In a structural difference with the original Executive Order 13957, the President—not OPM—will now move positions into Schedule Policy/Career. Image: Joshua Sukoff/Shutterstock.com
Following is the section of the recent proposed rulemaking from OPM to carry out a Trump administration executive order to create an excepted service “Schedule Policy/Career” category citing differences between that and the short-lived “Schedule F” order of the first Trump administration.
Donald Trump won the 2024 Presidential election and promptly fulfilled his commitment, issuing Executive Order 14171 on January 20, 2025. The new order reinstated Executive Order 13957, while amending it in several ways. The order redesignates “Schedule F” as “Schedule Policy/Career.” This change in nomenclature emphasizes that covered positions remain career positions and are not being converted into political appointments—a common misperception of the original order.
The order emphasizes that patronage remains prohibited by defining Schedule Policy/Career to only cover “career positions.” It also expressly describes what is and is not required of Schedule Policy/Career employees. They “are not required to personally or politically support the current President or the policies of the current administration. They are required to faithfully implement administration policies to the best of their ability, consistent with their constitutional oath and the vesting of executive authority solely in the President. Failure to do so is grounds for dismissal.”
Executive Order 14171 also requires OPM to apply Civil Service Rule 6.3(a) to Schedule Policy/Career positions. This rule authorizes OPM to prescribe by regulation conditions under which excepted positions may be filled in the same manner as competitive positions are filled and conditions under which persons so appointed may acquire a competitive status in accordance with the Civil Service Rules and Regulations. This directive requires OPM to generally provide for competitive hiring procedures for Schedule Policy/Career positions.
Executive Order 14171 also overrode significant parts of the April 2024 final rule. That rule used delegated presidential authority to amend parts 210 and 302 of the civil service regulations. President Trump used his executive authority to directly render those amendments inoperative.
Executive Order 14171 requires that OPM rescind the amendments made by the April 2024 final rule. It further provides that “[u]ntil such rescissions are effectuated (including the resolution of any judicial review) 5 CFR part 302, subpart F, 5 CFR 210.102(b)(3), and 5 CFR 210.102(b)(4) shall be held inoperative and without effect.” Consequently, both the April 2024 final rule’s definition of ” “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy advocating” as a term of art that refers exclusively to political appointees and its procedural requirements for moving employees into such policy-influencing positions are no longer in effect.
In a structural difference with the original Executive Order 13957, the President—not OPM—will now move positions into Schedule Policy/Career. Pursuant to that Executive Order, agencies will review their workforces and petition OPM to recommend that the President move specific positions into Schedule Policy/Career. OPM will review these petitions and make the recommendations it deems appropriate. However, the President will make the final decision about which positions go into Schedule Policy/Career. That decision will be effectuated by a new executive order issued under Presidential—not OPM—authority.
Executive Order 14171 also added new guideposts about positions that may belong in Schedule Policy/Career. Under the order agencies will consider recommending both immediate and higher-level supervisors of Schedule Policy/Career employees for inclusion. If a subordinate employee is in a policy-influencing role, superior officials with authority to tell that employee what to do are also likely policy-influencing. The order further required agencies to consider positions with duties that the OPM Director indicates may be appropriate for inclusion in Schedule Policy/Career.
OPM has issued guidance about positions agencies should consider in their Schedule Policy/Career positions. These additional guideposts consist of:
• Delegated or subdelegated authority to make decisions committed by law to the discretion of the agency head. This identifies a specific subcategory of employees with “substantial discretion to determine the manner in which the agency exercises functions committed to the agency by law,” which was one of the categories originally flagged for potential inclusion.
• Authority to bind an agency to a position, policy, or course of action without higher level review or with only limited higher-level review. If an employee has authority to bind their agency without higher-level review they are straightforwardly policy-determining. Such officials are largely—but not exclusively—political appointees out of scope for Schedule Policy/Career.
• Positions statutorily described as exercising important policy-determining or policy making functions: directing the work of an organizational unit, being held accountable for the success of one or more specific programs or projects, or monitoring progress towards organizational goals and periodically evaluating and making appropriate adjustments to such goals.
• 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. Grantmaking is an important form of policymaking, so employees with a substantive discretionary role in how federal funding gets allocated may occupy policymaking positions.
• Advocacy for administration policy, either in public or before other governmental entities, such as Congress or state governments.
• Positions otherwise described in the applicable position description as entailing policy making, policy-determining, or policy-advocating duties.
Executive Order 14171 rescinded Executive Order 14003 and directed agencies to reverse any changes to discipline or unacceptable performance policies that followed from it.
This requires agencies to restore changes to disciplinary and performance policies from the first Trump Administration that the Biden Administration reversed.
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