More than 50 members of Congress are pressing the Trump administration for details about the implementation of Schedule Policy/Career, the controversial new federal job classification that makes it easier to fire employees in policy-making positions.
In a July 15 letter to President Donald Trump, the lawmakers said the administration has not been transparent about the full scope of the new job classification, how employees were selected for it, and how it will impact the federal workforce.
The letter – spearheaded by Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. – demanded answers to a range of questions, including how many positions were reclassified under Schedule Policy/Career, under what criteria they were selected, and how the administration will assess the success or failure of the new initiative.
President Trump on June 3 signed an executive order transferring roughly 8,000 career federal positions into the newly created job classification, which eases the firing of policy making employees who are deemed to not be carrying out their job duties effectively.
The order followed a final rule published by the Office of Personnel Management in February that formally established Schedule Policy/Career in the excepted service.
The new classification revives a concept introduced by Trump late in his first term, in an October 2020 executive order that created “Schedule F,” which similarly would have made it easier to fire federal employees in policy-making positions.
That order was never implemented and was canceled by former President Joe Biden shortly after he took office in 2021.
On his first day back in office last year, Trump signed an executive order to reinstate the Schedule F policy, renaming it “Schedule Policy/Career.”
The June executive order transferring federal positions to Schedule Policy/Career drew sharp criticism from federal employee unions and lawmakers, and the new letter to Trump echoed those concerns.
“We are concerned that the thousands of positions and federal employees who were reclassified through Schedule Policy/Career (Schedule P/C) will face political pressures that undermine the integrity of their critical work and be subjected to greater threats of termination without just cause or due process,” the letter says.
“All of this will greatly weaken the nonpartisan nature of the civil service,” it adds. “When the people tasked with carrying out the law can be fired for telling the truth, waste goes unreported, bad actors go unchecked, [and] it’s the American people who will suffer as a result.”
Walkinshaw, whose district includes numerous federal employees, said in a press release accompanying the letter that Schedule Policy/Career “threatens nearly 150 years of merit-based civil service protections by making it easier to fire dedicated public servants for political reasons.”
Added Kaine: “The Trump-Vance Administration must explain to Congress, the federal workforce, and the public about how the implementation of Schedule P/C will affect the government’s ability to protect Americans and provide critical services that we all rely on.”
When Trump signed the June executive order, administration officials provided some information about the new job classification, saying it will cover just under 8,000 positions across the executive branch that are almost exclusively GS-15 or senior-level. GS-15 is the highest non-executive grade in the General Schedule.
They also said that positions in Schedule Policy/Career include agency subcomponent leaders and chief agency officers, such as chief information officers (CIOs), along with employees in policy-making roles including those setting cybersecurity policy.
But the letter from members of Congress said details have been scarce. It requested answers to a series of questions, including precisely how many federal employees and positions have been reclassified under Schedule Policy/Career; which agencies, occupations, and grade levels have been affected; the total cost to taxpayers of implementing the new classification; whether the Administration plans to reclassify additional federal employees, and how it will protect whistleblowers.