Key Trump OMB Management Adviser to Retire

Linda Springer, the veteran budget and federal workforce specialist who has been advising President Trump on his management agenda, is retiring, Government Executive has learned.

“It’s a real retirement, not going to another company or entity or going out on my own,” Springer said an interview.

A former controller at the Office of Management and Budget and director of the Office of Personnel Management during the George W. Bush administration, Springer joined the Trump administration as an adviser during the transition and became part of its “beachhead teams.”

In February she became senior adviser at OMB and was instrumental in preparing Trump’s March “skinny budget” section on the presidential management agenda, as well as the governmentwide reorganization initiative and Thursday’s memo on eliminating or updating OMB reporting requirements on agencies.

Springer stressed that she is in no way disillusioned with the Trump agenda of steep budget cuts.  “I’m very sincere in that I thoroughly enjoyed my time here and am committed to making the reforms work,” she said. “It has been a great opportunity. We laid a great foundation.”

Though some had speculated that Springer might become Trump’s OPM leader (in May he nominated George Nesterczuk to the post), on Thursday she said her arrangement with Budget Director Mick Mulvaney was always that she would leave in August, after six months in the White House, once a deputy director for management (still unnamed) was confirmed.

The reason she is leaving sooner, she said, is because her 85-year-old mother living in Pennsylvania has health issues. “I wasn’t comfortable being 120 miles away from her. It had become a challenge,” she explained. So a departure date of June 30, the day all agencies are supposed to submit their first drafts of reorganization and efficiency plans, seemed appropriate.