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OPM to set new requirements to ‘verify’ FEHBP enrollments

Erich Wagner — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:40:45 -0400

The Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday published regulations aimed at better verifying that family members of federal workers and retirees are eligible for benefits under two of the government’s employer-sponsored health insurance programs.

Last year, Congress enacted a law requiring stricter screening of participants in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and Postal Service Health Benefits Program to ensure they are eligible for coverage. That move came following a 2022 Government Accountability Office report finding that the government could be spending upwards of $1 billion per year to cover family members and former spouses of federal workers and retirees who no longer qualified as dependents.

In 2024, OPM instructed agencies to audit a sample of 10% of FEHBP enrollees—the PSHBP had not yet launched at the time—to verify their continued eligibility. But due to a combination of “high transactions” during the 2024 open season and “staffing challenges” last year, the effort never made it off the ground.

In a final rule published to the Federal Register Tuesday, OPM said beginning July 1, federal workers who enroll a child or spouse in health insurance benefits through FEHBP or PSHBP will be required to provide proof of their eligibility. Among the acceptable documentation are government-issued marriage certificates, birth certificates, paternity tests and foster child or adoption paperwork. Parents of adult dependents under 26 may submit their children’s tax returns to confirm eligibility, and in instances involving a disabled adult, a medical certification that they are incapable of “self-support” will be accepted.

Under the new process, agency employing offices or OPM can disenroll a family member of the federal worker “fails to provide adequate documentation” of their eligibility. If someone is disenrolled, they may ask for a reconsideration of that decision within 60 days, but the result of that process is “final.”

While much of the rule is aimed at improving eligibility verification when a dependent is first added to insurance coverage, OPM said it is still preparing for the FEHB Protection Act’s other major provision: an audit of existing enrollments to verify participants’ continued eligibility.

“OPM concurs that there are ineligible family members participating in the program and more can be done to identify and remove them from coverage,” the rule states. “That [GAO] report made several recommendations, many of which OPM concurred with and implemented. While this work progresses, OPM is also preparing for the family member eligibility audit required by the FPA. This audit is a critical piece of addressing ineligible family member coverage and restoring program integrity, but the economic effects of the audit are not included in this rule since it is not affected by this rule.”

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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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Ready, fire, aim: Pentagon cut workforce with little analysis before or since, GAO finds

Meghann Myers — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Pentagon leaders cut their department’s workforce by more than 10% with little regard for the effects—and still has no plans to assess them, according to a congressional watchdog report released on Friday.

The department shed 78,000 civilian employees in 2025 through a mix of voluntary resignations, involuntary layoffs, and a hiring freeze that resulted in nearly 60,000 fewer new hires than in recent years, the report found.

“But we found that DOD didn’t consistently analyze the impacts of these reductions, either in 2025 or in prior years,” according to the report. “DOD also doesn’t have a plan to assess lessons learned from its 2025 workforce reductions.”

In their response to the report, Defense officials agreed that they should “develop and implement a plan for collecting and sharing lessons learned from the Department's implementation of workforce reduction efforts.”

The officials did not indicate whether that would happen.

Soon after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took office, the Pentagon announced it would cut 5 to 8 percent of its civilian workforce. Within a year, the number swelled to about 110,000—about 14% of DOD civilians—including laid-off probationary employees, deferred resignations, and voluntary early retirements. Some 30,000 people were hired for a short list of jobs exempted from the hiring freeze, putting the net loss at just over 10%.

Of the 28 Defense agencies, offices, and other organizations targeted for workforce cuts by the Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget request, at least three did not give the required explanation to Congress about why and how the cuts would be made, GAO found.

Those were the Joint Staff, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the Defense Contract Audit Agency, according to the report.

“According to component officials, DOD had not provided guidance for when and how to conduct and document this analysis,” the GAO found.

And further, the GAO found, the Pentagon didn’t plan to assess how the cuts affected productivity.

In March, the Partnership for Public Service published a survey that found morale among DOD employees has tanked during the current administration.

Only 9% of Army Department employees agreed that “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s political leadership team generates high levels of motivation in the workforce,” the survey found, the most satisfied of any of the large government agencies surveyed.

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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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Cyber Force? Senator pushes to create service branch under the Army

Thomas Novelly — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:16:13 -0400

A new cyber-focused military service branch would sit under the Army if one senator’s proposal comes to fruition.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is spearheading a markup amendment to the Senate’s 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would create a “Cyber Force” as the next armed service branch. The senator’s office confirmed that the amendment proposes to establish the branch under the Army, just as the Space Force and Marine Corps sit under the Air Force and Navy.

Similar provisions are reportedly being floated in the House, according to two people familiar with policy discussions. Earlier this year, Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, told the Center For Strategic and International Studies that a “Cyber Force is inevitable” and “we’re going to get this done.” A Fallon spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Friday asking about a potential amendment.

“New and escalating cyber threats on the battlefield demand a change to our current approach. The status quo and years of incremental changes are not meeting the current threat and are insufficient as that threat grows,” Gillibrand told Defense One in an emailed statement. “I believe, and many experts agree, that the creation of a dedicated Cyber Force will ensure the United States is ready to fight and win on the modern battlefield and protect our national security.”

The proposed amendment marks the latest push in a years-long effort. Gillibrand and House lawmakers have backed the idea before. In the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers commissioned the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study “alternative organizational models for the cyber forces of the Armed Forces.” Those findings have not been released. Details from the amendments showing what a Cyber Force might look like are not yet public, but think tanks and national security experts have already been pitching their own force designs.

A 2024 Foundation for Defense of Democracies report concluded that a Cyber Force could sit under the Army, muster about 10,000 personnel, and need a budget of around $16.5 billion. In August 2025, the FDD and the Center for Strategic and International Studies announced a commission on Cyber Force Generation. A report from those think tanks is scheduled to be released next month.

One former military official said there would be strengths to a cyber-focused service, but putting it under the Army is a bad idea. They argued that cyber would remain a secondary priority amid the branch’s many missions.

“The Army is the largest service by far,” the former official said. “Manpower-wise, it's like half the department, and it's like, ‘we'll put it under because it'll be easy for the Army to just put in another force.’ It's already hard enough to run the Army as it is.”

Mark Montgomery, a retired Navy rear admiral and an FDD senior fellow who advocates for a Cyber Force, argued that this year is an ideal time to create a new service.

“Timing-wise, you need to do this in the beginning or middle of an administration, not at the end of an administration,” Montgomery said.

The proposed amendment would need to survive multiple Senate and House edits to make the final compromise NDAA.

It’s not clear if the Trump administration would support the latest bipartisan push. Last year, the Pentagon rolled out CYBERCOM 2.0, a series of policy changes aimed at beefing up the recruiting, training, and missions of the existing U.S. Cyber Command.

Katie Sutton, the assistant defense secretary for cyber policy and principal cyber advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, defended the Cyber Command reforms during a January Senate hearing, and said a renewed command and a new service could co-exist.

“I think this is a really important debate for us all to be having about the future of the cyber warfighting domain,” Sutton told the Senate Armed Services Committee in January. “I do think one of the most common misconceptions about Cyber Command is that it is a debate between Cyber Command 2.0 and a cyber force, and they are actually separate debates that I believe both need to be had, and we need to look closely at the pros and cons of both.”

Advocates for a separate and independent cyber-focused service branch say it aligns with the Trump administration’s calls for “offensive cyber operations against those planning to kill Americans,” the White House’s new counterterrorism strategy said. It also comes as President Donald Trump and Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs chairman, acknowledged the growing role of cyber effects in U.S. military operations in Iran and Venezuela, Defense One and sister publication NextGov/FCW have previously reported.

“The president says, ‘We've got to be more offensive’ but then you got to better generate forces to be offensive, and we don't generate enough forces to do both offensive cyber and defensive cyber operations,” Montgomery said. “A cyber force is clearly necessary.”

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Federal oversight faces ‘structural conflict’ as political appointees enter IG offices

Sean Michael Newhouse — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:16:27 -0400

Along with increasing the number of political appointees in the federal government, the second Trump administration is also installing such officials at agencies that haven’t employed political staffers in recent history.

According to a report published on May 28 by the Partnership for Public Service nonprofit, there are 16 agencies and subagencies that had zero non-Senate-confirmed appointees between 2009 and 2024 that had at least one as of March 2026.

Some of the agencies include the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Forest Service, National Archives and the IRS, which has never before had non-Senate-confirmed political appointees.

“These trends reveal that the politicization of federal leadership is not simply intensifying — it is spreading,” wrote Partnership researcher Chris Piper. “In each case, political appointees are displacing or crowding out career officials whose expertise, continuity and institutional knowledge have been the foundation of effective agency operations and mission delivery.”

In particular, the Partnership flagged that there are two political appointees assigned respectively to the inspector general offices for the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Labor.

OIGs provide independent oversight of agency operations. Since at least 2009, according to the report, no other OIG had any non-Senate-confirmed political staffers.

“[OIG] credibility depends on operating free from the direction of the very officials they oversee,” Piper wrote. “A political appointee within an IG office, outside of the Senate-confirmed inspector general, does not merely break a historical norm — it introduces a structural conflict of interest into an institution whose effectiveness depends on independence.”

Good government groups have criticized the president for firing many IGs and replacing most of them with individuals who worked in the first or second Trump administration. The IG for the Labor Department — Anthony D’Esposito, a former GOP congressman — has also faced questions about actions he has taken while in the watchdog position seemingly to prepare for another political campaign, which could have violated ethics rules.

There also are political appointees for the first time at the Federal Labor Relations Authority and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Both are examples of independent agencies that were created to have some degree of separation from the White House, but the Trump administration has sought to exert more influence over their operations.

The Partnership also emphasized that non-Senate-confirmed appointees have been assigned in “unprecedented numbers” to management offices, such as the Veterans Affairs Department Information and Technology Office and the Federal Acquisition Service under the General Services Administration.

“[U]nlike the career officials they displace, political appointees are unlikely to serve long enough to witness the consequences of the budget decisions they make, the technology investments they oversee or the procurement contracts they negotiate,” Piper wrote. “Political appointments in management functions also raise concerns about undue influence over decisions that should be made on the merits — including the awarding of contracts and the allocation of federal resources in ways that serve political rather than programmatic ends.”

The Partnership also complained that officials generally don’t have to disclose the specific work that non-Senate-confirmed appointees are performing.

“This lack of transparency is not unique to this administration. But it is more consequential when political appointments are reaching new corners of the federal government,” Piper wrote. “This administration has expanded political appointments into agencies and offices where they have not existed in at least 15 years. As a result, appointees are performing functions for which no clear policy-directing rationale applies and where the consequences of politicization may be slow to emerge and difficult to trace.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration finalized regulations for Schedule Policy/Career, a new job classification that would remove civil service job protections for as many as 50,000 government workers in “policy-related” positions. Critics argue that it will result in political appointees replacing career staffers while administration officials have insisted that federal employees will not be removed based on their political affiliations.

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Federal employee NDAs aren’t new, but expanding them requires careful guardrails

Lindy Kyzer — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:01:10 -0400

The recent proposal from the Office of Personnel Management to expand nondisclosure agreement (NDA) requirements across the federal workforce has generated predictable controversy. Critics see it as an attempt to suppress dissent. Supporters view it as a long-overdue effort to curb damaging leaks.

But amid the political debate, one important fact is being overlooked: for hundreds of thousands of federal employees, NDAs are already a standard condition of service.

Anyone granted access to classified information signs the Standard Form 312 (SF-312), a legally binding nondisclosure agreement acknowledging their responsibility to protect national security information. Clearance holders understand that safeguarding sensitive information is part of the job. The expectation is clear, the boundaries are defined, and the consequences for violations are understood.

What makes the current proposal different is not the existence of an NDA. It is the expansion of the concept beyond classified information and into a much broader category of what the administration calls “confidential government information.”

That distinction matters, and it mirrors the already expanding government ecosystem of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), and the ongoing confusion about how to protect it.

Government agencies routinely handle information that is not classified but still sensitive. Procurement strategies, internal personnel matters, pre-decisional policy discussions, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, law enforcement operations, and draft regulations can all be compromised by unauthorized disclosures. Few federal executives would argue that every internal deliberation should immediately become public.

NDAs also certainly aren’t only the purview of the federal government. Many private-sector organizations require employees to sign confidentiality agreements covering proprietary business information. OPM Director Scott Kupor has pointed to this reality in defending the proposal, arguing that the federal government should not hold itself to a lower standard than private employers when it comes to protecting sensitive information.

From a management perspective, that argument has merit.

Federal agencies cannot effectively develop policy, negotiate contracts, conduct investigations, or plan operations if internal deliberations are routinely leaked before decisions are finalized. Public trust can be damaged not only by secrecy but also by incomplete information released without context.

Yet government is not the private sector. The federal workforce serves the public interest, not shareholders. That distinction requires a different balance between confidentiality and accountability.

The challenge is not whether federal employees should protect sensitive information. They already do. The challenge is defining exactly what information falls within the scope of protection. Confusion about that scope is where an NDA can extend beyond just protecting sensitive information and can become a weapon to unfairly penalize a federal employee, or incorrectly hide information that has no reason to be deemed protected.

Current draft language references “confidential government information,” including pre-decisional and deliberative materials that are not publicly available. Critics argue the definition is too broad and could create uncertainty for employees trying to distinguish between legitimate whistleblowing and prohibited disclosure.

Federal leaders should take those concerns seriously.

The federal government already operates under a complex framework of classification rules, privacy protections, procurement integrity requirements, and whistleblower laws. Any government-wide NDA policy should reinforce and not undermine that framework. Employees must have confidence that legally protected disclosures to inspectors general, Congress, and authorized oversight bodies remain fully protected. The proposal itself states that those rights would be preserved, but implementation details will ultimately determine whether employees trust that assurance.

The experience of the cleared workforce offers a useful lesson. Security clearance holders generally accept strict disclosure restrictions because the rules are accompanied by training, clearly defined categories of protected information, and established adjudication processes. The system is far from perfect, but employees understand where the lines are drawn.

If the administration moves forward with a broader NDA framework, it should adopt the same principles: clarity, consistency, transparency, and robust protection for lawful disclosures.

A poorly defined NDA regime could create confusion, chill legitimate reporting of misconduct, and generate unnecessary legal challenges. A carefully structured one could reinforce existing obligations and help agencies better protect sensitive information without compromising accountability.

The debate should not be framed as a choice between secrecy and transparency. Federal agencies require both. Effective government depends on candid internal deliberation, but it also depends on public trust and lawful oversight.

For federal executives, the real question is not whether nondisclosure agreements belong in government. They already do. The question is whether a government-wide expansion can be implemented in a way that protects sensitive information while preserving the accountability mechanisms that distinguish public service from private employment. That is where the conversation should be focused.

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TSP funds kept climbing in May

Erich Wagner — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 12:41:39 -0400

For the second straight month, each portfolio offered by the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program finished May in the black.

The C Fund’s common stocks sported the best performance, gaining 5.26% last month. So far this year, the C Fund has grown 11.26%. The international investments of the I Fund came in second, increasing 4.90% in value in May. Since January, the I Fund has grown 16.56%.

The S Fund, comprised of small- and mid-size businesses, finished May 4.49% in the black, bringing its 2026 performance to 13.48%. And the fixed income (F) fund grew 0.33% last month. Since January, the F Fund has grown 0.49%.

The G Fund, which is made up of government securities, increased by its statutorily mandated rate of 0.39% last month. So far this year, the G Fund has grown 1.80%.

Each of the TSP’s lifecycle funds, which shift toward more conservative investments as participants get closer to retirement, similarly gained value last month. The L Income Fund, designed for people who have already begun making withdrawals, gained 1.66%; L 2030, 2.95%; L 2035, 3.44%; L 2040, 3.71%; L 2045, 3.95%; L 2050, 4.18%; L 2055, 5.00%; L 2060, 5.00%; L 2065, 5.00%; L 2070, 5.00%; and L 2075, 5.00%.

So far this year, the L Income Fund has increased 4.93%; L 2030, 8.10%; L 2035, 9.36%; L 2040, 10.03%; L 2045, 10.61%; L 2050, 11.20%; L 2055, 13.34%; L 2060, 13.34%; L 2065, 13.34%; L 2070, 13.33%; and L 2075, 13.33%.

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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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OPM moves to allow agencies to promote workers faster

Erich Wagner — Fri, 29 May 2026 16:06:02 -0400

The Office of Personnel Management this week announced plans to remove a nearly 80-year-old rule requiring federal workers to serve for at least one year in their jobs before they may be considered for promotion.

Time-in-grade requirements, which have been in place since 1950, institute a 52-week waiting period when feds must work in their current positions before they can be promoted. The law that required such a waiting period expired in 1978.

In proposed regulations published in the Federal Register Thursday, OPM said time-in-grade requirements were an “outdated” effort to avoid rapid position inflation at federal agencies, as occurred during World War II, during the Korean War.

Officials wrote that the measure is no longer needed, in part thanks to the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and subsequent promulgation of the merit systems principles undergirding federal employment. Previous efforts to remove time-in-grade requirements occurred during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations but were unsuccessful.

“When the Whitten Amendment [mandating the one-year waiting period] was first enacted, no effective means existed to prevent employees from advancing quickly through GS grade levels,” OPM wrote. “Today, governmentwide qualification standards, established by OPM, are in place for competitive service GS positions . . . Consistent with the federal shift toward skills-based hiring, OPM is providing agencies with greater control for determining whether an employee has the skillsets needed for promotion to the next higher grade level.”

And OPM argued that it was unfair to continue to mandate time-in-grade requirements for some federal workers but not others. While the waiting period currently applies to General Schedule employees at GS-5 level and above, it does not apply to blue-collar feds hired under the Federal Wage System or to excepted service workers.

“Eliminating TIG enables any federal competitive service GS employee (regardless of current occupation or grade), who meets the qualification standards for a particular position, to become eligible for promotion to a competitive service GS position,” the agency wrote. “Thus, promotions will have a more skills-based focus without TIG.”

In a statement Thursday, OPM Director Scott Kupor said eliminating time-in-grade requirements will enable agencies to better reward top employees and compete with private sector employers for talent.

“Federal employees should be rewarded for what they can do, not how long they have waited,” Kupor said. “This proposed rule strengthens merit, gives managers more flexibility to recognize high performers, and helps agencies move talented people into mission critical roles faster.”

Comments on OPM’s proposal are open until July 27.

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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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GSA joins White House’s fraud prevention task force

Edward Graham — Fri, 29 May 2026 09:00:00 -0400

The General Services Administration announced on Thursday that it is joining the White House’s anti-fraud task force, a move that enlists a key federal acquisition agency into President Donald Trump’s self-described “war on fraud.”

The unit, led by Vice President JD Vance, was created by a March executive order and is tasked with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse across federal benefits programs.

GSA said in a press release that it is “uniquely positioned to help the Task Force detect irregularities, accelerate investigations, and safeguard taxpayer dollars,” with members of the anti-fraud unit “now leveraging GSA’s unmatched reach in acquisition, shared services, technology modernization, and federal real estate.”

Although the order establishing the task force emphasized efforts to identify federal benefits fraud, GSA said it will support the unit’s work by identifying waste, fraud and abuse across government contracting programs.

“GSA sits at the center of the federal acquisition and contracting ecosystem, making us a critical force in the fight against fraud,” GSA Administrator Edward Forst said in a statement, adding that the agency “will bring advanced analytical capabilities, investigative support, and cross-government coordination to help expose high-risk fraud patterns and stop bad actors from exploiting taxpayer-funded systems.”

Trump’s directive establishing the task force also granted it the authority to withhold funds from states and local jurisdictions “that do not have adequate anti-fraud requirements.”

The effort has been clouded by allegations of political bias, however, with the order creating the unit notably calling out Democrat-led states and accusing public officials of intentionally failing to police benefits programs so migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border can receive assistance.

Vance said earlier this month the unit was “deferring” $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements to California and threatened to withhold payments from other states if they do not adequately enhance their efforts to combat fraud in federal benefits programs. That came after the White House kicked off its anti-fraud push in February by announcing that it was withholding over $240 million in Medicaid funds from Minnesota following claims about the misuse of funds in the state’s social services programs.

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Tech Force set out to hire 1,000 technologists last year. It’s onboarded 10 so far

Natalie Alms — Fri, 29 May 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Late last year, the Trump administration began an effort to recruit early-career software and data engineers after pushing almost 20,000 technology employees out of their government jobs under widespread downsizing imperatives.

The goal of that new effort, called the U.S. Tech Force, was to hire a 1,000-strong cohort — potentially as soon as the end of March, Scott Kupor, the head of the Office of Personnel Management, said in December.

So far, the program has onboarded only 10 new hires, Tech Force Director Kevin Hennecken said during a Thursday event held by the Alliance for Digital Innovation trade association. Overall, the program has made 180 to 200 hires.

“I would love to have everybody here yesterday,” Kupor told Nextgov/FCW in an interview. “But I’m learning the government hiring process does take time.”

OPM is managing the program centrally, working with agencies across the federal government to place fellows into two-year stints. OPM is also partnering with about 40 companies, like Amazon Web Services and Nvidia, to train the new hires, as well as provide managers from within their own ranks to take a leave of absence to work for the government.

Onboarding these new managers has also lagged. Three or four managers are in the process of onboarding now, said Kupor.

The Justice Department issued a memo in March blessing OPM’s plan to allow those private sector managers to keep their deferred compensation packages while working for the government — a setup that’s made ethics experts nervous.

“It’s always going to be slower than we would have wanted, but I don't think we’re discouraged by that at all,” said Hennecken, who said that the goal is to hire 300 to 500 fellows by the end of the summer. “I think it just takes time to build a program.”

A ‘heavyweight process’

Federal hiring is governed by strict rules and processes, some of which were established centuries ago and were meant to move the government from the spoils system to one based on merit.

It’s a “heavyweight process” that moves more slowly than the private sector, said Kupor, who previously worked in venture capital.

Kupor often laments the relatively small number of young workers in the federal government compared to the private sector. How to recruit and hire early-career talent within the federal system has long been a difficult challenge that has intersected with efforts to move the government away from antiquated technology into the 21st century.

Other efforts to hire cybersecurity talent or fill the gap by re-training existing employees with new skills have also stumbled.

For Tech Force, OPM has had to clear up “confusion” among HR officials in agencies about how some of the typical government hiring rules apply, said Kupor. The government typically prioritizes federal employees who have been laid off if they apply for other, open jobs that they’re qualified for.

That could have been welcome news for feds displaced last year as the Trump administration sought to shrink the size of the government workforce, many of whom are still searching for new jobs. But those rules don’t apply to Tech Force because of the type of hiring authority being used, said Kupor.

Government agencies also aren’t used to hiring off of centralized lists like those OPM is using to share Tech Force candidates after centrally testing and screening applicants, said Kupor, although doing more centralized hiring is one of his goals.

The hurdles have inspired an effort to drive a “tighter alignment” between agencies’ HR heads and senior political officials as part of OPM’s broader early career hiring push, said Kupor, so that any questions can be worked through more quickly.

A higher entry point

Eric Sidle, chief information officer and chief artificial intelligence officer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said Tuesday that delays in getting the new program going aren’t OPM’s fault.

The government’s HR agency is doing a "phenomenal job,” he said, noting that agency personnel shops themselves are busy balancing this effort against other priorities.

The early career talent that the government does hire as part of Tech Force — which may include cybersecurity-focused employees after OPM added that focus in April — will be making between $150,000 and $200,000, which is more than early-career hires in government typically make.

The government already has an early career tech program, called the U.S. Digital Corps, although it hasn’t onboarded a class since Trump took office for his second term. It pays its D.C. fellows a starting salary of $86,000.

While Tech Force is bringing employees into the government at a GS-14 level on the government’s pay and classification system — one of the highest available on the General Schedule — Digital Corps hires fellows at a GS-9 with the potential for promotions.

For Tech Force, agencies are getting resumes ranging from recent college graduates to people with a few years of experience on the job, one person familiar with the program told Nextgov/FCW.

Whether the relatively high pay being offered to those joining the program will affect the morale of the teams they’re joining is an open question, that person said. The Tech Force applicants being shared with agencies don’t have the typical experience and skills of someone at a GS-14 level, they added.

Those running Tech Force have emphasized that the government often struggles to compete for in-demand tech talent against the private sector, in part because the latter can usually pay more.

Unlike the U.S. Digital Corps, which was designed to funnel early-career talent into permanent roles, keeping the talent recruited by Tech Force in government service isn’t necessarily an expectation.

By working with OPM, private sector companies are meant to prove to potential applicants that the experience they get in the government will be valued on the market when they’re done.

While in the government, many of the new hires will be working in agencies on wholly contained Tech Force teams, but, in some cases, they’ll be integrated into existing units at government agencies, said Kupor.

Three weeks ago, OPM itself onboarded the first Tech Force fellow, who graduated college last year.

Kupor said he’s planning to bring more fellows into OPM to work on the Trump administration’s ‘War on Fraud’ by using data science to flag potential fraud in the government’s health insurance portfolio that is run for federal employees.

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Lacking data policy is more than a research problem, it's a government performance problem

David C. Wilson and Christopher Jackson — Fri, 29 May 2026 07:00:00 -0400

Effective democracies require modern data policies that direct the country’s ability to govern and hold legitimacy. Data policies offer information justice by providing formal guidelines and rules for the collection, management, protection, and disposal of public information — quantitative and qualitative. They can also bolster trust by setting oversight of information quality — ensuring accuracy and accountability. This policy domain of “data” is understudied, undervalued and underemphasized, despite the accelerated use of data against a backdrop of growing public mistrust.

The federal statistical system has long operated as background infrastructure, as something agency leaders and program managers relied on without much thought, the way they rely on relevant domains like electricity or broadband. Data from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Center for Education Statistics, and their counterparts across the government showed up when needed most in democracy: to justify budget requests, measure program outcomes, allocate resources and demonstrate results to oversight bodies and the public.

That infrastructure is now under serious strain with pain being felt inside and outside government, at federal, state and local levels. Earlier this year, the social science research company SSRS conducted a survey of more than 500 users of federal statistical data across academia, nonprofit organizations, state and local governments and the private sector. The core question was "have changes to the federal statistical system impacted your ability to do your work?" The findings were resounding, with 93% of respondents reporting that changes to the federal statistical system since the start of 2025 have damaged their ability to do their work. It is quite likely staff inside the government are experiencing similar difficulties.

These respondents describe specific challenges. They report datasets have been taken offline without notice. Expected data publications have been delayed or canceled. Restricted-use data approvals that once took days are now taking months, if they happen at all. Staffing cuts at federal statistical agencies have hollowed out the technical assistance functions that helped users work with complex federal datasets. These stories are not just about citizens, they also represent real breakdowns in the informational infrastructure that federal agencies themselves also depend on to manage programs, respond to Congress and serve the public. These are not failings of politics, they are failings of policy.

For federal leaders, the implications of not having earnest data policy cut in several directions.

The data crisis is a workforce crisis

Respondents to the survey were consistent on this point: the most immediate source of their difficulties is not missing datasets but missing people. When experienced staff depart, they take with them decades of applied knowledge about how data collections work, where the edge cases are and how to help users get reliable answers from complex products. One respondent described the situation plainly: institutional knowledge has been forever lost, and the data user community will suffer in ways that may not be fully known or even detectable. Agency leaders managing through the current period of workforce reduction should treat the departure of statistical expertise as a long-term operational risk, not just a position that can be filled in the next appropriation cycle.

Broken time series are not self-correcting

One of the most consequential findings from the survey involves longitudinal data, the long-running collections that allow agencies, researchers and policymakers to track trends over time. Respondents were clear about what interrupted collections mean in practice. A gap in a time series is not simply a missing data point, it undermines the comparability of all subsequent data, potentially for years. The government shutdown in fall 2025 produced the first interruption to the Current Population Survey in more than 70 years. The October 2025 Consumer Price Index was lost entirely. These are not recoverable losses. They are permanent holes in the historical record, with downstream consequences for economic forecasting, policy evaluation and program management that will persist long after the immediate disruptions are resolved.

There are no adequate substitutes

Public data users in this survey are doing their best to adapt. They are delaying programs until data is available, turning to older archived datasets or private sector sources, leveraging state and locally collected data or building statistical models as workarounds. But they are nearly unanimous that none of these options adequately replace timely, high-quality federal data.

Trust, once lost, is hard to rebuild

More than 70% of these public data users express concern about the long-term erosion of public trust in federal statistics. This is not a soft concern. Trust in official statistics is the foundation on which their practical utility rests. When state and local government planners, nonprofit service providers or academic researchers begin to doubt the integrity or continuity of federal data, they stop building systems that depend on it. The downstream effects on evidence-based management inside agencies are real and compounding.

What would it take to stabilize the situation? Beyond appropriations decisions, effective data policy should direct agencies to preserve statistical expertise as national security and workforce retention priorities, not afterthoughts. Where staff departures are unavoidable, structured efforts to document institutional knowledge, how data collections work, where errors arise and what common user needs exist, could help preserve at least some of what would otherwise be lost.

These public data users are instructive for data policy, they tell us that the federal statistical system is not only a research amenity, it is operational infrastructure. This is equally true for the federal workforce in general. When the data system degrades, government's capacity to know what is working, who needs help and whether resources are reaching their intended targets degrades with it — affecting how ordinary people experience democracy and their government. Rebuilding that capacity will require sustained attention from federal executives who recognize the need for serious data policy that modernizes America’s data infrastructure and take steps to safeguard it.

David C. Wilson is dean and professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley, and Chris Jackson is senior vice president at SSRS.

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Citing legal requirement, senator wants a designated inspector general to provide oversight of Iran war

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 28 May 2026 15:01:00 -0400

Updated at 3:58 p.m. ET May 28

A Democratic senator on Thursday requested that an inspector general oversight body designate one of the agency watchdogs to spearhead reviews of the ongoing war in Iran, citing a requirement in federal statute.

In her letter, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., pointed to a provision in the U.S. Code mandating that the chair of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency tap an IG to head oversight of a military “overseas contingency operation that exceeds 60 days.”

The U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28.

“IG quarterly reporting, audits, inspections and investigations related to OCOs have promoted valuable transparency and accountability across presidential administrations and enable federal agencies to be better stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Duckworth wrote. “The need for you to appoint a lead IG to advance these aims and conduct joint, comprehensive and independent oversight of contingency operations against Iran has never been greater, as the Trump administration’s explanations of the president’s purported mission, lines of effort and desired end states with respect to Iran are constantly shifting, and often contradict themselves.”

Defense Department officials have testified that the war has cost an estimated $29 billion.

The CIGIE chair is limited to selecting the IG for the Defense Department, State Department or U.S. Agency for International Development. While the Trump administration folded USAID into State in 2025, the USAID IG office is still active.

The designated IG would be responsible for developing a strategy for oversight of the military operation, reviewing the accuracy of associated spending information provided by federal agencies and resolving any jurisdictional crossovers. They also would be required to issue regular public reports on their activities.

In her letter, Duckworth argued that the war in Iran meets the definition of an OCO because Operation Epic Fury is identified as one in the DOD’s casualty database and because members of the National Guard have been deployed to the region. Under federal statute, if a military action includes ordering a member of the National Guard to active duty, that qualifies it as a “contingency operation.”

Duckworth requested that CIGIE Chair Cheryl Mason provide her selection for the IG by June 5. Mason also is the IG for the Veterans Affairs Department.

Andrew Cannarsa, CIGIE's executive director, said in a statement to Government Executive that the council has "received the letter from Senator Duckworth and is working to address the senator’s inquiry."

The senator has criticized Mason’s confirmation as VA IG and election to CIGIE chair because she previously served as a senior adviser to VA Secretary Doug Collins. As such, Duckworth and good government groups have contended that Mason cannot provide independent oversight.

This story has been updated with a statement from CIGIE.

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What retiring feds should do before asking for help

Tammy Flanagan — Thu, 28 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400

The transition from employee to annuitant can be stressful, especially when someone is worried about income, benefits, deadlines, taxes or missing paperwork. It helps to get the answers you need when there are delays or a perceived problem with your benefits. These days, it is even harder to get help since many agencies are short-handed and overwhelmed by the number of employees who have retired at the same time. When you find someone who might be able to resolve your problem or explain something that you do not understand, it is important to include the relevant facts and not bury the real issue under too much background information.

One of the best things you can do is present your situation clearly, completely and with supporting documentation. It might be hard to hear this, but when you are speaking to your human resources representative, benefits specialist or government agency, the quality of the help you receive often depends on the quality of the information you are able to provide. Agencies specifically ask applicants to gather identifying records and supporting documents. Missing or incomplete information can delay retirement processing.

Anyone who deals with these issues knows how important it is to separate facts from opinions and to be prepared to provide the evidence that supports your concern. Working with many employees who are transitioning to retirement, one of the basic things we advise is to save copies of all communications, including personnel records on file with your agency, copies of applications and anything else that provides proof of changes in your federal career such as beginning and ending dates, changes in retirement coverage and changes in work schedule. If there is a problem down the road, it is important to have the evidence needed to pinpoint the issue and solve the problem.

Got a question for federal retirement expert Tammy Flanagan? Send to us at newstips@govexec.com and she might answer it during our live webinar on June 18. Stay tuned for details.

Start with the real problem

The first step in asking for retirement help is identifying the actual question. Many people begin with a long story, a list of frustrations or scattered financial details without ever stating exactly what they need. A better approach is to open with a direct statement such as: “I need help understanding when I can retire,” “I need help fixing a pension calculation issue” or “I need help because my benefits application may be missing documents.”

That kind of opening gives the adviser or representative a clear target. It also saves time and reduces the chance of misunderstanding. Clear requests are especially important because retirement issues often involve strict procedures, required forms and eligibility rules. If the core problem is not stated early, the person trying to help must spend valuable time sorting through facts instead of solving the issue.

When I am asked to intervene and help solve a problem, I only agree to help when I can clearly see what needs to be done and the client can provide the details and documents needed to find a solution.

Tell the whole story — but only the relevant story

Besides providing too much information, people sometimes omit important facts because they assume they do not matter, because they are embarrassing or because they do not realize small details are important clues to the solution. Missing facts can lead to bad advice.

There is a fine line between trying not to provide every detail and leaving out important dates, documents or conversations that belong in the discussion.

Organize the information before asking for help

A productive retirement meeting or inquiry usually starts before the conversation ever happens. When my team at Retire Federal counsels current and recently retired federal workers, we begin by asking them to provide specific documentation so we can understand the details of the career the individual is leaving or recently retired from. A comprehensive review of this documentation is essential to identify clues to the root of a problem and often reveals issues the client might not have considered.

Recently, a retiree asked us to review his retirement calculation and compare it to the amount of money he had received from OPM since his retirement date. His concern was that he retired at the end of February 2024 and did not start receiving his full retirement benefit until December 2024. During that time, the amount of his interim payments changed four times and he was having trouble determining whether he had received his earned annuity benefit. He simply wanted a second opinion.

This individual retired under the older Civil Service Retirement System, or CSRS, with close to 52 years of federal service. The first thing that stood out was the fact that he exceeded the maximum amount of service that would provide him with 80% of his high-three average salary by close to 10 years. This only happens under CSRS; the Federal Employees Retirement System, or FERS, does not limit the calculation.

What he did not notice was that he had never been paid for his excess retirement contributions from the years he paid into CSRS beyond the time he had already earned the maximum annuity benefit. He was not aware that, because of his high salary, he had overpaid more than $100,000 into CSRS.

His case appeared to be finalized when he contacted us in February 2026, as he had already been receiving his full retirement benefit for three months. After reviewing the documentation he provided, we were able to reconstruct his retirement benefit and his contributions to CSRS to show him where the problem was.

Once the issue was clearly explained, we submitted a direct request for help to OPM. After several back-and-forth communications, the issue is finally being resolved. We received an email last week from this client saying he had received most of the overpayment amount owed to him but was still waiting for a final payment of more than $17,000. We are getting there, but we will not take this out of the “needs follow-up” file until he is made whole.

Here is what is needed to reconstruct a retirement benefit and determine whether a problem requires attention:

What type of retirement benefit is involved?
What outcome is being sought?
What has already happened?
What deadlines apply?
What records are available?

A timeline is often one of the most useful tools, along with documentation of specific dates and events. This helps the person providing assistance identify patterns, missing steps or contradictions quickly.

Preparation also makes it easier to separate relevant information from noise. Instead of talking in circles, the person can walk through the issue in a logical sequence and allow the adviser to ask focused follow-up questions.

Saying “they calculated my benefit wrong” is far less useful than providing the estimate, prior statements, payroll records, service history or correspondence showing the discrepancy.

In federal retirement matters, supplemental documents such as marriage certificates, military records or court orders can be essential, and federal regulations make clear that required supporting documentation is the applicant’s responsibility. The agency maintains personnel records and the payroll provider keeps track of salary payments and payroll deductions, but only you are likely to notice whether your retirement was computed on 35 years or 36 years of service. We recently assisted an employee who was being underpaid because of a miscalculation involving years of service.

Everyone can make mistakes, but resolving these types of problems can prove challenging without proof of where the error occurred.

Know what documents matter most

Employment history and dates of service
Pension benefit estimates or annual statements
Plan documents and summary plan descriptions
Application forms already submitted
Letters, emails or notices from the employer, plan administrator or agency
Marriage certificates, divorce decrees or beneficiary forms when relevant
Military records, disability records or court orders when applicable

Not every case requires every document, but the person asking for help should bring anything that proves the facts behind the concern. If something is missing, it is important to make note of the missing information.

Be concise and easy to help

People seeking retirement assistance should aim to be complete without using an angry or sarcastic tone when communicating their concerns.

A useful rule is this: Include facts, dates, names and documents that affect the case. Leave out repeated complaints, unrelated family history and background information that does not change the answer.

The person providing help does not need every emotion-filled detail to evaluate a pension formula, application delay, survivor benefit question or eligibility issue. What they need is a clear problem statement, a reliable timeline and records that support the claim.

Being concise is not rude or cold. It is respectful and efficient. It allows the individual trying to help to spend more time solving the problem and less time trying to uncover basic facts.

Asking for help with retirement is not just a matter of reaching out — it is a matter of communicating well. People who need assistance should clearly state the issue, tell the full relevant story, avoid distracting side details and be prepared to provide evidence supporting what they are claiming.

Retirement decisions can affect income, health coverage, survivor rights and long-term security, so vague explanations and unsupported concerns are not enough. The more organized and honest a person is, the easier it is for someone else to give accurate, timely and effective guidance. In retirement matters, clarity is not optional. It is part of the solution.

Most federal employees enjoy a smooth transition to retirement, but when there is a problem, it is important to get help sooner rather than later. It does not help to ignore the issue and hope it resolves itself.

It is sometimes difficult to know who to ask and how to get the help you need. Talk to customer service representatives at the agency from which you need assistance to see whether they can provide direction. Talk to fellow retirees to learn whether they experienced similar issues and how they resolved them. Go back to your agency HR office to see whether it can provide guidance.

The important thing is to ask for help if you think you have a problem and to be as clear and concise as possible so you can improve your chances of a faster and better resolution.

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Top White House cyber policy official to soon depart

David DiMolfetta — Thu, 28 May 2026 12:24:29 -0400

Alexandra Seymour, a top policy official in the White House Office of the National Cyber Director, intends to leave her position soon, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Seymour, who serves as principal deputy assistant national cyber director for policy, is expected to depart within the next week, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details about the move. It’s not clear where she is headed next, or when she would start a new role.

An ONCD spokesperson did not return a request for comment by publishing time.

Seymour previously served as staff director for the House Homeland Security Committee’s cybersecurity subcommittee, where she worked on cyber and critical infrastructure policy issues. She also advised the Senate Commerce Committee on artificial intelligence, quantum technology and CHIPS and Science Act implementation matters, and she co-founded the Congressional Staff Association on Artificial Intelligence.

During President Donald Trump’s first term, Seymour served on the White House National Security Council and at the Pentagon, where she worked on transnational organized crime issues and also served as a speechwriter for the deputy defense secretary.

Her anticipated departure comes as ONCD has sought to take a leading role in AI-related cyber policy matters and as officials in industry and government increasingly question whether the office’s leadership has been able to respond effectively to rapidly advancing artificial intelligence models with potentially dangerous hacking capabilities. A cyber-focused AI executive order was shelved last week amid overregulation concerns from industry.

“Alexandra is one of the nation’s top national security policy executives, and frankly, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a top company move quickly to bring her on board,” Anjelica Dortch, vice president of operational risk and cybersecurity policy at the Independent Community Bankers of America, told Nextgov/FCW in response to the news.

“She has been an invaluable collaborator on efforts including the National Cyber Strategy, the reauthorization of the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, and ensuring that industry perspectives are meaningfully integrated into our nation’s cyber policies,” added Dortch.

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Labor oversight official faces ethics complaint for apparent congressional campaign moves

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 28 May 2026 07:00:00 -0400

A government watchdog nonprofit on Tuesday requested an investigation into whether Anthony D’Esposito, the inspector general for the Labor Department, violated the Hatch Act, a law that restricts the political activity of civil servants.

The Project on Government Oversight’s complaint to the Office of Special Counsel, which enforces that law, argues that the former GOP lawmaker ran afoul of ethics rules by seeming to take steps preparing for another congressional run as a confirmed IG, a position that oversees independent audits and investigations of agency operations.

“We can't have inspectors general that are seen as attachments of the president or attachments of the agency,” said Joe Spielberger, a senior policy counsel at POGO, in an interview with Government Executive. “[If so] it means that when [the IGs] receive complaints, there's no guarantee that they will take those complaints seriously if they're directed against the executive branch or the party in power.”

In its complaint, POGO flagged several potential violations including:

D’Esposito’s campaign committee is still active based on the Federal Election Commission’s website.
Shortly after he was sworn in, he said during a radio interview that: “there’s no question that we’re exploring” a run for Congress,” “we’re doing the polling [and] we’re talking to people on the ground and we want to make sure that the resources are going to be there,” his Democratic successor is a “disastrous member of Congress” and that it’s important for Republican candidates to have funding to deliver effective campaign messaging.
Media reports that D’Esposito was planning to announce his candidacy.

Under the Hatch Act, there is a prohibition on federal employees from being candidates in partisan elections, which extends to preliminary activities such as conducting polls, having campaign strategy meetings or authorizing others to take such actions on their behalf. The law also bars government workers from engaging in political activity in their official capacity and from soliciting or receiving political contributions.

While D’Esposito ultimately opted not to enter the race, Spielberger argued that an OSC investigation is still warranted.

“His decision to withdraw his name from potential candidacy doesn't absolve him from what are potentially previous violations of the Hatch Act,” he said.

POGO’s complaint also notes that D’Esposito frequently shares political social media posts, such as ones criticizing Democratic immigration policies, praising congressional Republicans and echoing slogans associated with President Donald Trump.

Under federal law, IGs are required to be appointed “without regard to political affiliation.”

In an interview with Bloomberg Law published on Wednesday, however, D’Esposito said that he didn’t see any issue with his public statements.

“I’m never going to shy away from the fact that I’m a conservative Republican,” he said. “I’m never going to shy away from the fact that I support the agenda, especially as it pertains to this office, just because I want to maintain an appearance. That’s absolutely ridiculous.”

In April, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington nonprofit requested that the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, an oversight body for the watchdogs, investigate D’Esposito over matters similarly raised by POGO.

Trump recently nominated Charles Baldis to lead the OSC. Baldis is a former Senate staffer and current chief counsel at the agency who has been the designee of the OSC’s acting chief since spring 2025.

The president’s first OSC nominee, Paul Ingrassia, withdrew in October 2025 following objections from Senate Republicans over reports of sexual harassment accusations and racist text messages.

In March 2025, Trump removed the incumbent special counsel — Hampton Dellinger, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden — before the end of his five-year term. On one of the first days of his second term, the president also fired IGs at 18 agencies, including the DOL IG who D’Esposito later replaced.

The DOL OIG did not respond to a request for comment, but D’Esposito has previously testified that he is “well aware of the Hatch Act.”

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House draft of defense policy bill leaves some of Trump admin’s top priorities unfunded

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 27 May 2026 17:08:46 -0400

An initial draft of the annual defense policy bill shows the House is still banking on billions of yet-to-be-approved funds for the Trump administration’s top military priorities.

The HASC chairman’s mark of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act released on Tuesday detailed $1.15 trillion in baseline defense spending. But the Pentagon has asked for $1.5 trillion. To fully fund administration efforts like Golden Dome, shipbuilding, and a crucial munitions build-up, Congress would have to approve an additional $350 billion. But one senior committee staffer said HASC Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., is confident Congress will approve those reconciliation funds.

“I think you know the chairman is, as I said before, relatively confident that we'll be able to achieve reconciliation this year,” the staffer told reporters Tuesday. “But in the event we're not, we will have those discussions with our appropriators and with the administration later in the year about how we cover those priority items, and munitions is at the very top of that list.”

The Pentagon’s $350 billion reconciliation funding request includes $47 billion to “accelerate the delivery and drive” of munitions investment, roughly $17 billion for Golden Dome, and $7 billion for shipbuilding efforts.

Rogers told attendees at Space Symposium last month that the House would “try” to fund those priorities through reconciliation—a funding process for “mandatory” spending that only requires a simple majority to pass, unlike annual discretionary budget appropriations.

Despite last year’s reconciliation squabbles and the large amount of defense priorities tied to yet-to-be-approved funding, the committee did not reconfigure the discretionary budget to account for the possibility of the additional measure failing.

“We did not secret squirrel money away, we did not pad lines in the discretionary to account for those things that are in the mandatory column,” the senior staffer said.

The chairman’s mark of the House NDAA has 646 total items in it, 362 bill language amendments, and 284 reporting requirements, the staffer said. It’s the initial agreement between Rogers and Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. HASC members plan to markup and add more amendments to the bill on June 4, according to the committee’s website.

“The chairman would obviously like to see us pursue a reconciliation bill that addresses that mandatory column, and so we are going to move ahead with the assumption that at some point the House and the Senate will attempt to do that,” one senior staffer said. “We will make a later determination about how successful that attempt is and address a reconciliation between those two columns at a later time.”

White House budget projections predict that baseline defense spending will increase from $1.15 trillion to $1.36 trillion through 2036. They do not anticipate asking for reconciliation funding past fiscal year 2027.

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Someone robbed the SEC during the shutdown

Eric Katz — Wed, 27 May 2026 15:34:08 -0400

When federal agencies closed their doors for a record-setting 43 days last fall, one person saw an opportunity.

An individual is awaiting trial after burglarizing the Securities and Exchange Commission during last year’s government shutdown. The alleged thief did not wait long before entering the SEC regional office in Fort Worth, Texas, as the individual entered the building during the shutdown’s first week.

A contracted security officer was present for the incident, but failed to stop the person, identify them or sign them in, as building protocols require, the SEC’s inspector general said. The burglar “bypassed” a locked door, walked past the security guard and entered the SEC’s office suite. The security guard failed to escort the individual through the building and in the elevators, also in contravention of the building’s security policies.

The person then stole four laptops valued at more than $5,000, a bluetooth earpiece and a rolling briefcase.

Federal employees are generally prohibited from using their government devices during a shutdown if they are placed in non-working furlough status, but are required to report to their offices on the first day of a lapse to ensure their devices are secured. SEC furloughed 88% of its workforce during the most recent funding lapse, though an IG official was not aware of how many employees may have been reporting to the office during the burglary.

The SEC IG worked with local law enforcement to identify the suspect, who is now being held in a Texas corrections center on multiple burglary charges—including the SEC incident—while awaiting trial. While the suspect was arrested, the stolen laptops and other items were not recovered.

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Supreme Court rejects lower court bid to review immigration judge gag order

Erich Wagner — Wed, 27 May 2026 15:15:31 -0400

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeals court’s effort to investigate whether the Trump administration has effectively neutered the law undergirding the federal civil service on procedural grounds.

Last year, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit revived a 2020 lawsuit filed by the National Association of Immigration Judges challenging a policy barring its members from speaking or writing publicly about immigration in their personal capacities.

The union alleged that the so-called “gag rule,” first issued in 2017, made more restrictive in 2020 and revised again in 2021, violated the judges’ free speech rights. But a district court judge dismissed the case in 2023, finding that they must first challenge the policy before the Merit Systems Protection Board.

But last year, the Fourth Circuit panel issued a ruling that revived the case, instructing the lower court to examine whether the Trump administration’s push to fire political leaders at independent agencies like the MSPB and U.S. Office of Special Counsel had “so undermined” the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act as to deny federal workers meaningful review of agency actions.

Both the Trump administration and the immigration judges’ union asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case. In a ruling Tuesday, the court reversed the appellate judges’ decision and sent the case back to them for further proceedings.

In an unsigned opinion, the court found that the Fourth Circuit could not issue its decision questioning the CSRA’s continued viability because neither party raised it as an argument before the judges. There were no noted dissents.

“As [NAIJ] conceded below, our precedent establishes that Congress, through the CSRA, intended to channel covered claims to the MSPB,” the justices wrote. “The parties thus confined their arguments to the narrow question whether respondent’s claims were, in fact, covered. Unsatisfied with rejecting respondent’s arguments on that question, however, the Fourth Circuit sua sponte addressed a much broader one and remanded for further proceedings on that question.”

Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett issued a concurring opinion stating that they would have also decided the case in favor of the Trump administration on the merits, as well.

“Neither the president’s view that he can remove federal executive officials, nor his having done so, change the meaning of the statute or the binding nature of this court’s interpretation of it,” they wrote. “’Conditions may have changed, but the statute has not.’ Courts may not ‘rewrite the statutory scheme in order to approximate what we think Congress might have wanted had it known that’ the president or courts may conclude that its removal restrictions were ‘beyond its authority.’”

In a statement Tuesday, NAIJ President Holly D’Andrea said that while her union was disappointed in the decision, it would continue to fight the Justice Department’s gag rule as the litigation moves forward.

“The case has been remanded to the Fourth Circuit, and NAIJ will continue fighting to protect the free speech rights of immigration judges, to seek meaningful review of the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s speech policies, and to ensure that immigration judges may engage in public discourse on immigration matters in their personal capacities,” she said. “Justice cannot endure when judges are intimidated into silence, nor can a nation remain free when the rule of law is subordinate to the whims of political ambition.”

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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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They were told they’d move on. A year later, many fired federal employees say they haven’t been able to

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 27 May 2026 12:56:57 -0400

As part of its effort to downsize the federal workforce in February 2025, the Trump administration conducted a mass firing of thousands of agency employees in their probationary periods, which generally last for the first year after a worker has been hired by or promoted within the government. Such staffers have weaker civil service job protections.

In September 2025, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the removals were unlawful. He didn’t order agencies to reinstate affected employees, however, due to an earlier Supreme Court decision and because, as he put it, “The terminated probationary employees have moved on with their lives and found new jobs.”

So, a group of former probationary employees sought to find out if their colleagues had, in fact, “moved on.” Between February and March, they conducted a survey of more than 300 individuals impacted by the firings, representing 12 federal departments as well as 43 states and one territory.

The results show that many fired probationers haven’t found new jobs, are experiencing poor mental health and remain concerned about their former agencies’ effectiveness with reduced workforces.

Unemployment

The most frequent answer to a question in the survey asking how long it took to find a new job was “still unemployed.” Relatedly, around 80 participants reported that they have submitted more than 100 job applications.

Jacob Saunders, a respondent who worked at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for five weeks before he was fired, said that he still hasn’t found a full-time job. In the meantime, he is a high school lacrosse coach, has taken on sporadic gig work and sells items on eBay.

“It does annoy me when somebody thinks that it's pretty simple. I've applied to 15 jobs in one week. I might apply for three jobs a day or two jobs a day,” he said. “I've applied to a lot of jobs.”

The president in January defended his cuts to the civil service by claiming that employees who were pushed out are now in the private sector making double or triple their government salaries.

In contrast, the probationary survey found that, among respondents who found new roles, 49% reported that their salary is "significantly lower” than what they made in the federal government with another 19% saying their salary is “lower.”

The survey data was published by 27 UNIHTED, an organization of former National Institutes of Health employees established in response to the second Trump administration.

Mental health

In the survey, 95% of participants responded that they experienced “new mental health symptoms that had negative impacts on personal wellbeing” after being terminated.

Liz Crandall, one of the respondents and a fired field ranger from the U.S. Forest Service, wasn't surprised by that result.

“I'm seeing it still from friends that were probationary employees that were fired. They're still not doing well. I would almost argue they're doing worse because it's grief mixed with embarrassment and shame that they're still not able to get through it,” she said. “A lot of people have had to go on new medications and take out loans. And our health insurance is obviously taken away since we were fired.”

Crandall had been in her position for more than one year but had not yet received full civil service job protections because she was hired under Schedule A, a mechanism for agencies to bring on workers with disabilities that has a two-year probationary period.

Many civil servants hired under Schedule A who had been in their jobs between one to two years have argued that they wouldn't have been impacted by the probationary firings if they were recruited through another pathway.

Nearly 85% of survey respondents said that their agencies were not transparent about their firings. Crandall, for example, thought she might have been spared from the removals because initially only probationary employees with less than one year in her division were terminated. But she was let go the next day.

“Nothing made sense, no one had answers, HR had no idea what was happening. No one had any idea,” she said. “It was so bizarre and unprecedented and chaotic and even my conservative [coworkers] were crying.”

Likewise, Saunders said that his supervisor didn’t know he had been fired. He was the one who informed him.

Effect on agency operations

The two most common responses to a question in the survey asking about negative impacts to the public due to the probationary firings were: “larger (sometimes unmanageable) workload for remaining employees” and “loss of institutional knowledge.”

Crandall is worried, in particular, about her former agency’s continued ability to combat wildfires. Like many other USFS employees who were fired or otherwise pushed out by the Trump administration, she held a “red card” — meaning she was certified for firefighting duties and could be deployed as needed.

Government Executive previously reported that at least 1,400 USFS employees with “red cards” left the agency, but officials asked some of them to volunteer to return for the 2025 fire season.

Beyond personnel numbers, Crandall said that she possessed localized knowledge like locations of non-designated campsites and unofficial roads.

“Instead of people having to risk their safety to go in and navigate this insane spider web of roads, they would look to people like me and say ‘Where are the sites so that we can just go in and evacuate those directly? So we don't have to wander while a fire is creeping up on us,’” she said. “That was really important. That's the mixture of institutional knowledge, on-the-ground knowledge, local/regional knowledge as well as personnel.”

Both Saunders and Crandall said that they were offered their positions back following court orders but declined due to fears that they would still lose their jobs through layoffs under reduction in force procedures, which is another method the Trump administration has used to reduce agency headcounts.

“You can't put the toothpaste back into the tube,” Saunders said. “Once I had already gotten fired, what's stopping it from happening again?”

Crandall now works for a conservation nonprofit.

The Office of Personnel Management, which Judge Alsup determined illegally required the probationary firings, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Additional findings

The former probationers who conducted the survey noted that respondents’ participation was based on self-selection rather than a random sample.

A quarter of respondents reported that they were reinstated to their federal jobs. Another 15% said they got their positions back but were then terminated later.

While probationary periods are associated with workers who are new to government, around 45% of survey respondents said they previously worked for a federal agency as a contractor.

The Trump administration recently launched several efforts to recruit early-career workers to serve in a federal agency.

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