As we recently discussed, when President Trump took office earlier this year, one of his first actions was to sign an executive order that revived “Schedule F,” which is now called “Schedule Policy/Career.” While we noted in our prior article that the executive order was being challenged in court, President Trump is now moving ahead with efforts to implement Schedule F (or Schedule Policy/Career) in the federal workforce.
As the Associated Press (AP) reported on April 18, 2025:
“President Donald Trump has begun making one of the controversial personnel changes for government employees that was spelled out in the conservative Project 2025 blueprint for his second term.
“He’s starting the process of reclassifying 50,000 federal employees under what’s known as Schedule F, which can make civil servants into political appointees or other at-will workers, who are more easily dismissed from their jobs. That means they’ll have less civil service protection.”
In a Fact Sheet released the same day, the White House stated that, “President Trump is delivering on his promise to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our government from Washington corruption.” President Trump has separately stated on his social media platform that, “[i]f [Schedule F] government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job;” and, as The Atlantic reports:
“If this new-look Schedule F survives the inevitable court challenges, it will mark a major step forward in a MAGA quest laid out by J. D. Vance in 2021 to ‘fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state,’ and ‘replace them with our people.’”
With court challenges ongoing, and with the uncertainty and reversals we have seen during President Trump’s first 100 days back in office, it is not yet clear what the revival of Schedule F means for federal employees who may be reclassified. With that said, federal employees who may be reclassified need to try to make sure they are as prepared as possible. This includes preparing for the possibility of being removed, in the words of the White House, “for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles.”
U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Publishes Proposed Rule Establishing Schedule Policy/Career
In furtherance of the Trump Administration’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published a proposed rule on April 23, 2025 that seeks to establish the new Schedule Policy/Career (formerly referred to as Schedule F). This follows the OPM’s issuance of a memorandum on January 27 directing federal agencies to identify employees who they would reclassify on Schedule Policy/Career by April 20. As reported by Government Executive on April 3, “[s]ome agencies have begun notifying employees that they are likely to be designated as fireable-at-will under [Schedule Policy/Career].”
The OPM’s proposed rule is open to public comment until May 23, 2025. Assuming the OPM moves forward with finalizing the rule (as we expect that it will), the final rule could become effective shortly thereafter.
What does the OPM’s proposed rule on Schedule Policy/Career say? Here are some examples of key provisions:
- “[T]he President—not OPM—will . . . move positions into Schedule Policy/Career. . . . [A]gencies will review their workforces and petition OPM to recommend that the President move specific positions into Schedule Policy/Career. OPM will review these petitions and make the recommendations it deems appropriate. However, the President will make the final decision about which positions go into Schedule Policy/Career.”
- “[E]mployees in Schedule Policy/Career remain career appointees who can expect to keep their jobs across changes of administration as long as they perform effectively and faithfully implement each new administration’s policies to the best of their ability.”
- “OPM . . . considered . . . permitting incumbent employees who are reclassified or moved into Schedule Policy/Career to retain adverse action procedures and appeals. This would functionally make Schedule Policy/Career effective only for new hires, not existing employees, and would entirely sidestep concerns about impairing employee property interests in their jobs. OPM nonetheless concluded that this approach would not satisfy policy or legal concerns.”
- “OPM now believes that title 5 does not require an adverse action appeals process for career employees in the excepted service whose positions are determined to be policy-influencing. . . . Further review has convinced OPM that the April 2024 final rule’s amendments to subpart D of 5 CFR part 752, which extended adverse action procedures and appeals to incumbent employees whose positions were declared policy-influencing or who were involuntarily transferred into policy-influencing positions, exceeded OPM’s statutory authority.”
- “Nothing in title 5 provides for positions to have a hybrid competitive-excepted status. While OPM previously pointed to provisions in the Lloyd-LaFollette Act, . . . [n]othing in the currently enacted title 5 permits employees in the excepted service to remain in the competitive service for purposes of accrued adverse action appeals.”
In its current form, Schedule Policy/Career would cover an extremely wide range of federal workers. As outlined in the proposed rule, the “guideposts” for determining whether a position falls under Schedule Policy/Career include:
- “Delegated or subdelegated authority to make decisions committed by law to the discretion of the agency head.”
- “Authority to bind an agency to a position, policy, or course of action without higher-level review or with only limited higher-level review.”
- “Positions statutorily described as exercising important policy-determining or policy-making functions.”
- “Substantive participation and discretionary authority in agency grantmaking, such as the substantive exercise of discretion in the drafting of funding opportunity announcements, evaluation of grant applications, or recommending or selecting grant recipients.”
- “Advocacy for administration policy, either in public or before other governmental entities, such as Congress or state governments.”
This just scratches the surface of the proposed rule, and while it is lengthy, it is worth reading for federal employees who have concerns. Federal employees who have concerns may also want to consult with a federal employment lawyer about their legal rights. Significant changes to the federal workforce are almost certainly on the horizon, and federal employees who lose their jobs or experience other adverse employment actions will need to be prepared to make informed decisions about their next steps.
Experienced New York Federal Employment Lawyers Representing Current and Former Federal Employees
If you are a current or former federal employee and you need to know more about the implications of being reclassified on Schedule Policy/Career, we invite you to get in touch. To speak with an experienced New York federal employment lawyer at Bell Law Group in confidence, give us a call at 516-280-3008 or contact us confidentially online today.
