Government Executive - Management

Bisignano deflects customer service questions in congressional testimony

Erich Wagner — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:25:05 -0400

Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano on Wednesday touted a year of “transformation” at the beleaguered agency, touting improved service metrics and deflecting repeated questions regarding changes to their underlying methodology.

Bisignano testified before a joint session of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Social Security and work and welfare subcommittees, excoriating the Biden administration and former Commissioner Martin O’Malley for what he called a “failed service model” in the agency’s push in 2024 to encourage Americans to make an appointment ahead of visiting a field office.

“Before I arrived in May of 2025, SSA had four different leaders in five months and was an agency in turmoil,” he said, frequently overwhelming his microphone. “The American people endured a failed service model with the Biden administration’s so-called appointment-focused service, which turned people away who traveled to our field offices.”

But O’Malley told Government Executive after the hearing that’s not true: the agency specifically warned field office workers not to turn away any person seeking walk-in services.

“Yeah, that’s totally false,” he said. “We were doing everything we could to encourage people to make appointments, but we also admonished many times that no one is ever to be turned away. It’s similar to what we did with the [Motor Vehicle Administration in Maryland], which is we told people, ‘Hey, you should make an appointment,’ but we never turned anyone away.”

Indeed, a 2024 message to SSA employees regarding the Appointment Focused Service initiative makes clear that field offices can and should continue to provide walk-in service. Language on ssa.gov similarly still strongly encourages people make appointments in advance.

“SSA is expanding appointments (phone, video or in-office where appropriate) to enhance our service delivery and improve the customer experience,” the transmission states. “We will continue to promote online services and will not refuse in-person customer service at our [field offices and Social Security card centers]. By scheduling most in-person customers for appointments, we can minimize wait times, promote online and automated services, and ensure that staff can focus on delivering quality service to each customer.”

Bisignano also continued to tout purported improvements in customer service metrics, which have been hotly disputed by advocates and the agency’s unions due to recent changes to how those statistics are measured.

“[We’ve reduced] the average speed of answer on the 800 number to the lowest level in a decade to under 5 minutes in May 2026—an 89% reduction from an all-time monthly high of 42 minutes in fiscal year 2024,” he wrote in his written testimony.

But those figures are misleading for two reasons. First, the 42-minute average wait time figure dates back to November 2023; by the end of 2024, average 1-800 wait times had fallen to 12 minutes. The second problem is that last summer, Bisignano changed SSA’s methodology for calculating call wait times by omitting the time customers who elected to be called back rather than be put on hold waited for their call back, instead calculating their wait time as “zero.”

Last December, the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General released a report noting this change—and that those who elected to use the 1-800 number’s call-back feature waited an average of one hour 49 minutes to be served—but ultimately found the agency’s published metrics to be “accurate.” And in March, The Washington Post reported that an earlier draft calculated a new “total wait time” metric that reflected those people’s waits alongside those who elected to stay on the phone, but it was removed before publication.

American Federation of Government Employees Council 220 President Jessica LaPointe, whose union represents field office and teleservice center employees, said in a statement Wednesday that Bisignano’s metrics paper over a staffing crisis. The agency has lost more than 7,000 employees since Trump returned to office last year, bringing its headcount to a 59-year staffing low, which dates back to before the creation of Supplemental Security Income, and the agency has reassigned around 2,500 field office employees to man the 1-800 number to spread the workload.

Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., pressed Bisignano on his reassignments.

“We have 2,500 employees with specific skillsets all removed and put on the 800 number so when people do call, depending on who answers, they might not have the answers or the skillset to help them, and so they don’t get the proper answers,” Moore said. “[Is] the 800 number and the shuffling of staff—is that supposed to realize some efficiencies that we haven’t seen?”

“I think a good way to think about this whole situation is that we used to have 400 people on the phone at 8 a.m. and that was not a sufficient number,” Bisignano said. “That was predating me, the era you well remember when we told people that appointments were needed.”

“Well then why are people waiting 46 minutes and then when they do get somebody, that person can’t answer questions because they weren’t put through to the right benefits officer?” Moore asked. “Do you think the 1-800 number thing is a magic bullet in place of not having enough employees?”

“What I think in fact is with the right amount of staff in the right places—” he responded.

“Well I don’t agree with you on that,” Moore interjected.

“You wouldn’t know how to manage 50,000 people anyway," Bisignano said.

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., asked Bisignano about training standards for the field office-turned call center employees, citing Government Executive’s February reporting that the materials instructed workers to suggest that “suicide is only one option” if they encounter callers who express ideation toward self harm.

“These employees used to get months of training and then would shadow a full time phone operator, but now they’re getting three hours’ training and placed on the phones basically the same day,” Beyer said. “These are bizarre and dangerous instructions.”

“I think we amended that message, and, by the way, we got that from an authority and went back to the authority,” Bisignano said. “If you want to make that what this hearing is about, that’s kind of fine. We can talk about that one line, we can also talk about the fact that your wait times are down 76%, we can also talk about how field office visits were down 3%.”

“I just wanted you to say you were addressing the issue,” Beyer said.

“We addressed it four months ago when it occurred,” Bisignano said.

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Why Congress separated immigration funding from oversight

Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 07:00:00 -0400

House Republicans on Tuesday approved three years of funding for immigration enforcement without any new guardrails on how federal agents operate.

The 214-212 vote sent the nearly $70 billion package to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign the measure. Republican senators approved the bill earlier this month, with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski the only GOP member in opposition.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, I-Calif., who conferences with Republicans, voted no along with Democrats.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., argued Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol need the additional funding so they can deport anyone in the country without proper authorization.

“They want you to think that it’s just everybody coming in to seek the American dream,” he said. “We have a legal method for that to happen.”

Scalise then read a list of Americans killed by people who were present in the United States without legal status.

“It’s not some hypothetical. It’s happened over and over and over again,” he said.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he opposed Republicans’ plans to “give a blank check to ICE without any guardrails, any oversight, or any accountability.”

“Donald Trump promised America that he would target violent felons who are here illegally, but instead taxpayer dollars are being used by ICE and his violent mass deportation machine to target and brutalize American citizens, in some cases killing them,” he said.

Jeffries contended that “immigration enforcement should be fair, just and humane” and that ICE “needs to conduct itself” according to the same standards other law enforcement agencies follow.

Funds will stretch over 3 years

The legislation will provide $38.53 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $26.02 billion for Customs and Border Protection and $5 billion for the secretary of Homeland Security.

The funding, which lasts through September 2029, is in addition to the $170 billion Republicans provided in their “big, beautiful” law. About $100 billion of that remains unspent, according to Democrats.

Republicans opted not to place any new constraints on how federal immigration agents operate or provide additional funding for oversight, despite officers killing two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.

Those shootings led Democrats in Congress to demand new restrictions on officers, prompting weeks of bipartisan negotiations during a 76-day shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security.

That stalemate ended in April after lawmakers approved DHS’ annual appropriations bill without funding for ICE or the Border Patrol. Republicans had to remove those provisions to move the legislation through procedural votes in the Senate that require the support of at least 60 lawmakers.

A new path

Republican leaders then turned to the complex budget reconciliation process to provide three years of funding for ICE, CBP and the DHS secretary without requiring any changes to how they operate.

The special legislative pathway allows bills to move through the Senate with simple-majority votes as long as they adhere to certain rules.

Senate Republicans originally included, but later removed, $1.46 billion for several Department of Justice programs and $1 billion for the Secret Service to make security upgrades linked to the new White House ballroom, also called the East Wing Modernization Project.

The funding for ICE, CBP and the DHS secretary clears the way for the Trump administration to continue its immigration crackdown until just a few months before his second term is scheduled to end.

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After year of pushing employees out, OPM embraces familiar recruiting playbook

Sean Michael Newhouse — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:08:41 -0400

President Donald Trump came into his second term with the goal of downsizing the civil service, and his administration in nearly one-and-a-half years has more than erased gains to the government workforce that occurred under former President Joe Biden. Despite the emphasis on removing or otherwise pushing out agency staffers, Office of Personnel Director Scott Kupor said that he is seeking to streamline the process for bringing people into government.

In fact, several of the proposals he laid out at a Tuesday event hosted by Axios are similar to efforts Biden officials pursued to improve agency hiring.

“We’ve got to find people where they are,” Kupor said, specifically advocating for the use of Handshake, a popular networking website for college students.

Agencies have been using that platform for years. Handshake actually reported in 2024 that the college graduating class of that year applied for a higher percentage of government jobs on its website than the prior year’s senior cohort.

On Tuesday, Kupor also seemed to reference shared certifications, which enable different agencies to hire candidates from the same job announcement. In particular, he bemoaned that a job seeker who is rejected at one agency may be well-qualified for — but unaware of — a position at a different department.

“In the perfect world that I want, [if] you are somebody who wants a job with the federal government [and] you tell us what your general interests are, quite frankly we should push to you the opportunities that we think are relevant,” he said. “If it turns out the first one isn’t right, then we should push you to the second one, third one.”

Shared certifications have been a feature of OPM hiring plans under both the Biden and Trump administrations.

Kupor also argued that the federal government should not target younger workers for recruitment with the assumption that they’ll want to spend their entire careers in the public sector.

“We’ve had this marketing message, which is, come [to the government] and we basically will give you a 40-year career,” he said. “I’m obviously older than this age cohort, but I happen to have daughters in this age cohort, and I don’t believe anybody under the age of 30 today thinks in more than two- or three-year increments.”

But in recent years, experts have pointed to agencies’ historical association with stable employment as one of the top reasons that could persuade early-career workers to want to serve in government.

In its 2024 report, Handshake found that job stability was the top factor that graduating seniors in the survey reported would make them more likely to apply for a job. As a result, the company said this was, in part, what made the federal government attractive at the time to new workers.

And Michelle Amante, senior vice president of government programs at the Partnership for Public Service nonprofit, told Government Executive in April 2025 that the Trump administration’s mass removals of federal employees would cause government jobs to lose their appeal as stable positions safe from layoffs, which many civil servants accept as a tradeoff for making less money.

“We are going to lose Generation Z. They are not likely to want to come back and work for the government,” she said. “And then the generation after them, Generation Alpha, they're watching all of this play out. They're in their formative years watching what is happening in government. Why would they want to come work for an employer that not only does not provide stability but also does not provide a good environment to work in — where federal employees feel traumatized day in and day out?”

Gen Z refers to individuals born between 1997 to 2012, and Gen Alpha designates those born after.

Kupor, who worked for decades in the tech industry as an executive and investor, said that he was drawn to OPM because he’s found that workforce strength is an underappreciated factor in what makes organizations successful.

“What I’ve learned over my 16 years now in the venturing world is, what really matters at the end of the day is the talent that you have,” he said.

On Tuesday, Kupor also touted Tech Force, which was launched at the end of 2025 to recruit early-career software and data engineers into the government. In many respects, the program is similar to the U.S. Digital Corps, which was started in 2021 to provide opportunities in agencies to younger tech talent.

While OPM set a goal to bring on 1,000 individuals through Tech Force as soon as March, officials on May 28 said they’ve made 180 to 200 hires and have only onboarded 10 people.

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GAO warns detention camp failures could become a blueprint for billions in new spending

Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 16:03:55 -0400

A hastily constructed immigrant detention facility on a military base in Texas wasted millions in federal funding and failed to meet basic standards, according to a report released Tuesday by a nonpartisan government watchdog.

The report by the Government Accountability Office documenting problems at Camp East Montana is one of the first independent investigations into a facility quickly constructed from the $170 billion in immigration enforcement and detention funding provided by Republicans’ "big beautiful" law enacted in July 2025 as part of the president’s mass deportation campaign. The camp is considered the largest immigrant detention center in the United States.

The Department of Defense and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August 2025 set up the soft-sided detention site of Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. It was intended to hold as many as 5,000 immigrants and is still operating under a private contractor as well as ICE.

The facility was plagued with several tuberculosis cases and at least four detainee deaths, with one ruled a homicide by the local coroner. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit against the government over inhumane conditions.

"The facility also did not meet key detention standards, risking the safety and security of detained noncitizens and staff," GAO said.

The report came as the U.S. House this week prepares to take final steps to pass a $70 billion package to fund immigration enforcement through the end of fiscal year 2029. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the legislation into law.

Congressional Democrats requested that GAO conduct a report on Camp East Montana, including Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Gary Peters of Michigan, and Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.

Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that he was concerned the U.S. military was responsible for the quick construction of the detention camp.

"Preventable deaths, inhumane conditions, and millions of dollars in waste are the direct result of the Pentagon cutting corners and handing a billion-dollar contract to an inexperienced vendor that wrote its own performance standards," Reed said.

$1.3 billion contract

GAO investigators found that the Department of Defense's contracting vehicle used to handle the $1.3 billion contract for Camp East Montana provided no flexibility and resulted in paying for meals and employee services during times when no immigrants were detained at the facility, resulting in millions of dollars in waste.

For example, the Army paid the full cost for guards, medical services, transportation, meals and other services from Aug. 1, 2025, to Aug. 15, 2025, when there were no detainees at the facility, wasting up to $11.5 million, GAO said.

"Further, because the Army set a fixed price for meals based on the capacity of the facility, it paid about an additional $423,000 for meals it did not need when the facility was operating below its designated capacity from Aug. 16, 2025, through Sept. 30, 2025," according to the GAO report.

Same failures could repeat, GAO says

GAO investigators also noted that the same mistakes could be made with the Department of Homeland Security's ongoing move to spend $38 billion to convert warehouses for the purpose of detaining thousands of immigrants.

"GAO points out that ICE's planned facility expansion — a $38 billion program to convert warehouses into detention facilities using the same contracting vehicle — risks repeating every one of these failures at a dramatically larger scale," according to the report.

Investigators made four recommendations, including that ICE consider tiered pricing for food to account for fluctuations in detained immigrant populations and ensure that new facilities meet detention standards before housing immigrants.

The report notes that DHS and DOD agreed with the recommendations. DOD deferred comment to DHS, which did not immediately respond to States Newsroom's request for comment.

Homicide investigated

Investigators also raised use-of-force concerns, including one in January in which an autopsy found the death of a detainee was due to asphyxia and ruled it a homicide.

"However, the contractor did not provide use-of-force and death reports to ICE, as required," according to the report. "In addition, evidence associated with the incident was missing or destroyed."

Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the GAO report "damning."

"We now know even more details of how dangerous and irresponsible the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign truly is," he said in a statement. "Excessive use of force, lacking medical and mental health care, and wasted taxpayer dollars are emblematic of this mass deportation scheme. The American people have rightfully expressed outrage at these policies, and it's time to hold ICE and their private contractors responsible."

GAO investigators noted several health issues. They pointed out that none of the detainees with HIV or diabetes had treatment plans in place.

Also, facility employees did not follow proper procedure for tuberculosis screening. One contractor used a questionnaire rather than administering the required skin tests for tuberculosis.

Investigators found that, as a result, a detained immigrant with tuberculosis was housed with the general immigrant population in November.

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Practical steps agencies can take to mitigate financial disclosure controversies

John L. Martin — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 07:00:00 -0400

John Windom was the public face of the Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) project for the Veterans Affairs Department. It’s one of the largest IT modernization projects the federal government has undertaken.

The Justice Department recently charged him with “alleged failure to disclose his receipt of thousands of dollars in cash, casino chips, gift cards and other gifts from contractors while leading the project.”

The indictment says he was “fully aware of ethics laws and regulations restricting his acceptance of gifts.” Yet he “routinely accepted personal benefits such as gifts, meals, alcohol, entertainment and other services” in the course of his duties. Further, he “used his position ... to encourage, monitor, and facilitate contracting and subcontracting opportunities.”

Potential weak spots in financial disclosure

Financial disclosure is a mandatory process for any government employee who independently exercises significant judgment in taking action in certain designated areas. The purpose of disclosure is to remove potential conflicts of interest and prevent taxpayer-funded decisions that lead to personal gain.

At the time of this writing, these are only allegations of wrongdoing. Windom is entitled to a presumption of innocence until the matter is settled in court. However, the controversy calls to mind three weaknesses in the financial disclosure process for federal employees.

People can still conceal financial assets to protect their personal interests. While most civil servants are honest people doing patriotic work, there are always bad actors. Disclosure alone isn’t enough to prevent a bad actor from omitting financial interests that conflict with their duties.
People will "forum shop" for an ethics official who gives them a desired answer. In other words, someone asks the same ethics question to multiple offices until they get the answer they want.
There are multiple processes involved in financial disclosure, and these processes are commonly siloed and decentralized. This means there’s no single ethics official or compliance lawyer who sees the whole picture. That may not be true in this instance, or at every agency, but it is not uncommon by any stretch.

3 steps ethics offices can take to reduce risk

Earlier in my career, I served as a government lawyer and became familiar with these issues. In my role now, I work with over 40 different federal agencies on financial disclosure. Indeed, I facilitate a working group of ethics officials focused on sharing best practices.

Those experiences have provided me with a wide-angle view of the financial disclosure landscape — and how to solve these challenges.

1. Create a well-defined and centralized process

Most agencies do have a centralized process for collecting and validating annual financial disclosure forms, such as OGE Form 450 (confidential financial disclosure) or OGE Form 278 (public financial disclosure). What often isn’t centralized is the supplemental forms for widely attended gatherings (WAGs), travel reimbursement and outside activities.

These are all areas of overlap that can be important ethical signals to monitor. For example, travel paid for by third parties can also reveal outside influence or possible conflicts. That signal can go unnoticed in a decentralized environment. The ethics officials who review the annual financial disclosure forms often have no visibility into intermittent travel disclosures by government employees.

The fix is to centralize all related processes. Every ethics official involved in reviewing any of these forms should have access to what is reported by the employee across all forms and previous decisions by other ethics officials, so they have a full picture.

2. Create a clearinghouse and common entry point

A centralized process requires a centralized repository for all related disclosure data. This becomes a clearinghouse for all decisions. Ethics officials should be able to query the system, see who reviewed disclosure forms and see any steps required to mitigate potential conflicts in recent history.

Part and parcel to a centralized process and clearinghouse is a common entry point. Every review of any disclosure form has to start at the same place. This eliminates the opportunity for forum shopping.

3. Drive agency-level alignment on ethics guidelines

The propensity for forum shopping is partly driven by legal interpretation. What one ethics lawyer sees as a potential red flag, another might see as routine.

There are good reasons why this might happen. For example, one ethics official may be less concerned about outside activities, generally, than others in their agency. Or one ethics official has previously encountered issues with certain widely attended gatherings, while another official is unaware of that experience, and so approves of the attendance.

Each agency should strive to align all ethics personnel around common guidelines that fit the needs of their organization. This ensures uniformity, but it can also improve efficiency through self-service tools, like answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs). Ideally, this solves the majority of routine inquiries that fall within a normal distribution.

The best defense against conflicts of interest

Matters like those surrounding John Windom are infrequent, which is a testament to the honesty of the government workforce and the disclosure policies currently in place. However, when incidents do occur, the severity of impact — the cost to taxpayers, negative publicity and the loss of public trust — is quite high.

The best defense is a well-defined and centralized process that gathers every financial or other personal interest disclosure (WAG, travel, outside activities) that any given government employee is required to make. While it cannot prevent a bad actor from concealing gifts and perks intended to influence decision-making, it does facilitate more comprehensive reviews and increases the odds that, at some point, they are going to get caught.

John L. Martin, Esq., is a former government lawyer currently consulting with Intelliworx, where he works with over 40 federal agencies on financial disclosure best practices.

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What makes an effective intelligence chief? A former DNI official points to the answer

Gregory F. Treverton, The Conversation — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:30:57 -0400

President Donald Trump’s choice for acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, has proved controversial. Pulte’s lack of background in national security matters has sparked resistance from Democrats on Capitol Hill, which is not surprising. But some Republicans, too, have expressed dismay at the president’s choice, a Trump loyalist who currently runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

“I see no evidence of any qualifications for that job,” said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas.

The current director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is leaving the job at the end of June 2026.

Here’s why it matters who holds the job of director of national intelligence.

Principal national security adviser

To speak of telling truth to power seems terribly old-fashioned these days, but as a veteran of White House intelligence operations, I know that is the essence of the job.

The director of national intelligence is the president’s principal adviser on intelligence, though the CIA director has remained somewhat co-equal in that role. In past administrations, the director of national intelligence has been responsible for both the President’s Daily Brief, where the most crucial and sophisticated intelligence is presented, and for the work of the National Intelligence Council.

Most of the President’s Daily Brief items are still done by the CIA, but the director of national intelligence or a deputy briefed the president, daily in most administrations but one or two times a week in the first Trump administration. Now, it is not clear the briefings take place.

The issues in those briefings lean toward the immediate and tactical: What is the situation on the ground in the wars in Iran and Ukraine? If the United States does X, how will the Iranian regime or Russian President Vladimir Putin respond?

But intelligence strives to push presidents and their colleagues to think more strategically: What are the implications of hypersonic missiles? What is the trajectory of the relationship between Russia and China? What are China’s geostrategic objectives, and what is the role of the Belt and Road Initiative in that vision? What if, far from toppling it, U.S. and Israeli attacks push the Iranian regime to become more hard line, or even produce some “rally ’round the flag” effect among previous opponents of the regime.

9/11 led to intelligence changes

I was chair of the National Intelligence Council from 2014 to 2017, providing day-to-day intelligence support to the National Security Council and its committees, as well as trying to find time to do more strategic intelligence, looking at trends and connections across issues, producing what are called National Intelligence Estimates.

The director of national intelligence, known as the DNI, sits atop the 17 agencies that make up what is called the U.S. intelligence community. The director neither runs those agencies nor has full control of their budgets.

Rather, the director of national intelligence coordinates them, which sometimes seems like the proverbial herding of cats. They assemble a combined budget for intelligence, but many of the big agencies, such as the National Security Agency, which makes and breaks codes and intercepts signals of interest, belong to the Pentagon.

The creation of the director of national intelligence position was a direct result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The report of the 9/11 Commission was vividly damning about the failures of communication between agencies in the run-up to 9/11. In meetings in New York that summer, CIA and FBI officers were literally unsure what they could tell each other: The former wondered whether the FBI people were really cleared to hear this, while the latter feared that talking might blow a case they were working on. That lack of coordination played a role in letting the plotters slip through intelligence, often in plain sight.

The result of the commission’s work was the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which created the director of national intelligence position.

Before that, the director of central intelligence wore two hats, as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and loose coordinator of the broader intelligence community. Hardly surprisingly, directors of central intelligence spent most of their time running the CIA, for that was the source of their troops – and their troubles when they arose.

A score of blue-ribbon panels over 50 years had recommended breaking the director of central intelligence’s conflict of interest – coordinating agencies and their budgets while running one of them – and creating a director of national intelligence position.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence for whom I worked as chair of the National Intelligence Council, constantly emphasized “integration.” Across agencies, integration mostly means talking to each other and sharing information. This works against the natural tendency to scoop your colleagues.

Across disciplines, integration means better aligning what information intelligence agencies collect with what analysts need.

How integration works

If presidents want to know what the CIA thinks about a particular issue, they can simply ask. Usually, though, the question is what does the intelligence community think, and then the question goes to the National Intelligence Council, the director of national intelligence’s interagency group for intelligence analysis.

The National Intelligence Council is organized like the State Department, with officers for regions and functions. Once a question has been presented, the relevant national intelligence officer will convene his or her colleagues from the other agencies. They will argue about the answer to the question, a process sweetly called “coordination,” then agree on the answer. If need be, the process can be done in a few hours.

Major strategic analyses – national intelligence estimates – like one done in 2022 on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic out to 2026, may take months. In all cases, though, the analysis carefully records where there are differences of view in the intelligence community.

In my last year chairing the National Intelligence Council, of the 700 or so analyses we did, about 400 were responses to questions – called “taskings” in governmentese – from the national security adviser or one of the deputies.

National intelligence officers are national experts from inside or outside federal government, and their deputies – the heart and soul of the NIC – are all assigned from intelligence agencies. The largest number come from the CIA, but I worked with a cyber analyst from the Secret Service and a wonderful analyst from the New York Police Department.

Resolutely nonpolitical stance

What was striking then and has struck me both times I’ve had the privilege of running a U.S. intelligence agency is the dedication of the officers.

They work for the nation, not for a political party or ideology. As chair of the NIC, I had no idea of the politics of my people, save for the several closest to me. For them, telling truth to power is not a slogan. It is what they do. They are always worried about “politicizing” – producing an assessment to suit a policymaker’s preference or, worse, being pressured to do so.

The president’s daily briefers, for instance, give up a year of their lives to come to work at 4 a.m., learn their briefs and then fan out across Washington to brief senior officials. They like being “on the team” of the person they brief, but they become uncomfortable if the conversation turns political.

The director of national intelligence sets the tone for that resolutely nonpolitical stance and polices it through principles articulated in the agency’s analytic integrity and standards. As chair of the NIC, for instance, I’d receive regular assessments of both the quality of our analyses and whether we risked becoming “politicized.”

For their part, do politicians and agency leaders like it when their pet projects are assessed by intelligence as unwise or infeasible? Of course not. I’ve been on that side of the intelligence-policy divide as well. But the United States is much the better for it.

This story, originally published on Dec. 4, 2024, has been updated to reflect that Bill Pulte has been chosen by President Trump to be the acting director of national intelligence.

Gregory F. Treverton, Professor of Practice in International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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VA CIO nominee vows to create program management office

Edward Graham — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:31:08 -0400

President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as the next IT lead for the Department of Veterans Affairs told lawmakers this week that the agency’s technology operations are “a target-rich environment” for change, and he committed that organizational transformation would be among his top priorities if confirmed to the role.

During a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Gary Shatswell — the administration’s nominee to serve as VA’s next chief information officer and assistant secretary for information and technology — said VA needs “a culture of transparency and accountability, achievable through agile program management, which will also accelerate mission delivery.”

VA’s IT operations are sprawling, with the agency reporting more than 16,000 personnel working on these technology services. Many high-profile modernization efforts overseen by the Office of Information and Technology, however, have received particular scrutiny for delays and cost overruns across administrations.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Shatswell during Wednesday’s hearing that “my beef is the bipartisan failure to really modernize the VA,” and said he’s previously had discussions about establishing “a program office that includes members on this committee … seeing the progress every day, so that you've got champions here behind an IT modernization effort.”

Shatswell told him that a program management office is “a necessary piece that does not exist at the leadership level of OIT,” noting that previous attempts to create the unit failed because “there had not been the requisite tooling to ensure that the visibility and the process [were] actually managed.”

He said creating the office is “one of the first tasks that I will be going after” if confirmed to the role, adding that the unit would enhance VA employee accountability and operational transparency by ensuring “that everyone knows what’s going on and what’s the status and the priority of their piece within the work that OIT is doing.”

“I call it a program or portfolio-value office because, at the end of the day, we need to be driving the right value to the veterans, and that's the focus of everything that we should be doing,” Shatswell said.

Shatswell is Trump’s third nominee for the VA CIO role since the start of his administration, and the first to receive a hearing before lawmakers. VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence has been performing the duties of the role in the interim.

Shatswell is a current VA employee, having served as senior advisor to VA Secretary Doug Collins since December.

When asked by Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas — the panel’s chairman — whether the senior advisor role is “the administration's training ground for individuals that they may want to place within the department,” Shatswell told him, “I can tell you my experience: that was the way that it was.”

Shatswell has previously held a variety of tech leadership roles across private industry, including as Group CIO at Unilever Prestige, as CIO at Paula's Choice Skincare, as vice president of IT at Sur La Table and as CIO at Sizzling Platter.

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GOP advances $70B immigration enforcement funding bill without new limits on ICE operations

Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:58:52 -0400

The Senate approved a nearly $70 billion package early Friday, moving Republicans one step closer to funding immigration and deportation activities for the next three years without negotiating new constraints on federal agents with Democrats.

The 52-47 mostly party-line vote sends the measure to the House, where GOP lawmakers in that chamber could send it to President Donald Trump for his signature as soon as next week.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to vote no. Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet did not vote.

Majority Leader John Thune said GOP leaders were forced to draft the package after Democrats “walked away” from negotiations that could have placed restrictions on federal immigration agents.

“Republicans are going to continue to ensure that these agencies have the funding that they need to fulfill their national security responsibilities,” the South Dakota Republican said.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued the measure shows that Republicans are more focused on funding deportations than lowering the cost of living.

“Apparently, Republicans think we cannot afford a single penny to help Americans cover the skyrocketing costs of gasoline, of healthcare, of housing, of food, of energy, you name it,” he said. “But somehow we can afford to give another $70 billion to Trump's rogue agencies.”

Senate approval followed a marathon amendment voting session that stretched throughout Thursday and overnight as Democrats sought to challenge Republican senators on policy differences just months before the November midterm elections. No amendments were approved.

Building on “big, beautiful” law

The bill would provide a second hefty cash infusion to the agencies carrying out the president’s immigration crackdown, building on the $170 billion Republicans included in their “big, beautiful” law.

This legislation would provide:

$38.53 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement
$26.02 billion for Customs and Border Protection
$5 billion for the secretary of Homeland Security

The money would be available through Sept. 30, 2029, the end of the fiscal year. Republicans decided not to include any new guardrails on federal immigration agents.

The measure Republican senators approved was somewhat different from the original version released in early May, which included $1 billion for the Secret Service to make security upgrades associated with the president’s ballroom, dubbed the East Wing Modernization Project.

Republicans also removed $1.46 billion that would have bolstered funding for several Justice Department programs.

Additionally, GOP lawmakers bolstered ICE funding by $350 million compared to the earlier version of the bill.

Republican leaders are moving the package through the complex budget reconciliation process, avoiding the need to secure Democratic votes in the Senate that would otherwise be required to end debate on the measure.

GOP leaders opted to use the special legislative maneuver after they were unable to broker agreement with Democrats to place constraints on federal immigration officers.

Democratic lawmakers said new guardrails, including body cameras and preventing the use of masks, were necessary after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.

The impasse led to a 76-day shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security that didn’t end until late April, when Congress approved the annual spending bill without funding for ICE or the Border Patrol.

June 1 deadline missed

The reconciliation process comes with several strict rules that require each section of the legislation to address federal revenue, spending or the debt limit. Proposals also cannot be deemed “merely incidental” to the federal budget.

Trump wanted Congress to approve the funding package ahead of a self-imposed June 1 deadline. But work on the measure ground to a halt after the administration announced plans to establish a $1.776 billion fund to pay people who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by the Justice Department.

Floor debate on the bill resumed again this week after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified before a House subcommittee Tuesday the administration was “not moving forward with the fund, period.”

Trump, however, muddied the waters a bit Wednesday when asked during an Oval Office event whether the fund was “dead or on hold.”

“I'd have to ask my lawyers. I don't know,” he said. “Are you talking about the weaponization fund? The weaponization fund, as far as I'm concerned, was a beautiful thing.”

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EPA’s research efforts are swayed by administration priorities, official says

Edward Graham — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 17:10:33 -0400

The Environmental Protection Agency’s reorganized research office is influenced by the Trump administration’s political appointees, the agency’s top science official confirmed to lawmakers on Thursday.

The EPA shuttered its longstanding Office of Research and Development last July and replaced it with a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions, which was placed within the agency’s Office of the Administrator. In a May 2025 press release, the EPA said it was “shifting its scientific expertise and research efforts to program offices to tackle statutory obligations and mission essential functions.”

During a House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Environment hearing, Maureen Gwinn — EPA’s deputy associate administrator for science in OASES — said the restructured office “serves as a coordinating hub that ensures consistency and collaboration across EPA’s research enterprise, advancing gold standard science and strengthening technical assistance to state and local partners.”

It is not surprising for a presidential administration to reshape federal agencies’ missions to align with its political priorities. But committee Democrats said the level of new political oversight over OASES raises concerns about the office’s independence.

President Donald Trump notably signed a May 2025 executive order on "Restoring Gold Standard Science” that some critics believe undercuts independent federal research by giving political appointees more of a say over the direction of scientific studies.

A study published on May 5 by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that, at the time, there had been only 61 peer-reviewed studies published by EPA scientists up to that point in 2026, compared to a total of 339 in 2024.

Rep. Gabe Amo, D-R.I., the top Democrat on the subcommittee, noted during the hearing that an EPA interim approval process memo implemented “a ‘no surprises’ policy for EPA science that requires all OASES activities — scientific activities — be, quote, ‘supported by appropriate political leadership.’” He added that “true science follows the evidence wherever it leads, even if it's surprising, and even if those discoveries are inconvenient for Trump's political agenda.”

Gwinn said she was the one who wrote the memo after discussions with senior EPA leadership about making sure the office’s scientific research "is in agreement with administration priorities.”

“That was part of being sure that the work that we would continue to do in OASES was supportive of the administration,” she added.

When pressed by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., about whether any of EPA’s research projects have been “delayed, modified or declined” because they did not align with the administration’s political priorities, Gwinn said there have been some delays in “getting a better understanding of the research, if it was related to something that in an executive order was something that was not moving forward,” although she said she would have to get back to the committee to provide examples.

Republican members said during Thursday’s hearing that the creation of OASES streamlines EPA's scientific research work by connecting it with the offices that could best operationalize that expertise.

Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas — who chairs the full House Science, Space and Technology Committee — said EPA’s restructuring “comes at a time when scientific data, advancements in artificial intelligence and public expectations for transparency continue to grow — making it essential that EPA adapts thoughtfully and effectively.”

He added that embedding researchers within the agency’s program offices that make regulatory decisions “facilitates early communication between scientists and program staff” and helps EPA “reduce duplication, improve coordination and support a regulatory environment that encourages innovation.”

When asked by Babin, however, if the agency has seen “a diminution or an enhancement of science at EPA” since the creation of OASES, Gwinn told him it is difficult to say right now.

“I know you wanted yes or no but … we're six, seven months in,” she said, adding that “during that time, we've been developing new processes and getting things up to speed, so I'm not sure that I can give a yes or no answer at this point.”

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Trump moves to lock in Blanche at DOJ as confirmation fight takes shape

Ashley Murray, States Newsroom — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:42:46 -0400

President Trump will nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, to fill the top role at the Justice Department on a permanent basis, he said Wednesday night.

Trump revealed Blanche as his choice at an outdoor event at the White House, saying “we are going to make him permanent attorney general” and adding that he expects Blanche’s nomination process to “go very quickly.&rdquo

Blanche has been leading the department in an acting capacity since former Attorney General Pam Bondi exited the administration in early April.

Blanche, of Florida, will almost certainly have that state’s two Republican senators, Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, supporting his nomination.

The GOP-led Senate confirmed Blanche as deputy attorney general in early March 2025 on a party-line vote.

Blanche represented Trump in 2023 and 2024 during a New York state hush money case. A jury convicted Trump two years ago on 34 first-degree felony counts of falsifying business records.

The close tie between the president and his pick for attorney general is a major reason Democrats will oppose the nomination, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday.

“Trump picked Blanche because he’s loyal to the president alone — not the Constitution, not the rule of law, and certainly not the American people, and not to the values that this country has had for 250 years,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “For years, Blanche has been Trump’s personal lawyer and attack dog, and that didn’t stop when Blanche joined the department.”

Anti-weaponization fund
Blanche has taken heat in recent weeks, including from Republicans, for the department’s settlement in Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against his own IRS.

Trump dropped the suit in exchange for the department establishing a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for persons Blanche described on May 18 as “victims of lawfare.” The settlement revealed that the fund would be governed by five commissioners hand-chosen by Blanche, with only one involving consultation from congressional leadership.

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle quickly objected to the proposal, noting the possibility that people convicted — then pardoned by Trump — of assaulting police during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol could receive reparations from the fund.

When pressed at a May 27 Senate hearing on whether violent Jan. 6 defendants who were pardoned could reap taxpayer dollars from the fund, Blanche replied, “Anybody can apply.”

“The commission will set rules, I'm sure,” he continued. “That's not for me to set, that's for the commissioners, and whether an individual, an Oath Keeper, as you just mentioned, applies for compensation, anybody in this country can apply.”

Several lawsuits quickly challenged the legality of the fund, including one from former police officers who deployed to the Capitol on Jan. 6, and another from legal advocates who argued the fund would be illegally shielded from transparency laws.

After intense pressure, Blanche testified to a House Appropriations subcommittee Tuesday that the administration was “not moving forward with the fund, period.”

The concession cleared the way for reluctant Senate Republicans to support a roughly $70 billion immigration enforcement package. Senate Democrats plan to stall the bill on the floor Thursday with a marathon of amendments, including proposals to curtail or outright ban such funds going forward.

The administration is still facing questions from lawmakers about a provision in Trump’s IRS settlement that absolves him, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization, from tax audits.

Epstein files
Blanche has also come under scrutiny for the DOJ’s handling of the release of files related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The botched release last year, when Bondi headed the department, initially exposed names of sexual abuse victims.

Democrats claimed Bondi told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during a closed-door interview last week that Blanche oversaw the legally mandated release of the files and made the decision to not investigate any possible leads.

Bondi refuted the claim on social media following the interview.

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Weakening career staff while boosting political appointees at science agencies is causing ‘generational damage,’ nonprofit warns

Sean Michael Newhouse — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:03:13 -0400

The American public is in the throes of experiencing the consequences of the Trump administration’s overhauls to federal science programs, according to Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service nonprofit. Specifically, during a press briefing on Tuesday, he criticized workforce reductions at science agencies, cuts to government-backed research and efforts to give greater influence to political appointees in the grantmaking process.

“They're all three doing the same thing, which is destroying the extraordinary success that we have been able to enjoy as a nation through scientific development and innovation,” he said. “And they’re ongoing. These are not one and done things.”

In a report published on Tuesday, the Partnership found that federal science agencies lost nearly 118,000 employees between September 2024 and February 2026, as the Trump administration sought to downsize the civil service.

Using data from the Office of Personnel Management, researchers determined that the federal workforce decreased by 12.3% during the same period. Science agencies, however, often experienced deeper reductions.

For example, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration lost 41.7% of its staffers. A coalition of scientists and research organizations recently reported that job cuts at SAMHSA and other science agencies are undermining the president’s efforts to combat addiction.

While the number of federal science employees fell in every state between September 2024 and February 2026, Alaska experienced the largest percentage reduction — 36.7%. The Partnership attributed this to staff cuts at public lands agencies, such as the Forest Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, which oversee around 60% of land in Alaska.

A similar dynamic played out in other Western states, including Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah, which all lost more than a quarter of their federal science workforces during the same period.

“This is not a red state, blue state issue,” Stier said. “Many of the states that most benefit from science investments from the United States government are actually traditional red states.”

The Partnership previously reported that, between fiscal years 2024 and 2025, the federal government spent nearly a quarter less, respectively, on scientific research and development contracts and science agency project grants.

In its latest analysis, researchers noted that this led to 36 out of 50 states and about two-thirds of congressional districts receiving less funding in federal science project grants. Additionally, 32 states got less government research and development contract funding between those two fiscal years.

During his remarks, Stier also criticized a recent proposed rule from the Office of Management and Budget that would overhaul the federal grantmaking process, including by requiring political appointees to approve awards to ensure they advance the president’s priorities.

“It opens the door for additional corruption is what it does,” he said. “[It leads to] choices on the allocation of public dollars on the basis of political interest — and maybe private pecuniary interest — as opposed to the best chances of generating a real return for the American taxpayer and the American public.”

In the proposed rule, OMB officials argued that the changes are necessary to “prevent wasteful spending and misuse or mismanagement of federal funds.” In particular, they criticized awards during the Biden administration for diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The National Institutes of Health in recent months has modified its grant review process to identify research that contains words associated with diversity (e.g. race or gender), which has held up some grant disbursements and forced scientists to rewrite proposals.

The Partnership recently reported that the number of political appointees in the federal government has swelled during Trump’s second term and that they’re being assigned to agencies that haven’t employed such officials in recent history.

In total, Partnership officials argued that these reforms are causing “generational damage” to U.S. science.

“We're going to start to see scientists moving abroad and not coming back. We're going to start to see the pipelines of talent into government start to dry up,” said Brandon Lardy, the Partnership’s data director, during Tuesday’s briefing. “It's not a switch that you can flip on and off. It's going to take years, if not generations, to recover from some of these losses.”

In a March poll by Nature of roughly 1,600 researchers, more than 75% reported that they were considering leaving the U.S.

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Trump appoints housing official to be acting director of national intelligence

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:41:07 -0400

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is appointing Federal Housing Finance Agency director William Pulte to serve as acting director of national intelligence, replacing outgoing director Tulsi Gabbard.

The choice is unusual for the nation’s top spy official, who would oversee 18 intelligence agencies like the NSA and CIA. Trump defended his selection in a Truth Social post, saying that Pulte, who led many of the administration’s mortgage fraud efforts last year, “has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America.”

Pulte would still hold his leadership positions in FHFA, as well as his chairmanship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while serving as acting director, Trump said.

While heading the housing finance body, Pulte leveraged his authority to launch investigations into the president’s political foes, including Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook and New York Attorney General Letitia James. He does not have prior experience working in the intelligence community.

The announcement sparked swift condemnation from former national security leads, who expressed disbelief over the pick for a paramount U.S. intelligence post that has seen major restructuring and downsizing over the past year.

“I would think at a time when we are facing exceptional conflict in the Middle East and tensions around the world, we would want someone with deep experience in intelligence matters to serve as the acting director of the agency responsible for coordinating all of America’s spy agencies,” said a former senior national security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

“Moreover, it’s a full-time job, so I can’t see how someone could also serve in an important financial regulatory position at the same time. It makes you think this administration either doesn’t know or care — or both — about this office,” the former senior official added.

Nextgov/FCW has asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FHFA and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for comment.

Citing her husband's recent cancer diagnosis, Gabbard announced last week that she intends to step down from her position effective at the end of June.

This story is breaking and may be updated.

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OPM's subtle shifts could redefine federal HR

Ronald Sanders — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 07:00:00 -0400

A few weeks ago, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published proposed regulations that would, among other things, give its director "delegated" authority to approve agency requests for critical pay (that is, an annual salary equivalent to the vice president's) for certain specified positions. That authority is currently vested expressly with the president, according to the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act of 1991 (or FEPCA), which established an upper limit of some 800 such critical pay positions governmentwide, although less than a dozen of those have ever actually been approved in that regard.

But as noted, OPM's proposed rules rely on an "implied" delegation of that critical pay authority from the president to the OPM director — after all, the proposed rules in the Federal Register argue that the director is the president's statutory agent, complete with the administrative equivalent of power of attorney when it comes to such matters — and those rules further imply that absent some good and compelling reason, the OPM director will approve those requests. I guess the goal here is to make better use of that extraordinary pay authority, in large part because it has been so little used in the past. That's an understatement if there ever was one(!), and in this narrow instance, I say let's "just do it!"

My own history with critical pay

At the risk of sounding a bit self-serving, I should know what I'm talking about when it comes to critical pay. I was the IRS's first chief HR officer when the Congress gave that agency "streamlined" critical pay authority for 50 positions in the now-vintage IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, thus allowing it to hire folks at a much higher salary than a regular SES position at the time and (more importantly) without all the OPM justification and red tape involved ... to be sure, the critical pay of many of those execs was not as high as the salaries some of them were getting in their private sector jobs, but the psychic value of telling one of those executive recruits that "we'll pay you as much as Vice President Al Gore is getting" did the trick for most of them. And our ability to land them is evidence of how successful we were.

And then, when I went to OPM in 2002, I persuaded my boss, then-Director Kay Coles James, to use the "regular" FEPCA-authorized critical pay authority (one of the very few agency heads to do so) to justify paying that higher salary to OPM's vacant chief actuary position, one that actually reported to me. The person encumbering that position would determine the rates that insurance carriers could charge federal employees for their health benefits, so in our view, critical pay was imminently justified thus, it was far less than a nationally known actuary could command in the labor market. But as with IRS, it was of enormous psychic value, and Director James was successful!

Truth in advertising: I also "owned" the OPM policy and regulations on critical pay when I was associate director of that agency.

However, it was almost 10 years later, when I chaired the Federal Salary Council as a fledgling political appointee in the first Trump administration (from 2018 until I resigned in late 2020 over the then-unadulterated Schedule F), that I really got to know about FEPCA, critical pay and all of its limitations; indeed, despite much official carping to the contrary, I found that the latter authority had barely been used in the time since I had been a career OPM employee. Indeed, it's never ever covered more than a dozen positions out of the 800 authorized, and I convinced the Federal Pay Agent — the directors of OPM and OMB, as well as the secretary of Labor — to include various critical pay "reforms" in their annual report to the Congress. Those reforms would have expanded its use exponentially, albeit through legislation rather than regulatory fiat, but they went nowhere.

Those reforms have been repeated in one form or another ever since, including in various Pay Agent reports, but to no avail. FEPCA and its critical pay positions have remained intact, this despite the fact that they are both woefully obsolete, but that's another story.

And since then, as a private citizen back in 2023, I was part of small group of IRS "formers" who, on behalf of Commissioner Werfel and his team, lobbied the U.S. Congress to provide that agency with the same independent "streamlined" critical pay authority that it once had back in 1998, only to find that our principle opponent on the Hill was not OMB or the Treasury Department — both of them supported the flexibility — but rather, OPM itself (in this case, the Biden OPM) ... they were the ones that argued that IRS did not need such independent authority, as it already existed in OPM. According to them, all IRS needed to do was ask for it.

Hah, fat chance! But its miserly history notwithstanding, that was enough of an argument to prevail, at least as far as the Senate parliamentarian was concerned, and critical pay approval remained with OPM, along with its historically cheapskate attitude! Until now.

Approve the proposed critical pay rules, but narrowly

So, if it were me, I would unequivocally support the proposed OPM rules, IF they're going to be used to narrowly expand (dare I say, liberalize?) the use of critical pay in the federal government. And I would encourage agency heads and their senior career advisors to take the OPM director at his word and submit lots of critical pay requests ... all justified, of course. Hopefully, most will be approved as promised, and we'll approach the 800-position limit in FEPCA.

But I have some reservations that go beyond critical pay, especially with this notion that the OPM director can speak and act for the president under a doctrine of "implied" delegation. That's a very sharp two-edged sword, depending on who's wielding it, so while I personally trust Scott Kupor and his team to wield it as he has so stated in this instance, I'd need to see how else that implied delegation may be used or abused, depending on how it's going to be exercised.

Thus, while I would love to see greater flexibility with respect to FEPCA's (and OPM's) critical pay authority, we need to worry about the precedential price we would pay in so doing. In his recent blog, aptly entitled "Secrets of OPM," Director Kupor asks us to calm down and carry on in that regard, and I agree with him, but actions will speak louder than words, so we shall see.

For example, the other regulatory change recently proposed by OPM — the abolition of the long-standing (but also obsolete) one-year time-in-grade waiting period for promotions under the General Schedule (GS) — should also be approved right away. Indeed, in my view, it should have been abolished years ago. More on that in a subsequent commentary, but what started decades ago as a simple rule of thumb has, in typical OPM fashion, become blindingly formulaic, forcing every federal employee to wait a year before they can be promoted, even if they could demonstrably do that higher-graded work involved from the get-go.

Why? What's so magical about a year? If someone can do the job, let them do it and pay them for it. So, kill it or at least give agencies the opportunity to do so if they so choose.

A subtle shift at OPM?

That said, in a broader sense, the changes I mention here are a great example of an apparent and positive OPM shift, however subtle it may be, if I'm right, that is. For example, the liberalization of critical pay, the recent proposed elimination of the "one-year" promotion rule and even more recently, the "edict" to require some federal employees to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) — and Director Kupor's contemporaneous blog explaining it — are all potential examples of a recognition that agencies need lots of maneuvering room, that their missions are just too diverse for a "one size fits all" model. I hope OPM's latest missives acknowledge that fact.

To be sure, those headlines can be misleading, and I'm wondering how many other times we've been duped. Take the NDA edict. The headlines say that it covers all federal employees, even though it clearly does not. It is NOT a blanket order, as some have reported. Rather, the edict is at an agency head's discretion, and it is limited to those federal employees that have access to sensitive, confidential (not to mention classified) information. Of course, even in limited form, such a restriction is problematic, but it is certainly less so than the headlines would suggest.

There may be better, less litigious ways to plug leaks to the media, especially given the implications for recruiting talent to civil service ranks, a job already made difficult by the Trump administration, and I fear that many of OPM's changes have been exaggerated and hyperbolized in the same way. But as a "glass half full" person, I'll take what seems to be going on with some optimism. I hope it isn't misplaced.

Ron Sanders is a 2006 Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and served on the National Council of the American Society for Public Administration, as well as associate editor of its Public Administration Review. A career civil servant of more than 37 years (and over two decades as a member of the Senior Executive Service), he was DOD’s director of Civilian Personnel; IRS’s chief human resources officer; senior associate director of OPM; chief human capital officer for the intelligence community; and later, the presidentially appointed chairman of the Federal Salary Council. With a doctorate in public administration, he also served as director of the University of South Florida’s School of Public Affairs and as executive director of the Florida Center for Cybersecurity.

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Federal reform efforts keep repeating the same pattern. Tennessee offers a different model

Howard Risher — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

The Pay Agent report released in December may have been missed by the media, but it contained recommendations important to the goal from a June 2025 OPM memo “to establish a high-performance federal workplace culture where excellent performance is celebrated and rewarded.”

It’s an important goal, one that is consistent with the argument in a 2018 National Academy of Public Administration report, “No Time to Wait: Building a Public Service for the 21st Century.”

The NAPA report emphasized that moving to a performance culture is a “fundamental transformation” from “an obsolete human capital system to one tuned to the future.” “Transformation” is the right word. This is culture change. However, the research makes it clear, culture does not change simply because leaders announce new policies.

Federal employees have heard versions of this argument for decades. Presidents of both parties have repeatedly promised stronger performance management, better accountability and improved recognition systems. The underlying challenge has remained consistent across administrations.

It’s not a new argument. Three decades earlier, two reports from commissions chaired by Paul Volcker, “Leadership for America: Rebuilding the Public Service” and “Urgent Business for America: Revitalizing the Federal Government,” argued the civil service system is “a barrier to effective government performance.”

President Carter was the driving force behind the Civil Service Reform Act, but it limited “merit pay” to supervisors (GS-13 through GS-15). President Clinton and the National Performance Review empowered employees and recognized their achievements, but those efforts are still rarely reflected in agency goal-setting systems. The Bush administration described human capital as “a long-standing, government-wide management weakness,” but attempts to introduce change collapsed. The Government Accountability Office first cited human capital management as high risk in 2001, and it remains on the list with “progress needed.” It’s clear – there are "walls" around the civil service system.

There is also an unrecognized problem: the Merit Systems Protection Board, the “guardian of the merit system.” When it has a quorum and the usual staff, its decisions reinforce laws that are outdated. The laws deter change at all levels of government.

Significantly, the walls have not impeded the successful creation of demo projects. When employees are trusted and involved, they readily commit to new management models.

The harder question is what actually produces lasting change inside government workplaces.

Tennessee offers a working example

A state may not be the same as the federal government, but all civil service systems reflect a similar work management paradigm. In the mid-2000s, Tennessee’s civil service system, largely unchanged since the 1930s, was viewed as too process-heavy, too slow to hire and too difficult to remove poor performers.

To change that reputation, HR staff started with training sessions for the highest level of managers, focusing on “what was right for the business of state government.” Their argument was good management has to start at the top.

When newly elected Gov. Bill Haslam took office in 2011, he agreed with the planning and took the lead in promoting civil service reform. His background included years in private-sector management and two terms as mayor of Knoxville. Several of his department heads also had experience managing in large companies.

One of Haslam’s announced goals was to build a “winning” workforce. As he commented in a speech, “Whether it’s in business, government or sports, the team with the best players wins. Unfortunately, in Tennessee state government . . . the rules don’t allow us to go out and recruit great players.”

Haslam’s Cabinet undertook three initiatives that reinforced the need for reform and led to passage in 2012 of the Tennessee Excellence, Accountability and Management Act.

The law rewrote the state’s personnel statute and included a statutory mandate increasing agency flexibility. It retained just-cause termination protections along with grievance and appeal rights. It switched hiring to focus on skills and competencies and established a performance-based pay and evaluation system. It shifted state employment toward a model that emphasizes accountability, competence and recognition.

The planning started with Cabinet members undertaking a top-to-bottom review of each agency, asking first whether services could be provided more effectively and efficiently by the private sector and second whether government was delivering services effectively. Ineffective employment practices repeatedly emerged as barriers to performance.

Second, the deputy governor and human resource commissioner conducted an employee listening tour across the state to understand how to recruit and retain employees. Many of the same themes later appeared in the reform effort. Employees know what’s needed.

In combination, the initiatives sent a clear message — the goal was to improve government performance and civil service reform was a priority.

That was reinforced by specifying in the TEAM Act a requirement that performance management be based on SMART goals and outcomes. The intent was to link individual and team accountability through successive levels of management.

After the act was passed, the state invested three years in training and coaching managers and gathering feedback from employees and managers before transitioning to pay for performance. That sequencing was central to acceptance of the policy and its durability.

At first the Tennessee State Employees Association opposed the law, but negotiations produced amendments that led the organization to support it. Association leaders stood behind Haslam at the signing ceremony.

Another change, promoted by the HR commissioner, was a heightened focus on customers, which “transformed the culture through a statewide training program on customer service . . . written by a former Disney employee.”

Overall, in Haslam’s two terms, the changes transformed the state’s culture through management training, employee engagement and phased implementation.

Federal reform efforts keep returning to the same problems

Looking back, agency performance is not a new problem. To repeat, the civil service system has been “a barrier to effective government performance.”

Furthermore, GAO has repeatedly identified human capital management as a high-risk area since 2001.

Despite repeated reform efforts, structural constraints, legal frameworks and institutional interpretation government needs to find ways to improve performance.

The lessons for federal employees

Looking at Tennessee’s experience alongside federal reform history, several consistent elements emerge.

The state’s focus was improving management. It invested years in developing managers before shifting to performance pay.

The use of SMART goals provided structure for accountability and clarity for employees.

Research consistently shows that perceived fairness and recognition of solid individual performance can be more effective than marginal salary increases in driving motivation.

Tennessee’s approach worked in part because employees were included early and consistently in the process, creating ownership of the changes. That is consistent with the demonstration projects.

The broader lesson is not that one system is superior to another, but that management capacity, employee engagement and implementation strategy determine whether reform efforts succeed.

That remains the central challenge for federal workforce policy today.

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Bipartisan IRS whistleblower reform bill gains momentum in Senate after House approval

Sean Michael Newhouse — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:50:12 -0400

A bipartisan Senate duo recently introduced companion legislation to a House-passed bill that would make several reforms to an IRS whistleblower program that has recovered billions from noncompliant taxpayers.

“The IRS Whistleblower Awards Program demonstrates the power of whistleblowers. These patriotic men and women are critical to preventing tax dodgers and fraudsters from cheating the American tax system,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the measure’s sponsor, in a statement to Government Executive. “Our bipartisan legislation strengthens protections and support for whistleblowers so this program can keep improving compliance and fairness in our tax system.”

Like its House counterpart (H.R. 7959), the IRS Whistleblower Program Improvement Act (S. 4639) would:

Modify the standard for reviewing whistleblower award determinations in the U.S. Tax Court in order to allow new evidence to be introduced during appeal.
Permit whistleblowers to be anonymous before the Tax Court, unless there is a “societal interest” in disclosing their identity.
Require interest on certain whistleblower payments if the IRS does not meet the deadline to inform the individual of an award recommendation, as part of an effort to ensure the tax agency distributes payments in a timely manner.

In 2025, the IRS reported that it has collected about $7.5 billion as a result of protected disclosures since 2007, leading to more than $1.3 billion in awards to whistleblowers. According to the tax agency, payments tend to be 15 to 30% of funds received due to the whistleblower’s information.

“The numbers show that the IRS whistleblower program works, so the Senate ought to look for every opportunity to improve it,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the bill's cosponsor, in a statement to Government Executive. “It takes real courage to blow the whistle and help put an end to illegal tax cheating schemes, and our bill will go a long way to protecting Americans who bravely speak out.”

Grassley and Wyden are the co-founders and co-chairs of the Senate Whistleblower Protection Caucus. Their legislation is supported by the National Whistleblower Center and Taxpayers Against Fraud nonprofits.

The House in April passed its version of the bill in a 346-10 vote. Provisions that are identical to the legislation are also in the bipartisan Taxpayer Assistance and Service Act (S. 3931), which Wyden cosponsored. That measure has not yet been voted on.

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Disability advocates sue over website accessibility delays

Chris Teale — Wed, 27 May 2026 13:20:46 -0400

A disability rights group is suing two federal agencies over the delayed implementation of a rule requiring that state and local government websites be accessible to people with disabilities.

The National Federation of the Blind filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services over the decision earlier this month to give governments another year to comply with a rule under the Americans with Disabilities Act. That rule would have required states and localities to ensure their websites meet various internationally recognized standards from the World Wide Web Consortium under Title II of the ADA.

In its suit, which also is filed against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., NFB said DOJ and HHS “upended rules that had been years in the making and were carefully crafted to strike the proper balance between ensuring equal access for people with disabilities and feasibility for covered entities.”

NFB accuses DOJ and HHS of not following required procedure around the final rule’s public comment period in extending its implementation deadline, and said both agencies acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner when it made the regulation an Interim Final Rule, which would become effective immediately after publication and does not have a pre-publication public comment period.

“For over fifty years, our laws — specifically Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act — have promised blind Americans and other Americans with disabilities equal access to all areas of life, including digital spaces and services. Yet today this promise remains unfulfilled, and now our government is compounding the outrage by asking us to wait even longer,” Mark Riccobono, NFB’s president, said in a statement. “We will not wait. We will fight to ensure that the promise of America’s laws, and indeed its founding documents, finally becomes reality for blind and disabled Americans.”

The DOJ initially rolled out this regulation in 2024 during former President Joe Biden’s administration, under a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which required a public comment period before a final rule was issued. But just months before the original compliance deadline of April 24, 2026, for governments with populations over 50,000 people, the DOJ referred the rule to the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs as an Interim Final Rule.

That set off a furious lobbying blitz as groups on both sides of the issue sought to influence the DOJ's final decision. Various government groups had argued that compliance was too costly and a drain on stretched staff resources, while disability groups had said the rule and the clarity it would bring were long overdue.

In the end, the DOJ announced in the Federal Register that governments would have an extra year to comply rigorous standards under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, known as WCAG , which means states and localities with populations above 50,000 people now have until April 26, 2027, to comply, while those with populations under 50,000 have until April 26, 2028, to comply. The delay left the plaintiffs in this case furious.

“For years, people with disabilities have fought for equal access to the digital services that increasingly shape everyday life — from healthcare and education to voting and public benefits,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of national legal organization Democracy Forward, which is helping represent NFB, said in a statement. “The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to abruptly delay these protections at the last minute is harmful, unlawful, and deeply disruptive for people who have already waited far too long for equal access. Disability rights are civil rights, and government agencies cannot simply ignore years of work, public input and legal obligations.”

NFB argued that the delay and changing of the rule type violated the Administrative Procedure Act, and so wants a judge to find DOJ and HHS’ actions to be illegal and vacate the Interim Final Rule. They also want the judge to declare all Interim Final Rules to be illegal under that law and award them legal fees.

The lawsuit accuses the DOJ and HHS of trying to “functionally repeal a policy consistent with the Trump Administration’s deregulatory agenda without the burden of a full rulemaking.” And while the suit says that DOJ officials realized that implementation was a far bigger burden than they had realized, especially for state and local governments worried about lawsuits in the event of non-compliance, it does not pay enough attention to the harms the disability community will continue to suffer if it is not implemented.

“[NFB and its members] relied on the Final Rules to fix an issue they regularly face: websites and apps that cannot be effectively used due to design barriers that make them inaccessible using access technology, like screen readers,” the lawsuit says. “Without relief, Plaintiff, its members, and the broader disability community will continue to face substantial barriers and uncertainty in accessing basic services, programs, and activities and participating equally in society.”

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Beekeepers are losing a key USDA backstop at the worst possible time

Jennie L. Durant, The Conversation — Tue, 26 May 2026 15:28:05 -0400

America’s bees and beekeepers are losing a valuable ally just when they need its help most.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to soon close the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, a 6,500-acre agricultural research station in Maryland that is home to the nation’s premier bee research and disease diagnosis hub, the Beltsville Bee Research Lab.

The closure comes at a critical moment for bees. In winter 2025, many beekeepers lost over half their operations as pesticide-resistant varroa mites spread, bringing deadly viruses. The losses have led to low honey production, and soaring fuel costs have made shipping bees cross-country for agricultural pollination increasingly expensive, further stressing the industry.

During my 14 years researching bees and beekeepers, and in writing my new book, “Bitter Honey: Big Ag’s Threat to Bees and the Fight to Save Them,” I’ve seen beekeepers frequently turn to the USDA bee labs for support during crises like this. Because honey bees contribute roughly $15 billion to U.S. crop production – native and managed bees pollinate more than 130 crops – these labs help stabilize the nation’s food system.

Today, that scientific support system is at risk, just as beekeepers face their greatest challenges and native bee populations continue to decline.

Why the Beltsville Bee Lab matters

USDA’s bee researchers have served beekeepers for over 130 years, including nearly 90 years at the Beltsville station. One of the Beltsville Bee Lab’s standout services is its bee disease diagnostic service, where beekeepers can send samples for analysis free of charge.

Since the early 2000s, Beltsville researchers have helped beekeepers respond to varroa mites – a primary driver of high colony losses each year. Now, the lab is helping them prepare for a deadlier mite that is infesting honey bees in Asia, Tropilaelaps mercedesae, or “tropi” mites – by developing detection and response protocols that beekeepers can use to protect their colonies.

While the Beltsville Bee Lab supports beekeepers nationwide, it’s located in a prime farming and beekeeping region. Its closure would leave a critical research gap in the Northeast, where beekeepers help pollinate cranberries, squash, blueberries and other crops.

Its location has also allowed researchers to conduct extensive studies on winter colony losses, research that would be difficult to replicate at the remaining USDA bee labs, which are primarily located in more temperate climates.

Hidden costs of bee lab closures

The USDA states that it will decommission the entire Beltsville Agricultural Research Center because building maintenance and renovations would cost an estimated $500 million. But closing the lab could cost beekeepers, farmers and consumers far more.

For example, in winter 2025, beekeepers experienced their highest losses in U.S. history. Many opened their colonies in January that year and found that more than 60% of their colonies had died – nearly 1.7 million colonies nationwide. Beekeepers contacted Beltsville, and researchers quickly flew out to test affected colonies for pesticide residues, diseases and varroa mites, data that could help guide beekeepers’ treatment response.

A few weeks later, as the lab’s scientists were working on the crisis, the Trump administration fired probationary researchers and staff at the bee labs, along with thousands of other employees across the USDA. The Beltsville team was hobbled, and the remaining staff restricted from communicating with beekeepers.

Because of the communication lockdown, it took nearly six months for researchers to deliver their findings. By then, the season was over and beekeepers had been forced to navigate the crisis on their own.

The loss of bee colonies ultimately cost beekeepers an estimated $600 million in lost honey production, pollination income and colony replacement costs – far more than the one-time projected costs to modernize the entire Beltsville Agricultural Research Center.

These losses can hit consumer pocketbooks too.

When beekeepers lose nearly half their operations, they often need to charge farmers more for pollination services to stay afloat. Those added costs can ripple through the food system and affect what everyone pays for the fruits, vegetables and nuts that depend on pollinators.

More cuts planned to US pollinator research

The Beltsville Bee Lab closure is not an isolated case. The administration has proposed eliminating the U.S. Geological Survey’s Ecosystems Mission Area, a move that could defund the USGS Bee Lab, an essential resource for research on native bees.

It also plans to decommission 16 USGS research centers nationwide, including the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in North Dakota, the highest honey-producing state in the nation. For decades, beekeepers have brought colonies to forage on grasslands in the region. Researchers have been tracking how the shift from grasslands to crops has affected honey bee health and beekeeper revenue.

The U.S. Forest Service also faces widespread cuts, including the planned closure of 57 of its 77 research stations throughout the United States. Since the Forest Service manages over 193 million acres of federal lands that support native plants and pollinators, those closures could affect crucial pollinator habitat as well.

These closures risk a severe brain drain.

When the first Trump administration moved the USDA Economic Research Service from Washington to Kansas City, Missouri, in 2019, the agency lost over 75% of its experienced research staff. A recent survey suggests that history may repeat itself. If the reorganization goes through, farmers and beekeepers will lose experts with decades of institutional and technical knowledge.

The Beltsville Bee Lab is a key part of the often-unappreciated federal research infrastructure that supports the health of pollinators and the nation’s food supply.

If the USDA and the USGS move forward with their plans to close bee labs and research sites, the result could be slower responses to bee threats, weaker tracking of native bee populations and diminished pollinator habitat for bees – all of which raise costs and risks for beekeepers, farmers and everyone who depends on the food system.

Jennie L. Durant, Research Affiliate in Human Ecology, University of California, Davis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Congress must tie any USPS bailout to real reform

Kevin Yoder — Tue, 26 May 2026 07:00:00 -0400

The U.S. Postal Service just announced a projected loss of $1.95 billion for the second quarter of 2026 — its fifth quarterly loss in a row after 19 consecutive years in the red. Postmaster General David Steiner has warned that USPS could run out of cash by early 2027 without help from Congress. But no matter what lawmakers decide to do, any legislation should also enforce accountability, accessibility and affordability requirements to keep USPS from squandering yet another effort by Congress to financially stabilize the agency.

The instinct in Washington will be all too familiar: Raise the USPS borrowing authority, tolerate yet another round of steep price increases and call it a rescue. While it’s clear that Congress must take action soon to keep USPS from going broke, now is not the time for another blank check. That’s because USPS doesn’t have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. Without holding USPS accountable, any financial relief from Congress will just be a band-aid on a gaping wound, setting the stage for a massive taxpayer bailout.

When former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveiled the 10-year Delivering for America plan in 2021, he projected USPS would break even by fiscal year 2023 thanks to aggressive, frequent rate increases, operational cost cuts and a pivot to packages over mail. Yet instead of breaking even, USPS has lost more than $30 billion since the Delivering for America plan was launched — even after the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 eliminated $120 billion in liabilities. And although the stated intent of the reform law was to prevent the need for large rate increases, DeJoy plowed ahead with frequent stamp hikes, raising prices seven times in five years at rates above inflation — a move that the Postal Regulatory Commission has said reduced mail volume and revenue.

DeJoy’s Delivering for America plan has only produced higher prices for consumers and has done scarcely nothing to control spending. And despite the Delivering for America plan’s failures, the USPS Board of Governors and Postmaster General Steiner are continuing down the same path, even though the Postal Service is hemorrhaging cash and customers.

Cuts should, and could, be made without compromising universal service and affordability. USPS operating costs increased by nearly 10 percent between 2021 and 2025. Lower-cost, part-time positions declined, but full-time staffing increased by 37,783 from 2020 to 2024, and only fell by about 2,000 since then. Meanwhile, USPS total factor and labor productivity has fallen to the lowest levels in the modern agency’s history, as the one-to-three-day service standard for First Class mail increased to five days.

In recent testimony before Congress, Postmaster General Steiner advocated for raising the stamp price to nearly $1. Higher prices are not the answer. In fact, they are contributing to the Postal Service’s financial woes. As the Postal Regulatory Commission, the agency charged with USPS oversight, explained in a January report, the shift to twice-a-year rate increases accelerated mail volume decline and revenue losses by pricing out both consumers and business. With each price hike above inflation, the Postal Service cannibalizes the mail, which is still its biggest revenue source.

Steiner also asked Congress to raise the Postal Service’s borrowing authority, which is currently capped at $15 billion — a limit that has already been met. Given that USPS is facing $8 billion in projected losses this year, even doubling its borrowing authority isn’t likely to even carry it through 2027.

Privatization is also not a panacea. While European countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands have privatized their mail delivery, they’ve experienced widespread service deterioration and rising costs. It also wouldn’t work in the U.S. due to the sheer size of our country. No private courier could, or would, deliver mail for all Americans.

If DeJoy’s Delivering for America plan taught us anything, it’s that raising rates and borrowing more money isn’t a path to solvency for the Postal Service without cost control and productivity requirements. A CPI-based price cap, for example, would require USPS to improve efficiency and live within its means. Any service reductions must be required to provide guaranteed savings and the Postal Regulatory Commission’s oversight should be strengthened to ensure USPS improves efficiency and cost discipline. USPS could break even and improve profitability over the next five years if it cuts costs by just 2 percent annually.

Any private bankrupt entity would be expected to restructure before borrowing more. Congress should expect nothing less from the Postal Service, otherwise American taxpayers will be left holding the bag (of mail).

Kevin Yoder is a former Republican congressman from Kansas and executive director of Keep US Posted, a nonprofit advocacy group of consumers, nonprofits, newspapers, greeting card publishers, magazines, catalogs and small businesses.

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The White House is ordering agencies to place its new app on all employees’ government phones

Eric Katz and Natalie Alms — Fri, 22 May 2026 17:08:23 -0400

Updated May 22 at 8:57 p.m.

The White House recently unveiled a new app to give the public “unfiltered” access to “key priorities,” “historic moments” and “policy breakthroughs.” Now, it’s directing agencies to help install it on the government phones of federal employees.

The Trump administration launched the app, which promises to “[keep] you connected to President Donald J. Trump and his administration like never before,” in March.

The push to install the app on the devices of millions of government employees drew surprise from current and former federal officials, who called the move highly unusual and even dangerous.

The White House launched its new app in March 2026.

In at least one agency, the automatic downloads will start next week in a move directed by the White House itself, according to internal communications obtained by Government Executive. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this week, agency chief information officers got orders from the federal CIO, Greg Barbaccia, to help the White House understand the mechanics of installing the app across all government-furnished mobile phones in the executive branch, according to an internal email obtained by Government Executive.

“The White House App gives all Americans direct access to White House live streams, breaking news alerts, new policy initiatives, social media posts, and more,” said Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson. “Government devices typically include pre-installed apps that provide value to government employees’ day-to-day work.”

The move is “dangerous,” Sonny Hashmi, a former longtime government IT executive, told Government Executive.

Cybersecurity researchers warned about vulnerabilities in the app soon after it debuted, like how it shares the IP addresses, time zones and other data of users with third-party services. The app also raised initial concerns about its potential GPS tracking capability, but the White House has since removed that functionality.

Forcing agencies to install it on employee’s government furnished phones should be “cause for alarm,” said Hashmi, who worked at the General Services Administration for years, most recently as a Biden administration appointee. “Any app that is installed on government issued devices can potentially create backdoor access to government networks behind the firewall.”

The Federal Aviation Administration told employees on Friday that its IT team “will automatically install ‘The White House’ application on all FAA-issued iPhones and iPads, as mandated by the White House,” adding the process would occur automatically and employees “do not need to take any action.”

“The application will grant access to breaking news, policy updates, livestreams, videos, photos, social media content, and exclusive early-access information,” it said.

The app includes official statements and policy announcements from the administration, as well as a feed of social media posts from White House accounts and the president.

A button gives the option to “text President Trump,” which, when clicked, opens a text message to a pre-selected number with the default text “Greatest President Ever!” Sending the text signs the user up for alerts, which individuals can also do through the app itself.

While the instructions to install the administration’s app on government phones may sound like a way to simply communicate with the government workforce more directly, “this isn’t really operational,” former government tech official David Nesting told Government Executive, pointing to the fact that it’s the same app available to the general public.

“It's just making sure all federal employees are forced to see the same propaganda they push out to the public,” said Nesting, who previously worked in career, civil service government roles as the deputy CIO at OPM and also did stints at the federal Office of the Chief Information Officer and U.S. Digital Service before it was DOGE.

The app includes videos and messaging that are overtly political or directly related to campaigns, the type of material with which employees are typically discouraged from engaging while on the clock due to the non-partisan nature of their work.

Barbaccia’s email to government IT executives suggests that how to force the app to install across phones wasn’t immediately apparent to the White House, as it requested help with the “mechanics” of pushing the app out across government phones.

This marks at least the second time the administration has sought to make it easier to communicate with the entire federal workforce all at once.

In the days after Trump moved back into the White House last year, the Office of Personnel Management set up a new, first of its kind governmentwide email system – something that didn’t previously exist. It later used the new system to send out the administration’s “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation offer to get hundreds of thousands of federal employees to resign from their roles.

This story has been updated with comment from the White House.

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Agency leaders back GSA bid for full access to federal building repair funds

Sean Michael Newhouse — Fri, 22 May 2026 14:09:48 -0400

General Services Administration chief Ed Forst has long advocated for his agency to be given full access to the Federal Buildings Fund. His latest entreaty to Congress, however, came with backing from the leaders of more than 20 federal departments and agencies.

“Despite the rental payments made to GSA by federal departments and agencies, GSA is consistently unable to access requisite [repairs and alterations] funding due to persistent underfunding by Congress,” the agency heads wrote in a Thursday letter to House and Senate leaders. “Consequently, cyclical reinvestment to maintain federally owned facilities in a state of good repair has become a luxury — rather than a necessity.”

As explained by the Congressional Research Service, lawmakers created the FBF as a revolving fund for the government’s property agency: “GSA pays lessors for the space it rents on behalf of other agencies, and agencies then repay GSA by depositing funds into the FBF. GSA then uses the rental payments it collects for all of its real property activities, such as the construction of new facilities, lease payments and repairs to federally-owned properties.”

But Congress puts annual limits on how much funding GSA can spend from the account for budget reasons, which the letter signers argue has significantly contributed to an estimated $26 billion deferred maintenance backlog.

“As we seek to do more with less and ensure that Americans' scarce tax dollars are spent wisely, GSA should be able to access the entirety of its FBF annual agency rent receipts to perform work that federal tenants believe will be addressed by virtue of our providing timely rental payments,” they wrote.

Specifically, GSA reports that the FBF has been “chronically underfunded” since 2011 by more than $15.6 billion, which, in turn, makes it more difficult for the agency to implement the Trump administration’s goal of reducing the number of federal buildings through consolidation.

The agency heads in the letter also called on lawmakers to increase the prospectus threshold needed for GSA to obtain congressional approval to alter government properties from nearly $4 million to $75 million for “routine and emergency maintenance” and $10 million for all other cases.

The Biden administration also sought to provide GSA with full access to the FBF, offload excess agency facilities and raise the prospectus threshold.

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Gabbard to resign as director of national intelligence, citing husband’s health

David DiMolfetta — Fri, 22 May 2026 14:08:00 -0400

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard will resign from her role in the coming weeks, her office confirmed to Nextgov/FCW on Friday.

Gabbard’s husband, Abraham Williams, was “diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, and she is stepping away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle,” Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in an email.

In a Truth Social post that included Gabbard’s resignation note, President Donald Trump said she would be leaving June 30. It marks the fourth major cabinet departure of his second term.

During Gabbard’s roughly 16-month tenure overseeing the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, the former Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate sought to reshape ODNI around Trump’s priorities while facing persistent scrutiny over her past comments on Russia, Syria, Edward Snowden and surveillance authorities. She was narrowly confirmed to the position in February 2025.

In office, Gabbard launched a sweeping restructuring effort aimed at shrinking ODNI, including plans to cut staffing and consolidate or eliminate several offices tied to cyber, foreign influence and intelligence integration functions. Supporters framed the moves as long-overdue reforms, while critics warned they could weaken coordination across the intelligence community.

Gabbard also became a central figure in Trump’s efforts to target former intelligence officials viewed as political adversaries. Last year, she revoked security clearances for dozens of current and former national security officials, accusing some of politicizing intelligence and leaking classified information, which drew sharp criticism from Democrats and former intelligence leaders.

Her tenure was additionally marked by renewed disputes over U.S. intelligence assessments, including intelligence findings involving Venezuela.

Gabbard’s political rise was built in part around opposition to U.S. interventionism and what she called “regime change wars,” a posture that at times appeared increasingly at odds with White House actions involving military operations in Iran and Venezuela.

In March, a Senate hearing highlighted growing tensions between intelligence community assessments of the war in Iran and the administration’s framing of the conflict. It also came a day after the departure of then-aide and National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent, who said he could not agree with the Trump administration’s premise for the war, which was launched alongside Israel in February.

In the hearing, Gabbard told senators that it’s “not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat” and that the president has authority to make such conclusions.

In a Friday statement, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said his thoughts were with Gabbard and her family.

“Anyone who has watched a loved one go through a serious illness understands the toll it takes, and I wish him strength and hope for a full recovery in the difficult days ahead. I also appreciate her willingness to serve her country in a variety of different roles,” he said.

“The Director of National Intelligence is entrusted with one of the most serious responsibilities in government: providing objective, fact-based intelligence to policymakers and the American people, regardless of politics or pressure from the White House,” added Warner, who often sparred with Gabbard over issues involving her office.

“At a time when the boundaries between verified intelligence and politically convenient claims have too often been blurred, it is critical that the office remain grounded in facts, independence, and the rule of law,” he said.

“I thank Tulsi Gabbard for her service in this administration and in uniform, and I wish her the very best as she supports her husband Abe in his battle with cancer. Please join me in sending them prayers for a full and fast recovery,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., the intelligence committee chairman.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated with additional details.

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DOGE is about making government services easier to access, its head says

Natalie Alms — Thu, 21 May 2026 07:00:00 -0400

Department of Government Efficiency acting Administrator Amy Gleason says that efficiency — the tagline billionaire Elon Musk heralded during his involvement in the early days of DOGE — is about making accessing the government easier.

Although that message ties back to much of the history of the Obama-era office that President Donald Trump reshaped into DOGE, the U.S. Digital Service, it diverges somewhat from what DOGE has made itself known for, like dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, pressing for unprecedented, high-level access to sensitive government data and pushing thousands of government employees out of their jobs.

Musk and his allies also emphasized reducing government spending as part of their mission, although they were ultimately largely unsuccessful.

Gleason told an audience at a government IT industry event Wednesday that the group’s priorities today are improving government services, modernizing government systems, combating fraud and hiring tech talent after the administration pushed 20,000 technology-focused government employees out of their jobs last year.

“I think of efficiency really as reducing that friction, administrative burden, both from our public users as well as our federal workforce, and even state users that we're working with,” she said. “Our citizens have come to expect their government experience to feel like the private sector experience, where it's modern and easy to use.”

When Trump moved back into the White House last year, he quickly transformed USDS — set up in the wake of the botched healthcare.gov launch to prevent future such failures — into the U.S. DOGE Service.

Many of those on the existing team were laid off or resigned in protest. Some stayed and continued to work on the types of citizen-facing projects the Obama-era team was known for, although experts have told Nextgov/FCW that DOGE made these types of good-government projects more difficult by souring what the public thinks about when it hears the words “government modernization.”

Gleason herself was relatively unknown to the broader public when the White House named her acting administrator of DOGE last spring, after Trump evaded the question of who was in charge for weeks. She previously worked at DOGE’s precursor during Trump’s first term and during the Biden administration.

Despite her title, it’s not clear how much sway Gleason had over DOGE during its zenith. Some on Musk’s government-cutting team have since said that she never led a DOGE meeting they attended, and that they didn’t know what her job was.

DOGE’s social media still appears to be rooted in the Musk days. Recent posts on the team’s X account include images of a doberman on the White House lawn with the text, “DOGERMAN.” Another post simply reads, “America loves DOGE.”

Public polling from last year says otherwise, with more Americans opposing DOGE than rating it positively.

Gleason, who also works at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, spoke Wednesday about her inspiration working in the healthcare tech space because of the experience of her daughter, who was diagnosed with a rare disease when she was 11. Gleason said she wants to improve the access patients have to their own healthcare data.

Asked to expound on the biggest challenges in government AI, Gleason said that trust is the “biggest thing.”

“We have to figure out how to overcome the trust barrier,” she said.

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TSA workforce, aviation leaders challenge Trump push to expand privatized airport screening

Eric Katz — Wed, 20 May 2026 16:04:00 -0400

Updated May 21 at 5 p.m.

Industry and government employee representatives alike pushed back on President Trump’s attempt to mandate the privatization of screening efforts at small airports on Wednesday, suggesting during congressional testimony the program should remain optional and could lead to worse outcomes.

The airline industry, the head of a major airport and the top official representing Transportation Security Administration employees all threw cold water on the president’s plan, which the White House proposed earlier this year. Trump is looking to dramatically scale up the Screening Partnership Program to include hundreds of participants, compared to the current roster of just more than 20 airports.

Former Gov. Chris Sununu, R-N.H., now the president of Airlines for America, said his members do not want to see airports have their choices taken away. The overwhelming majority of airports in the United States have since the Sept. 11 attacks used federal TSA screeners at their checkpoints, though the law creating the agency allowed them to opt in a partnership with the private sector.

“Ensuring SPP remains an option for airports and does not become a mandatory program is paramount to the U.S. aviation industry,” Sununu said, adding that while some of the airports that have elected to participate in the privatization program have done so successfully, “airports need the flexibility to make their own choices.”

Chris McLaughlin, CEO of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, said TSA staff at his facility “do an amazing job” and he is therefore uninterested in joining the program.

“I think it's important for airports to have choices,” McLaughlin said. “I think there might be places where an SPP model could work for specific airports.”

Trump’s privatization plan would lead to job cuts of around 4,500 TSA employees. He proposed eliminating another nearly 5,000 jobs by reallocating resources that the agency said will lead to more efficiency, as well as by tasking states and localities to staff exit lanes. The budget proposed an additional $477 million for SPP to get more airports to enroll, though the White House said it would ultimately save $52 million.

“The budget begins the privatization of TSA’s airport screeners by requiring small airports to enroll in the Screening Partnership Program, under which TSA pays for private screeners at designated airports,” the White House said. “The airports that already use this program have demonstrated savings compared to federal screening operations.”

The president has also launched TSA Gold Plus, which would enable airports to leverage private sector investment in providing technology and staffing for screening while maintaining federal oversight. That differs from SPP, which uses federal dollars to contract with private screeners.

The administration has pointed to the two extended government shutdowns in fiscal 2026 that have forced TSA employees to go months on only the promise of back pay to justify the privatization push, suggesting non-government personnel maintained their pay throughout the funding lapses.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA workers, said the pre-9/11 era demonstrated the pitfalls of privatized airport screening.

“The consequences of reverting to a contractor-driven model are not theoretical,” Kelley said. “We lived them before September 2001 and the historical record is unambiguous.”

Most Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee that held Wednesday's hearing said forced privatization would be a mistake that would lead to worse outcomes for both travelers and TSA personnel. Workers at private companies would earn less than most TSA staff, they said, while losing their collective bargaining rights—a shift the administration is already seeking to implement at the agency.

“Airports recognize the downsides of privatization over the last 25 years,” said Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif. “Airports have had the option to join SPP at any time, and only a small handful have done so.”

Republicans, meanwhile, expressed an openness to the plan, noting Democratically controlled cities have either implemented SPP (San Francisco) or are considering doing so (Seattle and Atlanta).

“I applaud the administration’s establishment of a new TSA Modernization office, reporting directly to the TSA administrator,” said Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., who chaired the hearing..” This new office directly answers this committee’s calls to modernize and reform the agency while increasing public-private partnerships in striving toward greater security outcomes.”

After the hearing, Garbarino clarified that private-public partnerships should be just one part of TSA's modernization, which should include new technology and streamlined screening for certain populations. He has supported bipartisan legislation to allow TSA to retain all of the fees it collects from travelers and to allow families with young children to receive expedited screenings.

"When it comes to optional programs like SPP, the most important thing stressed at this week’s hearing is that this is one of many avenues available to airports as they determine what frameworks work best for their needs," Garbarino said. "That was an important conversation to have across party lines, and I appreciated the testimony from all of our witnesses on how we can work together to protect the traveling public and our dedicated TSA workforce.”

Kelley suggested TSA employees should be applauded for their efforts while seeing their paychecks delayed, collective bargaining rights stripped and threats of thousands of job cuts.

“Despite all of this, they have continued to show up,” Kelley said. “They have continued to screen nearly three million passengers a day. They have maintained their unblemished record of keeping the flying public safe from terrorist violence.”

This story has been updated with additional comment.

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Survey: Feds were less engaged, less satisfied and more burnt out in 2025

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 20 May 2026 15:29:29 -0400

Federal employee morale dropped last year, as President Donald Trump downsized and otherwise overhauled the civil service, according to a new data analysis from Gallup.

“[A]fter the reforms took effect, federal workers experienced declines in employee engagement and job satisfaction, alongside increases in burnout and job-search activity,” the researchers wrote. “These shifts were larger than those observed among comparable state and local government workers — and private sector counterparts — during the same period.”

The analytics firm noted, however, that the data shows there was a “rebound” in some areas by the end of 2025.

For the analysis, researchers compared federal employee worker engagement metrics with those of state and local civil servants. Between 2022 and 2024, the two groups exhibited similar worker satisfaction score trends.

“By comparing the change in federal employees to the change in state and local employees — rather than looking at federal trends alone — the analysis isolates the portion of the shift that occurred uniquely among federal workers after the reforms,” the researchers explained.

In the second quarter of 2025, the percentage of “engaged” federal employees decreased by six points more than it did for state and local workers. That gap narrowed to a four-point difference by the first quarter of 2026.

Likewise, feds were roughly 15 points less likely than their state and local counterparts to report having “high job satisfaction” in the second quarter of 2025. The difference between the two groups never went below 10 points for the remainder of the year.

Between the second and fourth quarter of 2025, feds went from being about eight to nine points more likely to report “high burnout” compared with state and local workers to approximately four to six points.

Feds were also around eight points more likely to be searching for a new job in the first quarter of 2025 than state and local civil servants, but “federal job-search behavior [by Q4 2025] was essentially indistinguishable from state and local peers and remained so in Q1 2026.”

For this analysis, Gallup researchers looked at data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the company’s ongoing workforce survey data of U.S. adults. The statistical models were controlled for characteristics like age, gender and race.

In March, Gallup reported that the percentage of feds who are classified as “thriving” decreased by 10 points between 2024 and 2025.

The Office of Personnel Management in 2025 did not conduct the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, with officials saying that changes were necessary to the annual poll of the government workforce in order to comply with Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders.

In response, the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan good government group, developed its own survey of more than 10,000 current feds. It found that all 30 agencies represented in the poll experienced decreases from their 2024 FEVS scores; although, Partnership officials acknowledged that the results are not directly comparable because OPM’s survey includes significantly more respondents.

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EPA’s restructuring could change who shapes chemical risk decisions

H. Christopher Frey, The Conversation — Wed, 20 May 2026 15:13:44 -0400

For decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has relied on an independent scientific program to answer two basic questions when chemicals come up for review: Does the chemical pose a threat to human health? If so, how much exposure is necessary before it becomes a problem?

The scientists involved in that program, known as the Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, served as neutral scientific referees.

Now, the Trump administration is dismantling the program and moving the scientific assessment role to policy offices, opening the door for political pressure. The administration is also making it easier for past IRIS assessments to be revisited or overturned.

This change is not merely bureaucratic: It reshapes whether future assessments of chemical dangers will be ignored, delayed by time-consuming legal fights or understated by the federal government, potentially with real consequences for public health.

Numerous chemicals are hazardous to human health. For example, ethylene oxide is used to sterilize medical equipment. However, studies show ethylene oxide poses elevated cancer risks to people who live near facilities that release it. Chromium-VI, used as a corrosion inhibitor and for metal finishing, can contaminate drinking water. Made famous by the Erin Brockovich case, it has been linked to cancer and other adverse health effects. Formaldehyde, found in building materials and household products, has long raised concerns about cancer and respiratory disease.

EPA scientists assessed each of these chemicals through the IRIS program. Now, the IRIS program itself, as well as many of its formal assessments of more than 550 chemicals developed over four decades, is being challenged under the Trump administration.

What IRIS did – and what it didn’t do

In any high-stakes game, the referee enforces the rules so the outcome rests on the facts, not on who shouts the loudest or has the most at stake.

IRIS played that role for chemical safety. It was part of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, which was recently dismantled by the Trump administration. Its scientists assessed whether chemicals cause harm and weighed how health risks changed with a person’s increasing exposure to the chemical. These scientists did not estimate real-world exposures, decide acceptable risk or make regulatory choices. Those functions were handled in policy offices.

I have worked with IRIS assessments from multiple perspectives – as a professor of environmental engineering, as a reviewer for the National Academies and EPA science advisory processes, and as assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Research and Development from 2022 to 2024, where I oversaw the IRIS program.

IRIS assessments were written by EPA scientists and rigorously reviewed by independent external peer reviewers with experience in each specific chemical. The assessments have been used across EPA programs and by states, local governments and tribes, and internationally. Industry representatives, environmental groups, other federal agencies and members of the public all had opportunities to comment on the drafts of assessments before they were finalized.

When disagreements arose over IRIS assessments, independent scientific experts were asked to weigh the evidence and advise the EPA on how to move forward. That process, relying on scientists, not stakeholders, was meant to ensure that scientific judgments were grounded in evidence, not in policy preferences or financial interests.

The actual policy decisions to regulate chemicals were made elsewhere, by EPA officials and, in some cases, by states or other jurisdictions. IRIS provided the scientific foundation so those decisions could be informed by an evidence-based understanding of chemical hazards.

IRIS assessments effectively set the standard for assessing chemical hazards internationally. Other agencies and countries rely on IRIS assessments precisely because they are comprehensive, transparent and independently reviewed.

Why critics wanted IRIS dismantled

That track record matters.

Some industry-aligned organizations have argued that IRIS assessments are flawed or biased and have called for eliminating the program.

However, independent scientific reviews have repeatedly examined these concerns and found that IRIS methods reflect the current state of the science and have strengthened in rigor, transparency and consistency over time.

It’s true that IRIS assessments often took years to complete, but that was because extensive interagency review and limited staffing slowed the pace at which assessments could inform regulatory decisions. Delay is not the same as poor science.

What changes when the referee disappears?

With IRIS eliminated as an independent program, chemical hazard assessments will be overseen by regulatory offices that also weigh economic impacts, legal risk and policy priorities.

When scientific assessments are developed within offices responsible for policy decisions, it becomes harder to maintain a clear separation between evaluating evidence and weighing its regulatory consequences. That separation has historically helped ensure that scientific conclusions are grounded in evidence alone.

Courts generally give weight to agency expertise when decisions are supported by a clear and well-documented scientific record. However, when agencies fail to clearly explain how the evidence supports their decisions, including when agencies depart from their own scientific assessments, courts can block those decisions under the Administrative Procedure Act or other laws, such as the Clean Air Act.

The result can be prolonged litigation and delays in developing or implementing regulations, with consequences for public health.

How communities are affected

Industries have long challenged scientific findings that show their products can cause harm – from tobacco smoke to particulate air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

When public health is at stake, I believe independent referees are essential to ensure that facts are determined by evidence, not by the industries that would benefit. Shifting away from independent scientific review risks undermining that foundation.

H. Christopher Frey, Professor of Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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