Issuing new rules would require a process of many months, and it is unclear whether a new Schedule F could take effect in the meantime. Image: Dragon Claws/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffAs the incoming second Trump administration has started signaling its plans for the federal workforce, employee organizations are eying possible legal challenges arguing that those plans would exceed a President’s authority.
The transition team has signaled intentions for substantial changes in policy as well as deep cuts in employment—some intended to begin immediately after the inauguration in January but others requiring more time, even with a strong push from the White House.
Schedule F
In the former category is reimposition of Schedule F, shifting 50,000 or potentially many more competitive service employees into the excepted service, where they would lose most civil service rights. The first Trump administration’s order in late 2020 required agencies to first identify jobs for potential conversion; a later GAO report found that few agencies had done much during the several months the order existed before President Biden revoked it.
The Biden administration since then has issued rules against a Schedule F that the second Trump administration would have to suspend and then replace with new, opposite rules. While a suspension could take place immediately, issuing new rules would require a process of many months. It is unclear whether a new Schedule F could take effect in the meantime.
Whatever the sequence, it appears likely that the new administration’s action will be challenged in court as an attempt to end-run the merit principles underlying civil service law. That was not tested with the first Schedule F order because no positions were changed.
Role of Unions
Another policy initiative of the first Trump administration likely to be repeated in the second was a set of restrictions issued in 2018 to restrict federal unions. A legal challenge was brought against that and reached a federal appeals court, which ruled that the case first should have been brought to the FLRA, rather than directly to federal court. By the time that sequence played out, the first Trump administration was near the end and the Biden administration revoked those orders, as well.
However, companion orders to limit employee rights in disciplinary situations to the minimum required by law, also initially stalled, did later progress to a formal set of rules; like the Schedule F order, they came so late in the first Trump administration that they had little impact. They likewise were revoked and are likely to return.
Department of Government Efficiency
Attention to reducing the workforce is centering on creation of a “department of government efficiency” which is shaping up as an outside commission much like the Grace Commission of the Reagan administration. Trump transition team members and the selected leaders of that effort, businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have spoken of imposing workforce cuts of a third or even three-fourths, along with moving jobs away from the national capital area (where only about 15 percent are based).
However, under the law a justification would have to be given to RIF federal employees. Lack of available funds would be the most likely justification, but there is no such lack currently, and agency spending authority is projected to be continued at roughly current rates at least into the early months of 2025, if not for the entire fiscal year.
Purse Strings
Transition officials have raised the possibility of another type of end-run, by refusing to spend money that has been appropriated and/or by refusing to spend on programs that have not been reauthorized by Congress. The former approach has been rejected in courts many times, while the program in latter that involves by far the largest amount of money is veterans’ health care.
Although Republicans will control both the House and Senate in January, their margins will be thin and historically members of both parties have been protective of the congressional power of the purse specified in the Constitution. Congress also would quickly hear from voters regarding the decline in services to the public in areas ranging from Social Security to law enforcement and to support of the military.
One possible early step toward workforce reduction that has drawn relatively little attention is imposing a hiring freeze, as the first Trump administration did on taking office. That action, though, had numerous exceptions and broke down within a matter of months.
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See also,
How Do Age and Years of Service Impact My Federal Retirement
The Best Ages for Federal Employees to Retire
How to Challenge a Federal Reduction in Force (RIF) in 2025
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