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While specifics still remain largely absent regarding how the Trump administration hopes to carry out its plans to reorganize a host of agencies and programs, the initiative increasingly is shaping up as a long-term project, with its impact on affected employees—to the extent that proposals are carried out at all—stretching out over a number of years.
Two senators active in federal workplace issues have introduced legislation (S-3137) aimed at speeding up the aspects that would require changes in law. The bill by Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and James Lankford, R-Okla., would guarantee fast-track consideration by Congress—an up or down vote within 90 days—of any legislative proposals sent to Capitol Hill within the next two years.
How many such proposals are needed in comparison with how many initiatives could be pursued through administrative action remains largely undefined, though. At a House hearing last week, OMB deputy for management Margaret Weichert indicated that the administration will provide a breakdown in the time ahead and said that “a transformation of this size will take time and teamwork to implement.”
On the time aspect, she suggested a period ranging up to five years. Prospects are even less sure for teamwork—at least from Democrats and employee organizations, who say they were left out of the process and suspect its main intent is to eliminate federal jobs. Weichert reiterated the administration’s position that job-cutting was not a design goal although that could be the effect in some cases—but that at least some displaced employees could be retrained for other work.
A main point of controversy in the hearing in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee—which oversees both general government matters and the federal workforce in particular—was the proposal to turn OPM into a policy office within the Executive Office of the President while shedding its operating branches. That is among the proposals where the need for legislation remains uncertain, although there is precedent in that law was changed last year to shift background investigations for DoD employees from OPM to the Pentagon. The reorganization plan seeks to have DoD take over background checks government-wide.
Getting an OPM reorganization through Congress would have to overcome concerns about politicization of the career workforce with OPM as an arm of the White House. The administration responds that without having to run the security clearance and retirement and insurance programs—which would shift to the GSA—the office could better focus on addressing hiring and other personnel-related issues that agencies face.
Other proposals that clearly would require legislation and that already have drawn strong opposition include privatizing the USPS and air traffic control functions. Shifts of functions from one agency to another—such as having HHS take over food assistance programs from Agriculture—also likely fall into that category, as would the proposed merger of Education and Labor.