OPM Issues Final Schedule F Rule for New Category of Federal Employees
The term “draining the swamp” has been used multiple times by President Trump and agency officials, including in a document outlining the creation of a new category of federal employees occupying significant positions. It refers to efforts to reduce, reform, or hold accountable the federal workforce.
As noted in this earlier article, Schedule F (or the new name, Schedule Policy/Career Classification) is back. This time, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is not issuing a proposed rule change; it is a final rule. The final rule will be published in the Federal Register on February 6, 2026 and goes into effect 30 days later.
Details of the New Schedule F Rule
Note that this proposed rule is over 200 pages long. This is a very brief summary of a very long rule. Agency legal offices and senior human resources employees will be spending hours reviewing and applying this new rule.
On January 27, 2025, OPM issued guidance to agencies on this subject. The guidance referenced the January 20, 2025, Executive Order, which reinstated and amended Executive Order 13957, issued in October 2020. As part of this, the OPM guidance eliminated any relevant policy on this topic issued by the Biden administration.
On April 18, 2025, OPM issued a proposed rule to amend civil service regulations, formally establishing the “Schedule Policy/Career” classification for career employees in policy-determining, policy-making, policy-advocating, or confidential roles. This is the same category that was called “Schedule F” during the first term of the Trump administration.
The proposed rule was issued in accordance with the Executive Order titled Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce. This Order stated:
In recent years…there have been numerous and well-documented cases of career Federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership. Principles of good administration, therefore, necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service, beginning with positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.
The purpose of the rule is to make some federal employees “at-will employees” by removing access to adverse action procedures or appeals. It would do this to enable the quick removal of any employees in this new category for poor performance, misconduct, or subversion of presidential directives.
The Executive Order issued during the first Trump administration on this topic read, in part:
Separating employees who cannot or will not meet required performance standards is important, and it is particularly important with regard to employees in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions. High performance by such employees can meaningfully enhance agency operations, while poor performance can significantly hinder them. Senior agency officials report that poor performance by career employees in policy-relevant positions has resulted in long delays and substandard-quality work for important agency projects, such as drafting and issuing regulations.
OPM estimates that approximately 50,000 positions, or about 2% of the federal workforce, will be reclassified into Schedule Policy/Career positions. Although the proposed rule takes effect in 30 days, it does not directly reclassify positions; a subsequent executive order would be required to place specific positions into Schedule Policy/Career after the final rule is issued.
The rule excludes line federal employees (e.g., Border Patrol agents or wage and hour inspectors) who implement policies rather than shape them.
Impact of Rule on Federal Employees
Federal employees whose jobs are moved into Security Policy/Career will remain career employees. The same procedures used for career positions will still be used for hiring.
Political affiliation will not be considered within the guidelines outlined. Hiring decisions will be based on which candidates have the greatest knowledge, skills, and ability to perform the job. Employees are not required to agree with the administration’s policies or the president’s goals, but they must work to implement them as required by their roles.
The appeal rights for this new category of employees will be changed and more restrictive. These changes are briefly outlined below. This is part of the effort to make the federal workforce more responsive to a new administration’s policy decisions and to ensure employees work to achieve its goals.
Positions to Be Moved: Will Your Job Be in the New Category?
The new guidance reiterates the characteristics of positions being reassigned into the “Schedule Policy/Career” category for some federal employees. Positions to be moved into the new category include:
- Functions statutorily described as important policy-making or policy-determining functions, principally:
- directing the work of an organizational unit;
- being held accountable for the success of one or more specific programs or projects; or
- monitoring progress toward organizational goals and periodically evaluating and making appropriate adjustments to such goals;
- Authority to bind the agency to a position, policy, or course of action either without higher-level review or with only limited higher-level review;
- Delegated or subdelegated authority to make decisions committed by law to the discretion of the agency head;
- Substantive participation and discretionary authority in agency grantmaking, such as the substantive exercise of discretion in the drafting of funding opportunity announcements, evaluation of grant applications, or recommending or selecting grant recipients;
- Advocating for the policies (including future appropriations) of the agency or the administration before different governmental entities, such as by performing functions typically undertaken by an agency’s office of legislative affairs or intergovernmental affairs, or by presenting program resource requirements to examiners from the Office of Management and Budget in preparation for the annual President’s Budget Request;
- Publicly advocating for the policies of the agency or the administration, including before the news media or on social media; or positions described by their position descriptions as entailing policy-making, policy-determining, or policy-advocating duties.
Different Appeal Rights for Categories of Federal Employees
Career Federal Employees
While remaining career employees, there will be differences for those who are moved into the Schedule Policy/Career category. Here are some of the most important differences.
- Career federal employees in the competitive service generally have appeal rights under Chapter 75 of Title 5, U.S. Code, including the ability to challenge adverse actions (e.g., removals, suspensions, demotions) before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
- These employees are protected by the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) and may appeal actions such as performance-based removals, grade or pay reductions, and furloughs. They also receive notice of their rights and procedures for filing appeals.
Appeal Rights for Schedule Policy/Career Employees
- Employees in Schedule Policy/Career positions are exempt from Chapter 75 protections. They will not have the same rights to appeal adverse actions to the MSPB.
- The Executive Order explicitly nullifies prior regulations that allowed employees involuntarily moved to excepted service positions to retain civil service protections and MSPB appeal rights.
- Instead, adverse actions against these employees are subject to internal agency procedures or other processes determined by the Office of Personnel Management.
Summary
The new OPM rule is one of the most significant shifts to the federal civil service in decades.
By reclassifying policy-influencing career employees and stripping extensive civil service appeal rights, the administration is seeking to gain greater control over the performance of significant federal jobs to create a more responsive bureaucracy.
Supporters see accountability and efficiency in the federal bureaucracy arising from this change. Critics see the erosion of a “nonpartisan, non-political federal workforce”. Either way, the rule redraws the boundary between career service employees, who reportedly sometimes work to delay or derail administration policies, and federal employees making or implementing policies of a new administration.
