OPM strips career HR from Schedule C appointments, salary setting

The Office of Personnel Management last week issued new guidance encouraging agencies to pay political appointees the maximum federal salary and removing career HR workers from the appointment process.

The April 10 memo from acting OPM Director Charles Ezell to agency heads reminds them of the “great flexibility” they have when setting the pay of employees hired under Schedule C of the federal government’s excepted service, the portion of the federal workforce made up of low-level political appointees.

“Such flexibility is important to attract highly-qualified Schedule C employees to serve in important confidential, policy-determining, policy-making and policy-advocating roles,” Ezell wrote. “Well-qualified Schedule C employees are needed ‘to drive the unusually expansive and transformative agenda the American people elected President Trump to accomplish.’”

The memo notes that Schedule C salaries cap out at $195,200. And it instructs agencies to “revoke delegations and sub-delegations” provided to agency HR employees as part of their work onboarding and vetting political appointees on behalf of the White House.

“Agencies should also note that as a matter of process, Schedule C appointing authority requires approval by OPM’s White House liaison, through OPM’s Executive and Schedule C System,” the document states. “This system serves as the central intake and approval mechanism for non-career SES and Schedule C appointing authority at the agency level . . . As a matter of practice, no Schedule C appointments should be advanced without coordinating with the agency White House liaison.”

Traditionally, while the selection of Schedule C appointees is typically the job of the White House or an agency’s White House liaison, career HR employees evaluate an incoming appointee’s resume and experience, ensure they are properly vetted, and provide input about the appointee’s proposed starting salary. According to one source familiar with federal HR practices, last week’s memo appears aimed at expediting the replacement of career workers with political appointees by removing career-employee guard rails from the process.

“[When] we processed appointments, the White House would tell us what position they were encumbering and what their grade or salary would be,” they said. “Sometimes they’d listen to us, but they could always overrule us. What they’re doing now, from what I’m reading, is they’re cutting HR out of it completely, so HR will take people who are totally unqualified and put them in whatever positions and at whatever salary the White House sets for them.”

Jason Briefel, director of government and public affairs at Shaw Bransford and Roth P.C. and executive director of the Senior Executives Association said there is one clear outcome from OPM’s memo.

“I think you’re about to see a s------d of Schedule C employees making $195,200,” he said.

Briefel noted that the inflation of Schedule C salaries has been a bipartisan problem dating back to the first Trump administration. But unlike the Biden administration’s efforts to increase political appointee pay, Trump’s comes as agencies seek to slash their career workforces through a mix of “deferred resignations,” Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments, Voluntary Early Retirement Authority and reductions in force.

“It’s a question of how many more people can they bring in [via Schedule C], because the philosophy of this administration seems to be that it can only achieve its agenda with its own people, not the civil servants they’re firing,” Briefel said. “But that’s not true of course, because they would have helped . . . There are a lot of talented career people who aren’t being included in the thinking or decision-making process and just are being asked to implement, and that’s why a lot of [Trump’s early term actions] are crashing against the rocks.”