Some agencies are notifying employees of their ‘Schedule F’ status

Some agencies have begun notifying employees that they are likely to be designated as fireable-at-will under a policy President Trump has issued, with senior leaders saying impacted staff should use the information in determining whether to accept incentives to leave government voluntarily. 

The notices have gone out at least at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which informed individuals they are being placed in the new civil service category due to the policy-making nature of their job. Trump originally created the classification in his first term when he deemed it Schedule F and revived it on his first day in office this year under the new label “Schedule Policy/Career.” 

“I understand that there is a lot of concern and uncertainty about Schedule Policy/Career and want to provide the best information currently available,” Emily Menashes, the acting assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries said in an email to staff there this week. She added the Commerce Department’s window for accepting early retirement or buyouts closes April 17 and the Schedule Policy/Career information “may help you make a more informed decision about whether to pursue” those options. 

Other parts of NOAA, including the National Weather Service and the National Ocean Service, also began notifying employees of their Schedule Policy designations this week. 

NOAA has provided a preliminary list to Commerce of the employees to fall under the new designation. Those workers, determined to be serving in “policy-related” positions, will be stripped of their civil service protections. The new classification has garnered significant pushback and legal challenges, with detractors suggesting it eliminates the merit-based civil service in favor of a system that rewards political loyalty. 

Because the first Schedule F effort occurred so late in Trump’s first term, only one agency–the Office of Management and Budget–finalized a plan to implement the policy, though no employees were converted to at-will employees before then-President Biden took office and rescinded the measure. Documents obtained by the National Treasury Employees Union via the Freedom Information Act last year revealed that the agency slated two-thirds of its workforce for the new designation, taking a sweeping approach that included statisticians, IT specialists and even executive assistants.

During the Biden administration, the Office of Personnel Management issued new regulations seeking to make it harder for a future president to revive the program, establishing “policy-related” jobs to include only political appointments. But just days into Trump’s second term, acting OPM Director Charles Ezell claimed that the president has the constitutional authority to nullify regulations concerning personnel issues.

Commerce has gathered the lists from its component agencies and they are now under review by the department’s Office of General Counsel, according to a source familiar with the process. That list included “thousands” of names, the person said, including most General Schedule-15 employees—the highest level of the GS pay scale—a lot of GS-14s and some below that. Commerce did not include Senior Executive Service employees—the cadre of the 8,000 highest-ranked career officials in government—on its list as the department determined that Trump’s changes to those positions has already made those supervisors at-will and subject to the policy whims of the administration. 

Commerce does not plan to notify employees of their Schedule Policy status on a departmentwide basis. If its broad interpretation of the new initiative were applied consistently across government, it could lead to hundreds of thousands of employees losing their civil service protections that prevent politically motivated firings. 

The Office of Personnel Management has given agencies until April 20 to submit their recommendations for employees to receive the designations. 

In her note to staff, Menashes said the agency’s list was subject to change. Those who were on it and received notices could be removed and those who have not received notices could be added. She explained that Schedule Policy roles will remain career positions and not political appointees, and hiring for them will have no input from the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. Menashes reminded those employees that while they do not have to personally support the president, failure to faithfully implement the administration’s policies is “grounds for dismissal.”