, D.C. area are open and that employees are expected to begin the workday on time. “Normal operating procedures are in effect,” the agency said. OPM also issued guidance Wednesday outlining how agencies should handle administering pay, leave and benefits for employees impacted by the lapse in appropriations.
According to the Defense Department’s contingency plan released ahead of the shutdown, about 45% of the department’s civilian workforce was expected to be furloughed.
The department employs roughly 741,500 civilians, according to the contingency plan. Of those, approximately 24% — or about 182,700 — are funded through sources other than the annual appropriations bill. Another 30% — about 223,900 — are designated as “excepted” personnel who continue to work regardless of the lapse in funding. The department estimated that about 334,900 civilian employees would be furloughed in the event of a shutdown.
The legislation Trump signed Wednesday only funds the government through Jan. 30, meaning another shutdown threat is already looming.
Organizations like the National Military Family Association are already urging Congress to revisit legislation such as the “Pay Our Troops Act” introduced just before the shutdown, which would ensure that troops, DoD civilians and Coast Guard members continue to receive pay and benefits in the event of a shutdown. It would also prevent future eleventh-hour attempts to ensure service members are paid on time — during this shutdown, the administration drew heavily from several accounts, including the research and development and procurement accounts, to cover military pay. At some point, DoD received a donation from a private donor to fund military salaries.
David Super, the Carmack Waterhouse professor of law and economics at Georgetown University Law Center, said that the department could also ask Congress to forward fund military pay in the future or even current budget requests.
“That’s done for some accounts that we don’t want to have interrupted. Instead of paying it fiscal year by fiscal year, they could pay it calendar year by calendar year, so that there would still be money for the next three months to cover it — that’s a perfectly sensible thing. To the best of my knowledge, neither this administration or its predecessors have proposed that that would be a good idea,” Super told Federal News Network.
The bill also includes full-year funding for military construction, the departments of Veterans Affairs and Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and Congress. The $153 billion measure would provide $19.7 billion for Pentagon construction and family housing programs.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.
Following the longest shutdown in U.S. history, the federal workforce is now trying to get back to at least some sense of normalcy.
While federal employees who have been furloughed for the last 43 days return to work Thursday, the Office of Personnel Management is setting expectations for agencies as they begin to update pay, leave and benefits for those impacted by the lapse in appropriations.
In new guidance, OPM said it is “is committed to ensuring that retroactive pay is provided as soon as possible.” Compensation will be provided for both furloughed and excepted federal employees, as the spending agreement that was enacted Wednesday evening reaffirmed. A 2019 law previously called for retroactive compensation for all federal employees impacted by a shutdown.
A senior Trump administration official said the White House “has urged agencies to get employee paychecks out expeditiously and accurately to not leave anyone waiting longer than necessary.”
But the timing of employees receiving their back pay varies, depending on what payroll provider an agency uses, and the different pay schedules across the federal workforce.
Sending out retroactive payments to employees involves working across agency HR offices, federal payroll providers and shared service centers. Agency HR offices, for instance, have to submit timecards for federal employees, which are then processed by the government’s various payroll providers.
According to the senior administration official, employees from the General Services Administration and OPM will be among the first to receive their retroactive paychecks, with an expected deposit date set for Saturday.
Employees at the departments of Veterans Affairs, Energy, and Health and Human Services, as well as civilian employees from the Defense Department, will receive their deposits shortly after that — this Sunday.
On Monday, affected employees from the departments of Education, State, Interior and Transportation, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Social Security Administration and NASA, are all expected to receive their back pay.
Then on Wednesday, employees from the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Treasury, Labor and Justice, along with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Small Business Administration, are projected to get their paychecks. The timing of the retroactive payments for feds was first reported by Semafor.
The National Finance Center, a payroll provider housed under the Agriculture Department, confirmed that employees at agencies using NFC’s services should expect a payroll deposit by the middle of next week.
“In order to provide backpay for employees as quickly as possible, the National Finance Center will be expediting pay processing for pay period 22 and backpay for pay periods 19 (October 1-4), 20 (October 5-18), and 21 (October 19-November 1),” USDA wrote in an all-staff email Wednesday evening, obtained by Federal News Network.
Federal News Network has reached out to several other federal payroll providers requesting details on the timeline for processing retroactive payments.
The National Treasury Employees Union urged immediate back pay for all federal employees who have been going without compensation for the last six weeks.
“This is an emergency for federal employees across the country, and they should not have to wait another minute longer for the paychecks they lost during the longest government shutdown in history,” NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said. “We call on all federal agencies to process the back pay immediately.”
In its new guidance, OPM also noted that to make payments as quickly as possible, payroll providers may need to “make some adjustments.” That could mean, for instance, that the initial retroactive payments employees receive might not reflect the exact calculations of their pay and leave hours.
“Payroll providers will work with agencies to make any necessary adjustments as soon as practicable,” OPM said.
Who receives back pay, and how much?
Furloughed employees will receive their “standard rate of pay” for the hours they would have worked if the government shutdown hadn’t occurred, OPM said in its guidance Wednesday evening.
But there are some exceptions to that. If a furloughed employee, for example, had been scheduled for overtime hours that would have occurred during the shutdown, OPM said they should be paid their premium rate for those hours.
Additionally, OPM said that allowances, differentials and other types of payments, like administratively uncontrollable overtime pay or law enforcement availability pay, should be paid as if the furloughed employee continued to work.
Although most employees impacted by the shutdown are ensured back pay, there are some smaller exceptions carved out where employees may not receive retroactive pay, OPM added.
If a furloughed employee was in a non-pay status before the shutdown began, for instance, then they are not entitled to receive back pay.
Excepted employees who were considered “absent without leave” (AWOL) — or in other words, took unapproved time off — will also not receive back pay for that time.
Guidance on leave, post-shutdown
Although excepted employees are not required to use paid leave for taking time off during the shutdown — and can instead enter a “furlough” period — there may still have been some instances where excepted employees took leave during the funding lapse, OPM wrote in its guidance.
In those cases, excepted employees who were approved to take paid leave during the shutdown will be charged for the hours from their leave bank, OPM said.
Agencies are also expected to begin adjusting leave accrual for furloughed employees. Now that the shutdown is over, furloughed employees should be placed in a “pay status” for the time they would have otherwise spent working during the funding lapse. That means accrual of annual and sick leave will be retroactively adjusted as if the employees were in a pay status, OPM said.
Excepted employees continued to accrue leave during the shutdown, which should be reflected in their leave banks, OPM said.
What happens to RIFs of federal employees?
On top of reaffirming back pay, the spending bill that was enacted Wednesday evening also rescinds the roughly 4,000 reductions in force that have occurred since Oct. 1. Federal employees will be temporarily protected from additional RIFs, at least until the end of January.
Agencies have five days to inform federal employees who received RIF notices in October that those actions are rescinded.
“Agencies should issue those notices and confirm to OPM the rescissions have been issued,” OPM’s guidance states.
At least 670,000 federal employees have been furloughed, and 730,000 employees have been working without pay during the shutdown. Agencies have been putting plans in the works to return all furloughed federal employees to their duties as of Thursday.
OPM also said agencies “may consider” providing flexibility for employees who might not be able to return to work immediately, such as by approving personal leave or adjusting individual work schedules.
The Theodore Roosevelt Building, location of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024, in Washington. Former President Donald Trump has plans to radically reshape the federal government if he returns to the White House, from promising to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally to firing tens of thousands of government workers. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
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.”
Corporate security manager identifies a potential insider threat in a line-up of eight white collar workers. Hacker or spy icon lights up purple. Cybersecurity and human resources challenge concept.
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