The idea behind the phrase “Physician, heal thyself” originates in the Bible, but the concept has been around even longer. Whether in the Bible (Luke 4:23) or Aesop’s fable (“The Frog and the Fox”), the general concept is the same: moral authority requires self-correction first.
On February 4, 2026, OPM published the latest report, a “Supplemental Report” on the use of official time in the Federal government, and a “Secrets of OPM” memo titled “Show Me the Money” from the Director of OPM. I will use the term in the “law,” official time, versus the non-statutory label (Taxpayer-Funded Union Time) used by the Administration.
The Federal Services Labor-Management Relations Statute at § 7131: Official Time states:
(a) Any employee representing an exclusive representative in the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement under this chapter shall be authorized official time for such purposes, including attendance at impasse proceeding, during the time the employee otherwise would be in a duty status. The number of employees for whom official time is authorized under this subsection shall not exceed the number of individuals designated as representing the agency for such purposes.
(b) Any activities performed by any employee relating to the internal business of a labor organization (including the solicitation of membership, elections of labor organization officials, and collection of dues) shall be performed during the time the employee is in a nonduty status.
(c) Except as provided in subsection (a) of this section, the Authority shall determine whether any employee participating for, or on behalf of, a labor organization in any phase of proceedings before the Authority shall be authorized official time for such purpose during the time the employee otherwise would be in a duty status.
(d) Except as provided in the preceding subsections of this section–
(1) any employee representing an exclusive representative, or
(2) in connection with any other matter covered by this chapter, any employee in an appropriate unit represented by an exclusive representative, shall be granted official time in any amount the agency and the exclusive representative involved agree to be reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest.
In the memo, the OPM Director bemoans the use and costs of official time and employees who spend 100% of their work time on union duties. As a taxpayer, I too have concerns with employees not performing the duties they are being paid to perform and what is perceived by some as costly inefficiencies. That said, the OPM Director may need to refocus his attention on areas and strategies that might make government more efficient and effective by focusing less on the pebble in the eye of others and more on the boulder in OPM’s eye and their role in the more costly government-wide initiatives OPM supported and fully endorsed.
As previously stated, in the law, Congress specifically provided for official time for collective bargaining, acknowledging that “labor organizations and collective bargaining in the civil service are in the public interest” (5 U.S.C. § 7101(a)).
Congress also provided in the law that when management exercises the rights, such as those mentioned by the OPM Director (e.g., the right to reorganize, conduct a reduction-in-force, discipline employees, etc.), unions have a statutory right to negotiate procedures and appropriate arrangements to lessen the impact of those actions on employees.
In looking at the Official Time Report and Director’s memo, the focus is on the $181 million cost of union representational activities for the 1.3 million bargaining unit employees. Based on my limited math skills, that would be about $139 per bargaining unit employee for the year.
Let’s compare the $181 million cost of union representational activities with the cost of the OPM-supported or endorsed initiatives, and I’ll let you determine which is more costly and an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. I’d suggest we start with OPM’s unfortunate and imprudent attempt to remove probationary employees throughout the Federal government, only to have agencies rehire them after several crushing court decisions. Some reports have the costs of reinstating the probationary employees as high as 100 million dollars.
In addition to the ill-advised OPM initiative to remove probationary employees, OPM endorsed the DOGE “Fork in the Road” scheme that provided 75,000 employees 8 months of administrative leave. In layman’s terms, that means 75,000 employees were paid to not work for eight months. That ploy seems to contradict the intent of the Administrative Leave Act.
The Administrative Leave Act states:
It is the sense of Congress that (1) agency use of administrative leave, and leave that is referred to incorrectly as administrative leave in agency recording practices, has exceeded reasonable amounts-
(A) in contravention of-
(i) established precedent of the Comptroller General of the United States; and
(ii) guidance provided by the Office of Personnel Management; and
(B) resulting in significant cost to the Federal Government;
(2) administrative leave should be used sparingly;
If my math is even somewhat close to being correct, that’s approximately 96 million salary hours that taxpayers funded with the “Fork in the Road,” without any work being performed by those 75,000 employees. Based on the average federal employee salary of approximately $106,000, that would equate to about 4.8 billion dollars for just 8 months of administrative leave. I don’t know that most taxpayers would find 96 million hours of administrative leave at a cost of 4.8 billion dollars, in just 8 months, using administrative leave “sparingly.”
If OPM wants to demonstrate their credibility, they should first look at their own costly and inefficient conduct. In other words, “Physician, heal thyself”—the obligation to improve begins at home.
Ed Davis recently retired from the federal government to pursue other endeavors in the private sector. He has over 20 years in federal-sector human resources in a number of agencies, with a majority of his two decades of experience in labor and employee relations.
