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DHS funding bill heads to Trump, ending shutdown for department employees

Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:09:48 -0400

The House approved a bill Thursday that will fund almost every agency in the Department of Homeland Security for the next five months, sending the measure to President Donald Trump weeks after the Senate unanimously approved it.

Once the bill becomes law, it will end the shutdown that began in mid-February and has at times stalled paychecks for federal employees throughout much of the department, including those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration.

The voice vote to pass the DHS appropriations bill finally marks an end to the annual government funding process that was supposed to be wrapped up before the end of September. There were three shutdowns in all through the fall and early spring.

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said during brief floor debate it was “about damn time” Republican leaders brought the bill to the floor.

DeLauro said that “from the outset” Democrats wanted to negotiate with Republicans to address “armed, masked agents marauding our streets and terrorizing people in our communities.”

“It has been the Republicans (who) have been intransigent and not willing to do that,” she said. “But there we go. Today we’re going to do it. It could have been done 76 days ago. I’ll take it today.”

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy said separating out funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol from the DHS funding bill “is offensive to the men and women who serve” in those agencies.

“While we are all unified in funding the rest of DHS, we are absolutely horrified that we are blowing up the appropriations process to target those brave men and women who are doing the Lord’s work to keep us safe from cartels, from dangerous actors and from illegal aliens across the streets of America that have been endangering the American people,” he said.

Republicans plan to use the complex budget reconciliation process to fund ICE and the Border Patrol for the rest of Trump’s term without negotiating any new guardrails on immigration agents.

One shutdown after another

Instead of completing the dozen annual government funding bills before their Oct. 1 deadline, lawmakers' stark differences over funding and policy led to a trio of shutdowns that stalled paychecks for federal employees and wreaked havoc on hundreds of programs.

The first shutdown, which affected much of the federal government, lasted 43 days as Democrats tried unsuccessfully to extend the enhanced tax credits for people who purchase their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

A partial shutdown lasting four days ended in early February when lawmakers approved a stopgap spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security alongside the remaining full-year appropriations bills for other departments.

But lawmakers failed to reach a bipartisan agreement to place constraints on federal immigration agents before the temporary funding bill for DHS expired on Feb. 14, leading to a third shutdown for the department.

Senate Democrats demanded several restrictions on immigration agents after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. While Republicans control both chambers of Congress, most bills cannot move through the Senate without the support of at least 60 lawmakers.

After nearly six weeks, Senate Republican leaders agreed to remove funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol from the DHS appropriations bill, unanimously sending it to the House for approval in late March.

House hangup

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at the time a plan to use the complex budget reconciliation process to provide three years of funding for ICE and Border Patrol wasn’t acceptable. He refused to put the Senate-passed bill on the House floor for a vote.

The Senate tried again in early April, sending an identical bill to the House, which Johnson declined to schedule a vote on until Thursday.

The House vote on the DHS appropriations bill happened less than a day after Republicans in that chamber voted to adopt the budget resolution that unlocks the reconciliation process. Republican senators approved the tax and spending blueprint earlier this month.

Congress’ budget resolution isn’t a bill and doesn’t need to go to the president for his signature in order to take effect. It doesn’t actually fund anything but is designed to help lawmakers plan tax and spending policy for the next decade.

GOP lawmakers intend to use the reconciliation process the budget resolution provides to approve a bill in the coming weeks that will provide up to $140 billion for ICE and Border Patrol. That avoids the need to place any new constraints on federal immigration officers in order to get Democrats’ votes to limit Senate debate.

Members of Congress will, however, still need to find agreement on funding for the rest of government ahead of the next fiscal year, which will begin on Oct. 1.

Another impasse will mean another shutdown, just weeks before the November midterm elections.

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Sorting through Medicare myths in federal retirement decisions

Tammy Flanagan — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 15:00:00 -0400

One of the most common questions I am asked is “What should I do about Medicare when I retire ... or turn 65?” I love to answer this question; however, the reason it is so complicated is because there is so much misinformation floating around. Here are some of the things I hear, along with reasons why it is important to take time to consider the pros and cons of adding Medicare to FEHB.

Myth: Adding Medicare Part B is too expensive.

It is true that adding Medicare Part B will add a minimum of $202.90/month in premiums to your monthly expenses. It is also true that this isn’t a self-plus one enrollment, as each spouse pays this premium individually. What is also true is that the cost of Part B of Medicare can be offset by the benefits of enrollment. With many FEHB plans, your deductible, copayments and coinsurance costs are waived for outpatient medical care when Part B is your primary payer. This means that you may save up to the catastrophic cap that you would have otherwise paid out of pocket for your care. In addition, there are a handful of plans that provide a partial rebate of the premium: BC/BS Basic (Plan Code 11) provides $800/year per eligible individual; MHBP HDHP (Plan Code 43) provides a $1,200 health fund that is eligible to be sued for Part B reimbursement; and Aetna Direct (Plan Code N6) provides a $900/year health fund per eligible individual.

Myth: Since I am subject to Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA) surcharges, it is not worth adding Part B.

In 2026, IRMAA affects Medicare enrollments when your Modified Adjusted Gross income from two years prior to the current year exceeds $109,000 (single taxpayer) or $218,000 (married filing jointly). This adds an additional premium of $81.20/month, up to as much as $487/month, to the $202.90 standard premium.

In this situation, it is not all about “getting your money’s worth,” but more of an issue of “pay me now” or “pay me later.” If you decide to forego enrollment in Medicare Part B, be sure that you are prepared to pay an increasing amount of out of pocket costs if your health care needs increase as you get older.

It is hard to imagine, if you are healthy at age 65 and not currently suffering from chronic health problems, why adding a cost that is more than you would typically spend out of pocket for health care could possibly be a good idea.

Try to consider that at age 65, you may have decades of life left to live and some of those years you may suffer from serious and chronic health conditions requiring ongoing care and treatment. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 20% of women who are age 85 and older report that they are in poor health, with 24% reporting five or more chronic health conditions and 54% reporting at least one functional limitation where assistance may be needed with dressing, bathing, feeding, toileting or incontinence.

Consider also that items such as home health are covered under Medicare Part B as follows:

In most cases, “part-time or intermittent” means you may be able to get skilled nursing care and home health aide services up to eight hours a day (combined), for a maximum of 28 hours per week. You may be able to get more frequent care for a short time (less than eight hours each day and no more than 35 hours each week) if your provider decides it’s necessary.

Under FEHB plans, the coverage is not as generous. For example, Standard Option BC/BS provides coverage for home health care as follows:

Home nursing care (skilled) for two hours per day when: a registered nurse (R.N.) or licensed practical nurse (L.P.N.) provides the services; and a physician orders the care. You pay: 15% of the Plan allowance using preferred providers; 35% of the Plan allowance using participating providers or non-participating providers. In addition, you will pay any difference between our allowance and the billed amount. Benefits for home nursing care are limited to 50 visits per person, per calendar year.

Check Section 5 of your FEHB plan brochure to see how this type of care is covered in your plan. When Medicare is primary, BC/BS Standard Option will waive your deductible and coinsurance for this care. If you need more than two hours per day, Medicare will cover 80% of the cost up to eight hours per day, up to 28 hours per week for as long as medically necessary.

Another example of a medical need that may increase with older adults is physical, occupational or speech therapy. Benefits are limited to 75 visits per person, per calendar year for a combination of all three types of therapy with BC/BS Standard Option; however, coverage under Medicare is not subject to this type of limitation. In other words, there are types of coverage that Medicare offers beyond the plan limits of your federal health coverage.

Myth: It is better to keep your current health plan instead of enrolling in Medicare Part B.

Every federal health plan carrier provides a plan or option that coordinates with Medicare. This may not be the plan that has served you and your family in the past. Instead of limiting your decision to whether Medicare Part B is necessary, consider that plans that cater to the needs of older adults with Medicare will often be less expensive and reduce your out of pocket costs enough to offset the premium for Medicare Part B. Check your health plan website, where you will find information about the plans offered by each carrier that work best with Medicare. You can find your plan brochures and links to your plan on OPM's website.

Myth: By enrolling in Part B, I won’t be able to see the providers I want to see.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, virtually all (98%) non-pediatric physicians participate in the Medicare program. Furthermore, Medicare beneficiaries report access to physician services that is equal to, or better than, that of privately insured individuals.

In 11 specialties, the share of physicians who have opted out of Medicare is 0.5% or lower, with the lowest shares seen among emergency medicine physicians (0.1%), oncologists (0.1%), radiologists (0.1%) and pathologists (<0.1%).
Psychiatrists account for the largest share (39.0%) of all non-pediatric physicians who opted out of Medicare in 2024, followed by family medicine physicians (21.5%) and internal medicine physicians (13.0%).
Less than 2% of non-pediatric physicians have opted out of Medicare in 47 states. The rate is slightly higher in three states and the District of Columbia: Alaska (2.8%), Colorado (2.3%), Idaho (2.2%) and the District of Columbia (2.9%).

Consider the following numbers reported on the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid in 2025:

Over 1.5 million doctors, health care providers and suppliers participate in Medicare.
380,063: The number of Medicare intuitional providers, including hospitals, labs and skilled nursing facilities.
163.1 million: The number of unique individuals who have been entitled to Medicare at any point in program history (1966-2024).
62.7 million: The number of Americans enrolled in Medicare in 2024, up from 19 million when the program began.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that Medicare enrollment will reach 80 million within the next 10 years, and 100 million by 2075.
Medicare Fee-for-Service processes over 1.1 billion claims each year — about 3 million per day, or 35 per second.
62.9 million: People currently enrolled in Medicare Part B, which covers doctor visits, outpatient care, some home health and preventive services.

Myth: I will wait until I’m older, and I need more health care to enroll in Part B.

In most cases, if you missed your Part B Initial Enrollment Period (IEP), which runs from the three months before the month of your 65th birthday through the three months after the month of your 65th birthday, you will face a late enrollment penalty if you decide to enroll at a later time during the annual General Enrollment Period (GEP), which runs from January through March. The penalty equals 10% of the standard monthly premium for each 12-month period that you delayed enrollment and will be added to your premium costs for the remainder of your enrollment.

If you did not enroll for Part B during your IEP, you may qualify for a Special Enrollment Period (SEP) to sign up for Part B (and/or Part A) anytime as long as you or your spouse is working and you’re covered by a group health plan through that employment. For people age 65 or over who have coverage through a group health plan, there is also an eight-month SEP, which starts the month after the employment ends, or the group health plan coverage ends. If you sign up during SEP, the late enrollment penalty will not apply.

Myth: Federal retirees do not need Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage.

In most FEHB plans, members with Medicare Part A and/or Part B primary are eligible for the benefits under the plan’s Employer Group Waiver Plan (EGWP) - Medicare Prescription Drug Program (MPDP). This coverage is optional for FEHB members. Before opting out of this benefit, there are some important reasons to stay enrolled, such as:

Equal or better coverage for every drug covered by your traditional FEHB plan
Coverage for numerous drugs not covered on the traditional FEHB plan
Lower out of pocket costs under each drug tier
A more expansive 90-day retail pharmacy network
An annual maximum of $2,100 on what you pay for Part D-covered prescriptions

There are a few downsides to enrollment in an FEHB MPDP program.

These plans, like Medicare Parts A and B, have no coverage for drugs obtained and/or purchased overseas.
Although there is no additional premium for enrollment in FEHB MPDP, you may need to pay an Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA) of $14.50/month, up to $91.00/month in 2026, to Social Security for this Part D coverage.
Learn more about the income thresholds and IRMAA amounts.
Your FEHB plan website has specific information on the MPDP offered by your FEHB plan option.

FEHB Medicare PDP EGWP allows members — who might otherwise forgo Medicare drug coverage — to benefit from the Medicare system they paid into, often for decades. Auto-enrollment is intended to make the process easier; however, both the Office of Personnel Management and Medicare rules allow FEHB plans to auto-enroll eligible members. Auto-enrolled members may opt out within 21 days or may disenroll at any time.

Myth: FEHB plans that offer Medicare Employer Group Waiver Plan (EGWP) Advantage plans are the same as individual Medicare Advantage plans.

Since the introduction of Medicare Advantage more than 20 years ago, the number of people choosing these plans has been steadily increasing. In 2023, 51% or 30.8M of all Medicare beneficiaries signed up, up from 33% in 2018. By 2033, 62% are expected to join. Medicare Advantage, known as Part C, covers the same services as Original Medicare Parts A and B and often includes additional benefits — on average, $600 worth of supplemental benefits to each participant.

Most FEHB plan carriers now offer Medicare Advantage Employer Group Waiver Plans (MA-EGWP) to maintain or enhance coverage for beneficiaries, while reducing both immediate costs and long-term liabilities. There is no additional cost to enrollment in a MA-EGWP through an FEHB plan offering this option; however, there is a second step that you must take to enroll in this option, where the plan requires proof of your enrollment in Medicare A and B. These plans include a reduction in your Part B premium, Medicare Part D prescription drug benefits. Most provide dental and vision benefits, along with perks such as free gym membership, meal delivery following a hospital stay and transportation to a limited number of non-emergency medical care visits.

Unlike individual MA plans, the FEHB MA-EGWP plans allow you to return to your FEHB plan by disenrolling in the option. The FEHB MA-EGWP plans may also provide nationwide coverage. For example, the Compass Rose High Option plan offers the following regarding its MA-EGWP option:

The Compass Rose Medicare Advantage Plan is a UnitedHealthcare Group Medicare Advantage Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plan, which means you have flexibility in choosing a provider. You have access to providers nationwide and receive the same level of benefits in network and out of network. You may see any provider that accepts Medicare. You can see any out-of-network doctor or health care provider that participates in Medicare and accepts the plan. Accepting the plan means the doctor is willing to treat you and bill UnitedHealthcare. If a doctor or hospital refuses to directly bill UnitedHealthcare, they may ask that you pay the full allowable amount. In that case, you can pay the doctor and then submit your claim to UnitedHealthcare. You will be reimbursed for the cost of the claim, less your copay. The FEHB BC/BS plans do not offer an EGWP-MA option currently.

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After reductions, VA chief says facilities can 'hire where they need and what they need'

Eric Katz — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:07:35 -0400

The Veterans Affairs Department can hire any employee it wants at any time, the head of the agency told lawmakers on Thursday as he sought to address concerns about staffing declines and new restrictions that have set ceilings on workforce levels.

No VA facility is facing constraints on bringing in new personnel, Secretary Doug Collins said, who once again stressed that previous hiring efforts outpaced demand for health care through the department. He made the comments despite VA placing staffing caps on each facility that led to the elimination of tens of thousands of vacant positions and were designed to add layers of review to be surpassed.

“We will hire every need that we have in the department,” Collins said before a panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Our hospitals have the complete autonomy to hire where they need and what they need going forward.”

Collins’ comments came following his push to reduce VA’s workforce by 30,000 employees last year and the subsequent vacancy eliminations. The reductions have raised some bipartisan concerns, though Collins has maintained that his department was overbloated and VA care has not suffered. Between 2019 and 2025, he said, VA’s workforce grew by 14% while its interactions with veterans increased by just 6%.

VA has put “baselines” into place that set staffing levels for each facility, as Government Executive first reported last year. VA components cannot surpass their high-level personnel caps without approval from the department’s human resources and finance offices. Still, Collins said after the hearing the baselines would not impact any hiring effort.

“They're [full-time equivalent] accounts that are assigned to each facility,” the secretary said. “Those FTE accounts are not in a position to keep anybody from being hired.”

One VA official said it is accurate that VA facilities have "autonomy to hire what they need," but must operate within certain boundaries. They cannot simply hire as many employees as they want, the official said, though they maintain flexibility. Facility leaders have been instructed to escalate anything that has an impact on care delivery and hiring of doctors and nurses is always supported.

After years of growth, VA saw a net decrease in both doctors and nurses in 2025. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., the top Democrat on the subcommittee that held Thursday’s hearing, noted that VA’s fiscal 2027 budget would see further reductions in both categories. He added that proposed increases in the department’s budget would disproportionately go toward private sector care rather than to offerings within VA’s system.

“We see growing demand for VA care, but we're not seeing here the request for the investments in clinical staff to reflect that,” Ossoff said.

Collins noted that VA has eight pilot programs underway to get new hires onboarded more quickly, including by allowing employees to begin working before they fully go through the vetting process. The department is looking to expand those pilots by the end of the year and is hopeful it can bring average time-to-hire to between 30 and 40 days. VA has already demonstrated progress on that front, Collins said.

He also requested lawmakers provide more flexibility on the top pay levels for VA doctors. Congress previously authorized the department to exceed the existing $400,000 pay ceiling for 300 employees, which VA is currently working on implementing. That represents just 1.5% of VA’s doctors, however, and Collins said lawmakers should instead choose five specialties and wave pay caps for all doctors within them.

“My spouse, I have three kids, and at Christmas, she made sure that every kid had the same number of presents to open,” Collins said, alluding to the “inequities” created by the limited number of pay cap waivers Congress created.

Collins acknowledged that VA plans to close a handful of its contract facilities this year, though he said those medical offices were not performing up to the department’s standards and veterans would be able to receive care in other areas.

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How an obscure federal agency threatens to upend union disputes

Erich Wagner — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 12:44:46 -0400

A small federal agency has taken unusual steps to interfere in federal employee unions’ ability to secure independent adjudicators to hash out disputes with agency management, though in recent days it appears to be backing down from that approach following pressure from advocates and arbitrators alike.

As the Trump administration has defended in court the legality of two 2025 executive orders that strip two-thirds of the federal workforce of its collective bargaining rights on national security grounds, its attorneys have frequently relied on the idea that unions could challenge the edicts’ validity as part of preexisting administrative disputes to support the idea that federal judges lack jurisdiction to hear the labor groups’ lawsuits.

“The government identified numerous avenues for unions to challenge the executive order’s validity before the [Federal Labor Relations Authority] and then on direct review in a court of appeals, and plaintiff fails to explain why those avenues are unavailable,” the government wrote in a legal brief last October. “Specifically, the government explained that plaintiff can file an unfair-labor-practice charge with the FLRA’s general counsel or raise such a claim through the grievance and arbitration procedures in the union’s collective bargaining agreements.”

But one of those touted avenues—arbitrated grievances—was temporarily closed for some unions earlier this month. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service issued new guidance last week stating that it would not appoint arbitrators to hear grievances at agencies impacted by the national security EOs without management’s assent. President Trump previously sought to eliminate FMCS entirely via executive order last year, but that effort petered out following multiple federal court orders blocking the agency's closure.

“When an agency invokes an executive order as a reason for non-participation during the arbitration panel selection process, the agency has revoked any actual or implied consent to participate in the proceedings,” wrote FMCS General Counsel Anna Davis, who simultaneously serves as acting head of the agency. “Without an agency’s consent, FMCS cannot continue the process of issuing an arbitration panel. Again, ‘FMCS has no power to . . . compel parties to arbitrate any issue.’”

But federal sector labor attorneys said that document amounts to a post hoc justification, issued only after the agency began mysteriously balking at assigning arbitrators in multiple cases earlier this month. Suzanne Summerlin, an independent attorney that represents unions, said in two separate cases, FMCS interrupted and delayed the arbitrator selection process over “threshold issues,” and in one case required her to submit a legal brief in support of appointing an arbitrator.

One case involved one of the agencies targeted by Trump in his union executive orders, despite the fact that a 1993 Federal Labor Relations Authority precedent requires agencies that have been recently exempted from federal sector labor law to continue to participate in preexisting grievance proceedings. The underlying collective bargaining agreement also allows either party to advance those proceedings unilaterally. In another case, FMCS demanded information about whether a bargaining unit was made up of “information management” employees, something that would make those worker ineligible for union representation, before allowing arbitration to proceed.

“It seems like they’re just trying to gum up the works and not let anyone get a grievance arbitration going,” Summerlin said. “It feels like a power grab by the political factions in these agencies, for sure.”

Ibidun Roberts, another independent labor attorney who works frequently with federal employee unions, described a similar scenario, in which the Veterans Affairs Department seemingly engaged in communication in which the Veterans Affairs Department privately requested that FMCS block the appointment of an arbitrator. She said the questions posed by FMCS in her and other attorneys’ recent experience for decades have been for arbitrators—or the FLRA, on appeal—to decide, not the mediation service.

“We don’t bargain in order for FMCS to make the decision, we do it so that an arbitrator will make them,” she said. “It was wrong for VA to even put them in that predicament, but it was also wrong for FMCS to take them up on it. The response should have been, ‘We don’t get involved.’”

Arbitrators, too, have taken notice. If FMCS moves forward with its efforts to take a more active role in the grievance process, it could impact their livelihood, as they are typically paid by the case.

“Several of our members, as well as some advocates, have brought this to the Academy's attention, and we are seeking clarity about the actual nature of the agency's actions, and the reasons for them,” Joshua Javits, a federal arbitrator and president of the National Academy of Arbitrators, told Government Executive.

Robert Tobias, distinguished practitioner in residence at American University’s Key Leadership Program and a former president of the National Treasury Employees Union, was aghast when he learned that FMCS was delaying the issuance of arbitrator panels.

“Oh my god,” he said. “This is supposed to be a ministerial process . . . Their job is only to ensure that the arbitrators who are on the list are competent to be arbitrators, that they have the requisite background, experience and qualifications to be arbitrators on the list. The job is to assign them when requested, and if either of the parties think that the arbitrator lacks qualifications, that’s for someone else to determine, not FMCS.”

But in at least one of these cases, FMCS appears to have backed away from its newly hands-on posture. Summerlin said she received an email from Davis on April 24 allowing arbitration to move forward. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

“Please be advised, in accordance with applicable statutes, regulations, authorities and published guidance, after FMCS has processed the panel request, FMCS will leave it to the parties as to how best to proceed,” Davis wrote.

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House votes to make IRS publish call metrics online

Natalie Alms — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0400

The House on Monday passed a set of bipartisan proposals meant to improve IRS customer service and technology.

The Taxpayer Experience Improvement Act, backed by Reps. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., and Don Beyer, D-Va., requires the tax agency to publish detailed, real-time and monthly metrics online like call volume, wait times and callback availability for major IRS phone lines.

The proposal also instructs the IRS to make more information on refund status available to taxpayers through online IRS accounts, where the agency would be required to allow taxpayers to respond to IRS letters online.

Similar legislation has been introduced in previous sessions of Congress but not made it into law. The Senate has yet to pass the bill, which Sens. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced in February.

The IRS replaced its telephone customer service metric earlier this year. The National Taxpayer Advocate had called that old metric misleading because it measures the percentage of calls answered by a person among those sent to IRS employees, not the proportion of callers who reach a person. In fiscal 2025, the level of service was 60%, but only 26% of callers spoke with an IRS employee, according to the internal watchdog.

The IRS will now track average speed of answer, call abandonment rate and time spent on the phone line, IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano told The Washington Post earlier this year.

Before replacing the metric altogether, the agency lowered its level of service standard from 85% of calls answered to 70%. Last year, the IRS pushed thousands of employees out of their jobs, mostly through voluntary incentives. It then struggled to hire employees for tax filing season and eventually moved human resources and tech employees to fill in taxpayer service roles.

Bisignano is also the head of the Social Security Administration, another federal entity with metrics that have been in the news since many of them were removed from the agency's website last year. SSA’s inspector general released a report on the agency’s phone line metrics late last year that showed SSA’s new wait time metric is lower than the amount of time it actually takes for callers to speak with an SSA employee.

Lawmakers in the House also passed the BARCODE Efficiency Act on Monday. Like the Taxpayer Experience Improvement Act, it’s also been introduced in a prior Congress but didn’t become law.

The bill, which has yet to move through the Senate, would require the IRS to use barcodes and scanning technology to digitize paper federal tax returns and convert the data into an electronic format. The tax agency would also be tasked with using optical character recognition technology to transcribe paper returns and paper correspondence received by the IRS.

Reps. Brad Schnieder, D-Ill., and Rudy Yakym, R-Ind., introduced the House version, and Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., are backing it in the Senate.

The IRS has been trying to rid itself of paper for years, and the National Taxpayer Advocate has long recommended that the IRS use barcode and OCR technology.

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Federal workforce trauma is creating a stumbling block for AI adoption

Howard Risher — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 07:00:00 -0400

The federal government and the U.S. economy is at a crossroad. There are two contrary but seemingly independent developments that have profound implications for the workforce. Both sides cannot be correct but to build support for what’s unfolding the differences need to be understood and resolved.

One is the rapid transformation of jobs and work systems driven by AI. The frequent headlines contend the drive to roll out AI is the future. It’s inevitable. The titles suggest a solidly optimistic view that AI will be:

“a Net Economic Accelerator,”
“a Force for Better Work, Not Job Loss,”
“a Force for Better Work, Not Job Loss,”
“a Driver of Safer, More Efficient Daily Life.”

The contrary argument has made the headlines of the country’s more prominent websites:

CNN — “Tech industry experts warn AI will make us worse ...”
Forbes — “The Real Threat of AI: WEF Global Risks Report 2025”
BBC — “Artificial intelligence could lead to extinction, experts ...”
The New York Times — “The A.I. Prompt That Could End the World”

There have also been reports and columns arguing AI has revealed problems in how government work is organized and managed, and from a GAO report, that the work models are not suited to AI integration.

DOGE made the problems worse

Elon Musk has been very vocal. On one side, he contends AI will create unprecedented abundance, producing goods and services “far in excess” of current levels. He has also argued AI will eliminate most or all human jobs. When that happens, he promoted a form of government-provide “universal high income.”

Musk is relevant of course because of what he and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) did to the federal workforce. Through 2025 DOGE initiated (1) mandatory attrition targets, (2) reductions-in-force plans, (3) a hiring freeze and (4) contract cancellations that removed contractor employees. The actions triggered 348,219 individuals to quit, retire, were laid off or otherwise left federal employment. At the same time, 116,912 people started working for the federal government — a 55.6% decrease from the year before. The net reduction, according to the Pew Research Center, was nearly 238,000.

The impact on the workforce has been pronounced. There has been a loss of institutional knowledge, support functions disappeared, worker shortages have impeded agency performance, and reports contend agencies are struggling to maintain mission delivery. The Brookings Institute expert, Elaine Kamarck, reported the cuts made agencies “scramble to fill critical gaps in services” ... There are time bombs all over the place ... They’ve wreaked havoc across nearly every agency.”

Employees are not open to AI

When the Office of Personnel Management canceled the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey for 2025, the Partnership for the Public Service created and conducted a similar survey late in the year. It had responses from 11,083 employees across executive branch agencies.

The survey “revealed significant challenges” — read significant declines — in federal employee engagement and morale in 2025. The Partnership’s CEO, Max Stier, made it clear what the decline means:

“We have every red light blinking across the federal government. Morale is as low as imaginable.”

“This workforce has been fundamentally traumatized ... That’s not good for anyone. It’s bad for the workforce, it’s fundamentally bad for the American people, and it will lead to use be less safe, healthy, and prosperous as a society.”

“This loss of expertise directly harms Americans’ access to critical services and will take decades to repair. [The losses leave] dangerous gaps in key federal services, like food safety inspection, Social Security processing, veterans’ health care and disaster response.”

Research in other sectors by Gallup and others shows clearly a demoralized workforce triggers a high cost. In Gallup’s terms, that is when employees are “actively disengaged” or “unhappy and unproductive at work.” There is no direct comparison but the Partnership’s survey shows the “chainsaw” workforce cuts left the workforce “traumatized.” Psychological safety “collapsed.” It could hardly be worse.

The Partnerships analyses show the “reforms to the federal government cost the U.S. economy more than $165.6 billion ...” Possibly more important going forward is the loss of the better performance when employees are fully engaged. Gallup has promoted the value of engaged employees for over three decades. Their research has linked engagement levels to a long list of employee performance metrics.

Gallup “research has repeatedly shown that engaged employees are the lifeblood of successful organizations. They are not just loyal and productive; they the driving force behind innovation and customer satisfaction.” Their research “... reveals a stark contrast between teams with highly engaged employees and those struggling with disengagement.” Companies with an engaged workforce are more productive, more profitable and have higher customer satisfaction.

OPM has reported its measure of employee engagement for years but for unclear reasons has never reported finding a connection between employee engagement and performance. However, it is very clear that is no longer a consideration.

Research also shows clearly disengaged workers are not open and supportive of implementing AI. That point was emphasized in a recent "Forbes" column, “Why You Can’t Lead an AI Revolution Without Engaged Managers.” A column summarizing Glassdoor reviews and social media posts related to AI concluded many “employees are pretending to use AI tools just to comply with internal protocols ... multiple people admitted to exaggerating or fabricating their usage.”

Projected national job losses

From a broader perspective, researchers at Tuft’s Fletcher School of Global Affairs recently released the American AI Jobs Risk Index. It summarized the projected job losses for 784 occupations in 20 industries.

“It is a first-of-its-kind data-driven framework that maps the potential of AI-driven job vulnerability across every major occupation, industry, metropolitan area and state in the United States. ... the Index goes beyond prior studies by measuring actual vulnerability to job loss — not merely exposure — and connecting that vulnerability directly to projected income loss and geography.”

“The Index projects approximately 9.3 million U.S. jobs are at risk of displacement in the next 2–5 years, with a plausible range of 2.7 to 19.5 million depending on alternative adoption scenarios. Associated household income at risk spans $200 billion to $1.5 trillion annually ... equivalent to the economies of Belgium and, under faster AI adoption, approaching that of South Korea.”

“Industry-wide vulnerability averages approximately 6%, but the steepest risks sit in Information (18%), Finance and Insurance (16%) and Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (16%).”

Based on the Index estimates, the country will lose from the three groups a total of over 3 million jobs. The federal government has an AI estimated 128,500 Information specialists (in 14 job series) and would lose 23,000 specialists.

The biggest losses are projected to be in California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois. The losses are also high in the District of Columbia. “Wired Belts” like Ann Arbor and Boulder could become “Rust Belts.” That will have political consequences.

The economic concerns include:

Job displacement and lost income
Wage suppression prompted by reduced labor demand
Increased economic inequality benefiting capital investors
Erosion of human skills and loss of adaptability

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ made a disturbing AI prophecy: “Humans won’t be needed ‘for most things' in 10 years.”

Public policy debate: Regulation needed?

As long ago as 2021, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, proposed the first EU artificial intelligence law, establishing a risk-based AI classification system. It did not pass initially but in 2024 the EU Artificial Intelligence Act became the world’s first comprehensive AI law.

In contrast, President Trump released a promised “AI Action Plan” in July 2025 that outlined “over 90 federal actions focused on three areas of focus: increasing private-sector innovation, expanding AI-related infrastructure and exporting American AI.” He followed that with three Executive Orders promoting American AI products.

In December he signed an EO intended to override certain state laws on AI, with department heads to identify the laws deemed “burdensome.” All 50 states considered AI-related measures in 2025.

A number of prominent scholars and economists have argued legislation is needed. A core issue is — developments in AI are ongoing and it’s not possible to anticipate in advance what may be warranted. Tomorrow’s AI systems could be very different. It is clear that the legal process is slow, incentives are misaligned and the complexity of AI systems is growing faster than governance.

Questions for Elon Musk: When will the economy warrant creating the government-provided universal high income? Does it ride on high unemployment or low family income? How will it be funded?

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CBP seeks AI solutions to keep pace with rising volumes of border scans

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 17:46:47 -0400

Customs and Border Protection is facing a volume problem as it expands the scanning of cars and trucks at ports of entry.

The so-called non-intrusive inspection scanning technology that CBP is deploying greatly increases the number of vehicles scanned.

“The sheer volume of data generated by increased scanning can be overwhelming for human operators, necessitating innovative solutions to maintain efficiency and effectiveness,” the agency writes in a sources sought notice posted Wednesday.

CBP uses X-rays to scan full-size vehicles – commercial trucks, cargo containers, and privately owned cars – without physically opening or unloading them. The agency's systems generate tens of thousands of images a day across multiple types of scanners.

To address this volume challenge, CBP wants to use more artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions. But the agency does not want a proprietary data platform, data pipeline or case management system.

Instead, the agency wants algorithmic components that can be integrated with existing and planned CBP-owned data platforms.

CBP is looking for help with using a human-in-the-loop approach. AI will serve as a tool as “CBP’s frontline personnel remain the most critical asset to thwarting illicit goods crossing our borders,” the request for information states.

While the agency emphasizes in the notice that employees are its most valued resource, “CBP recognizes that technology is a vital element to mission success.”

The agency wants information on algorithm products, including performance metrics related to:

Anomaly detection
Manifest/commodity verification
Identifying modifications, such as concealment locations
Contraband detection.

Responses are due May 30.

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Feds that Trump fired without cause can take their appeals directly to federal court, judges say

Eric Katz — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 17:01:45 -0400

Federal employees fired without a stated cause can challenge that decision directly in federal court without first going to a separate panel designed for civil servants, two judges have ruled in decisions with potentially broad reaching impacts on the Trump administration’s efforts to more quickly dismiss certain workers.

Maurene Comey, a former career attorney in the Justice Department and the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, won the initial decision on Tuesday in a case in which she is appealing her termination last year. Comey has suggested her firing was the direct result of her connection to her father, a longstanding target of President Trump who is also facing prosecution from the administration, or her perceived political beliefs. In a separate case earlier this month, a judge ruled his court was the proper forum for Mary Comans, a former Federal Emergency Management Agency official, to challenge her dismissal.

Comey and Comans are among a slew of employees who the Trump administration has dismissed with no stated reason, instead justifying them by arguing the moves were within the president’s scope of authority. Their termination notices suggested the actions were taken “pursuant to Article II of the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

Justice has taken a particularly aggressive approach in dismissing career staff, beginning just hours after Trump took the oath of office when it fired personnel in the Executive Office of Immigration Review and elsewhere. It has continued to remove employees, including both Senior Executive Service staff and standard civil servants, without cause.

In Comey’s case, New York-based U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman dismissed the administration’s argument that she must take her case to the Merit Systems Protection Board as most federal workers must under the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act.

“The Court concludes that Comey’s case does not fall within the purview of the CSRA’s scheme because she was fired pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, not pursuant to the CSRA itself,” Furman said. “Defendants’ sole reliance on the Constitution — rather than the removal provisions of the CSRA — places Comey’s case outside the universe of cases that Congress intended the MSPB to resolve.”

Trump has fired MSPB’s Democratic head, Cathy Harris, who is now challenging that dismissal before the Supreme Court. The board’s two remaining Republican members recently ruled that some federal employees fired using the Article II justification will no longer have appeal rights before MSPB.

The administration is asserting the employees it has fired are inferior officers under the Constitution and the president therefore has full control over their appointment and removal. Some legal observers have suggested Justice and other agencies are looking to broaden the population of employees it can fire on an at-will basis. The Trump administration has separately created a new classification of federal employees called Schedule Policy/Career, estimating it would allow agencies to fire around 50,000 workers in policy-setting roles at will.

In Comans case, the former FEMA chief financial officer fired after the administration alleged she misused federal dollars when authorizing funds to house migrants in hotels, Virginia-based District Judge Michael Nachmanoff said the terms of the dismissal made federal court the “mandatory” forum for a challenge. Nachmanoff similarly found that because FEMA circumvented civil service law in firing Comans, MSPB was not an appropriate place for her to challenge the decision. The judge dismissed her request for back pay and monetary damages, however.

The judge in neither Comans nor Comey’s cases has yet ruled on the merits of their appeals, which center on the administration improperly side-stepping due process requirements and unlawfully targeting them for political reasons.

Federal workers are typically not considered at-will and current statute requires that agencies provide notice, cause and an opportunity to rebut allegations before a firing can take place. Civil service protections date back more than a century and were most recently solidified in the CSRA. They have taken shape to prevent presidents from interfering with a career workforce of experts for political reasons. Good government advocates have long argued that undermining those protections could return the U.S. government to a spoils system in which political patronage threatens agencies’ capacity to deliver on their missions.

Comey’s initial victory in court came on Tuesday, the same day Justice again brought charges against her father over a social media post it said was threatening the president.

Clarick Gueron Reisbaum, the firm representing Comey, celebrated the judge’s decision.

“No president can ignore the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and federal law to fire a career federal employee based solely on her last name,” the firm said. “We look forward to continuing to vindicate Ms. Comey's constitutional rights and protect our civil service.”

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Career agent confirmed to lead ATF despite GOP’s past push for the agency’s elimination

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:31:05 -0400

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed, 59-39, Robert Cekada, a career federal law enforcement officer, as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, an agency that has historically attracted the GOP’s ire.

Cekada has been serving as the ATF’s deputy director for about a year. He joined the agency in 2005 as a special agent and has been promoted several times. Cekada is also a member of the Senior Executive Service.

“He knows how to lead the bureau because he’s tirelessly worked throughout the chain of command,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said during Cekada’s February confirmation hearing.

The new director's nomination was supported on Wednesday by all present Republicans as well as seven Senate Democrats.

At the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Justice Department recommended folding ATF into the Drug Enforcement Administration. Some congressional Republicans have proposed eliminating the agency, arguing that its work to combat the illegal use of firearms infringes on gun rights.

During his confirmation hearing, however, Cekada said that abolishing or defunding ATF would have “a negative impact on America’s communities” and that, pursuant to a Trump executive order, the agency is reviewing its regulations to assess any encroachments on the Second Amendment.

“ATF’s mission is not to burden lawful gun owners or undermine the Second Amendment. The right to keep and bear arms is a constitutional guarantee, and I'm committed to protecting and preserving it,” he said. “I am equally committed to supporting the men and women of ATF. They deserve clear mission focus, strong leadership, modern tools and accountability at every level.”

Cekada later added that he’s “worked with practically every ATF agent that's actually out here making cases, we all know each other.”

Dan Driscoll has been the acting ATF director while concurrently serving as Army secretary.

Cekada testified that there are about 2,400 ATF agents and that the Trump administration has directed the agency to increase that number to 3,000.

Like other federal law enforcement agencies, ATF has reassigned officers to support the administration’s mass deportation efforts. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, found in a fall 2025 analysis that the agency had sent nearly 30% of its total employees to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Cekada told lawmakers that only about 100 ATF agents are working on immigration enforcement. While he said that the reassignments are in alignment with the agency’s mission to deter violent crime, congressional Democrats didn’t buy his argument.

“I think it's really incontestable that if you need more agents to go after violent criminals that are using guns in the commission of crimes, then diverting some of the agents you already have — 100 agents — to work on immigration enforcement — often generally involving people who have no criminal record apart from being undocumented — is going to dilute your effectiveness,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., during the confirmation hearing.

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White House is drafting plans to permit federal Anthropic use

Alexandra Kelley and David DiMolfetta — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:39:06 -0400

The White House is crafting guidance that would allow federal agencies to bypass a supply chain risk designation on Anthropic and clear the way for government use of its tools, including the cyber-focused Mythos AI model, according to an industry source familiar with the matter.

The move is notable because it suggests the Trump administration may be softening its stance on Anthropic. The Pentagon labeled Anthropic as a supply chain risk earlier this year — and the White House later ordered a governmentwide phaseout of its technology — after the AI company declined to ease restrictions on its products being used in domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

The administration is also drafting an AI executive order that could, in part, address how the government uses Anthropic's tools, a second person familiar with the matter said.

Both sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to communicate non-public details. Nextgov/FCW has asked Anthropic for comment.

"The White House continues to proactively engage across government and industry to protect our country and the American people, including by working with frontier AI labs," a White House official told Nextgov/FCW. "The collective effort of all involved will ultimately benefit our economy and country. However, any policy announcement will come directly from the President and anything else is pure speculation."

Axios first reported on the White House's plans.

Mythos, unveiled earlier this year, has become a tipping point for cybersecurity and AI practitioners because it demonstrates how advanced models can be purpose-built for real-world cyber operations, including those planned inside the intelligence community. In the wrong hands, it could be used to carry out sophisticated cyberattacks against government networks, critical infrastructure or other key U.S. systems.

As soon as Mythos was unveiled, the company launched Project Glasswing, a private coalition of firms that aims to use the model to patch critical vulnerabilities across the global internet before AI-assisted cyber threats become widespread.

Last week, Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine said at a national security event in Nashville that autonomous weapons will be a “key and essential part of everything we do,” pointing to a broader military push to integrate AI into defense operations.

“I want our nation using all of our best [AI] models,” retired Gen. Paul Nakasone, who led NSA and Cyber Command, told reporters in a briefing at that same event hosted by Vanderbilt University.

“I don’t think it was accurate that Anthropic is a supply chain risk,” added Nakasone, who also serves on the board of OpenAI. “I feel uncomfortable with the fact that part of our nation’s capability is not being used by our government.”

The dispute between Anthropic and the Trump administration has rattled Washington’s AI vendor landscape over the last couple of months, with companies scrambling for clarity on contracting requirements as uncertainty grows over how the government will handle how much use of Anthropic products is permissible.

The company has legally challenged the supply chain risk label. A federal judge issued a temporary injunction on the designation and ban in late March, which the government has said it intends to appeal.

Last week, President Donald Trump said in a CNBC interview that the company is “shaping up” and can “be of great use” in the future, a sign that tensions between Anthropic and the government may be easing.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include comment from the White House.

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FDA to pilot real-time clinical drug trials through cloud and AI

Frank Konkel — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:15:17 -0400

Through a new pilot program announced this week, the Food and Drug Administration will use artificial intelligence and cloud computing to monitor clinical trial data in real time, an effort that could ultimately shave years off the approval timelines for new drugs, devices and medications.

FDA commissioner Marty Makary announced “the first ever real-time clinical trial” Tuesday at a press conference held at FDA’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Md. “Today is a milestone day for us to challenge the assumption that it takes 10 to 12 years for a new drug to come to market.”

Makary said about 45% of the time between when a company conducts a Phase 1 clinical trial and submits its applications—which can sometimes be millions of pages long—to the FDA is “dead time,” where investigators and staff are doing “paperwork and other tasks, many of which are tedious.”

The pilot allows the agency to have “a direct data feed from a clinical trial, where the FDA will see what is happening, in the cloud, with the predefined clinical endpoints and any other signals investigators and regulators decide are valuable,” Makary said. “When a patient develops a fever, or a tumor shrinks, FDA regulators can see in the cloud, in real-time, exactly what is happening.”

FDA Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Jeremy Walsh, who Makary credited as a driving force behind the pilot, said the idea for real-time drug trials manifested last summer through a confluence of the right personnel, emerging technologies and leadership’s drive to modernize the review process, which had not changed much since the 1960s.

Walsh told reporters that “while there is an opportunity to shave off” as much as 40% of the clinical trial time, the agency won’t be cutting corners on safety.

“The goal here is to sort of get to a regulatory decision in a faster timeline, without compromising any safety,” Walsh said. “The goal here is to raise the bar for what can be done. We are reimagining what information we need and when we need it in order to make a decision.”

So far, two clinical trials conducted by pharma companies AstraZeneca and Amgen will pilot the new system.

“The ultimate goal is to move data as quickly as possible across this ecosystem to accelerate our ability to bring new therapies to patients to make a meaningful difference in their lives,” said Amy McKee, oncology senior vice president at AstraZeneca.

In conjunction with the announcement, the FDA released a request for information for the public and industry to solicit input regarding how AI-enabled technologies “can improve efficiency, speed and quality of decision-making in early phase clinical trials.” Responses are due May 29 and could shape an expansion of the pilot this summer.

FDA’s broader tech modernization effort

During the press conference, Makary highlighted several major modernization efforts undertaken by FDA’s IT and AI team, a brain-trust that includes Walsh, acting chief information officer Sridhar Mantha, acting deputy CIO Sanjay Sahoo and acting associate director of business operations Gregory Jackson.

“Thanks to the moderation efforts by our entire IT and AI team here at FDA, we have been able to get away from the fiefdom culture where every center has to have their own license agreement for the same software and their own system,” Makary said. “We have done a massive consolidation.”

Over the past year, FDA consolidated 40 separate application intake systems into a single system, further consolidated its three data monitoring systems and seven adverse event reporting systems each to single systems, and systematically reduced the duplication of various software licenses across the agency’s multiple centers.These consolidation efforts—performed without additional staff or resources after significant staff downsizing in early 2025—“is going to save us at least $120 million a year,” said Makary, noting that money would be reinvested in the scientific community, new technologies and rehiring as many as 3,000 new scientists.

“That added reserve in our resources will support our bold reform agenda,” Makary said.

The agency has also taken massive steps in adopting generative AI.

Walsh, speaking last week at Google Cloud Next in Las Vegas, said in early 2025, about 1% of the agency’s workforce regularly used generative AI in their jobs. Today, the agency has a generative AI adoption rate of more than 80%, with some individual centers exceeding 90%. One of its most popular tools is Elsa, a large language model-powered tool that assists employees with reading, writing and summarizing reports.

FDA makes use of both Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude models.

“We have deployed enterprise AI across the entire agency, giving our highly skilled, highly-educated workforce access to all these tools,” said Walsh, adding that AI is helping FDA achieve its mission faster. “One of the great things about working with companies like Google in this is the speed at which we can get access to the models where our data sits. When new models are released, we can get access to the model in a week. For us, we need to make sure we have access to the latest capabilities and tools.”

Walsh said in early pilots, AI has already dramatically reduced timelines for data- and documentation-intensive regulatory duties FDA regularly performs, in some cases reducing administrative tasks from 10 days down to 20 minutes.

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Treasury missed security controls in giving DOGE system access, GAO finds

Natalie Alms — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:41:16 -0400

Congress’ watchdog reported on Tuesday that the Treasury Department gave a Department of Government Efficiency associate access to the government’s payment systems last year without fully following all of its own security controls — and the DOGE team didn’t always hew to Treasury’s protocols, either.

The findings are among the first reports the Government Accountability Office has released about DOGE’s work, and GAO is working on more audits focused on DOGE access to government systems, a spokesperson confirmed with Nextgov/FCW on Tuesday.

The new report on Treasury zeroes in on atypical access to the government’s payment systems given to DOGE associates.

DOGE access to sensitive government data and systems across agencies has been a flashpoint since the early days of Trump’s second term. DOGE associates said in court testimony earlier this year that pushing for high-level access to government systems was “operating procedure” for the group.

At Treasury, soon after Trump took office last year, individuals on billionaire Elon Musk’s team reportedly began pressing for officials to hand over system access to DOGE employee Tom Krause so that the department could freeze foreign aid payments. A top Treasury official was eventually pushed out of his job after refusing to provide access to the systems.

GAO found that Treasury handed over access to view, copy and print data from the Bureau of Fiscal Service’s three payment systems to an unnamed DOGE associate, who could also see the systems’ source code.

But that member of Musk’s team never completed required security training while working at the department or signed Treasury’s “rules of behavior” policy for IT security while working there.

GAO doesn’t name this DOGE employee in its report, but other details provided by the watchdog match with public reporting on Marko Elez, like the day he resigned, Feb. 6, 2025, following reporting about his racist social media posts. He later went on to work for DOGE at other agencies.

At one point, Treasury accidentally briefly gave that same DOGE employee the ability to make changes in one of those systems, something GAO said was due in part to the agency’s lax procedures and the fact that the access being requested was changed several times before it was approved. The DOGE employee didn’t use the system during this time, GAO says. According to reporting on court records, this was also Elez.

GAO also found that Treasury’s data loss prevention tools didn’t track or block Elez from improperly sending unencrypted information on foreign aid to two DOGE associates at the General Services Administration. Elez did this without getting agency approval for sharing the information on U.S. Agency for International Development payments.

Treasury didn’t discover that incident until it conducted a forensic review of the laptop after Elez had left the department. The department didn’t find the incident sooner in part because its tools aren’t set up to look for information being sent to other government agencies, the report says.

GAO included several recommendations regarding the department’s IT security processes in the audit, only some of which Treasury formally agreed with.

The top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said in a statement that “GAO has confirmed our worst fears,” and called on the Treasury to implement all of GAO’s recommendations.

Among those the department didn’t formally agree or disagree with is one urging it to conduct exit interviews and get signatures on post-employment documentation from those with access to sensitive payment systems who leave the department without doing so — including the DOGE employee discussed in the report with access to systems.

The watchdog will be issuing additional reports on DOGE access to Treasury payment systems, it says in the report. The topic has also been working its way through the courts. A district court judge granted a preliminary injunction limiting DOGE access to Treasury systems with sensitive information last year, although that was later modified to allow some access to systems.

GAO also released another report Tuesday on DOGE’s access to systems at the NLRB. Just over a year ago, a whistleblower in the agency said that DOGE had extracted troves of data from the agency using secretive methods during March 2025.

The NLRB’s inspector general has an ongoing investigation into the whistleblower’s declaration, the office confirmed to Nextgov/FCW.

GAO’s new report, however, focuses only on the period after DOGE was detailed into the agency in mid-April, so “to not overlap with the NLRB Inspector General’s Investigation.”

Whistleblower Aid, which is representing the NLRB whistleblower, noted the significance of GAO beginning its review period after their client’s disclosed events took place.

“Because the GAO did not investigate any matters that fell within the timeframe disclosed by our client — in fact scoping it out of their investigation — the report cannot address our client's detailed accounts,” Whistleblower Aid told Nextgov/FCW. “Accordingly, the timeframe investigated by the GAO has no relationship to the wrongdoing witnessed by the whistleblower in February to early April 2025.”

GAO found that the DOGE team asked for access to NLRB systems, but didn’t use the access it was granted. DOGE didn’t even pick up NLRB laptops before their detail agreements expired in July, according to GAO.

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IRS whistleblower program set for possible overhaul after bipartisan House vote

Sean Michael Newhouse — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:29:05 -0400

The House on Monday passed, 346-10, a bipartisan bill that would make several reforms to an IRS whistleblower program that has recovered billions from noncompliant taxpayers.

“This is real money returned to the Treasury that would otherwise have been lost,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., the measure’s sponsor, during floor remarks. “In many cases, these are complex, high-dollar schemes that would not have been identified without insider information, proving that whistleblowers play an essential role in upholding the integrity of our tax code.”

The IRS Whistleblower Program Improvement Act (H.R. 7959) would:

Modify the standard for reviewing whistleblower award determinations in the U.S. Tax Court in order to allow new evidence to be introduced during appeal.
Permit whistleblowers to be anonymous before the Tax Court, unless there is a “societal interest” in disclosing their identity.
Require interest on certain whistleblower payments if the IRS does not meet the deadline to inform the individual of an award recommendation, as part of an effort to ensure the tax agency distributes payments in a timely manner.

“Whistleblowers often face uncertainty and long delays. And in some cases, they face real personal and professional risk just for coming forward,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., a cosponsor of the bill, in a statement. “We need to be doing everything we can to fix those problems.”

Kelly and Thompson are the chair and ranking member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax.

In 2025, the IRS reported that it has collected about $7.5 billion as a result of protected disclosures since 2007, leading to more than $1.3 billion in awards to whistleblowers. According to the tax agency, payments tend to be 15 to 30% of funds received due to the whistleblower’s information.

The National Whistleblower Center nonprofit backed the bipartisan measure, arguing it would “revitalize” the IRS whistleblower program after experiencing declining financial recoveries in recent years. The right-leaning National Taxpayers Union nonprofit also endorsed the legislation.

The bill is now headed to the Senate. Provisions that are identical to the House-passed measure are also in the bipartisan Taxpayer Assistance and Service Act (S. 3931), which was introduced in February but has not yet received any votes.

A spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who has previously introduced similar legislation regarding the IRS whistleblower program, said in a statement to Government Executive that he “welcomes” passage of the House bill and will work with the sponsors of the Senate measure “to enact these important reforms into law.”

The IRS recently completed its first tax season since the Trump administration’s staffing reductions across government. The tax agency also had to contend with implementing changes to the tax code mandated by the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act as well as onboarding delays due to the fall 2025 government shutdown and federal hiring freeze.

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EPA workers disciplined for dissent letter get legal aid from whistleblower groups

Erich Wagner — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:22:18 -0400

A pair of whistleblower protection organizations announced Tuesday that they will represent dozens of Environmental Protection Agency staffers who were suspended last year following their endorsement of a “declaration of dissent” to Administrator Lee Zeldin in proceedings before a quasi-judicial agency challenging their discipline.

Last summer, more than 600 EPA employees signed the letter excoriating Zeldin’s leadership of the agency, alleging among other things that his leadership undermined scientific consensus in favor of polluters. Though a majority of signatories did so anonymously, the agency quickly suspended more than 100 employees who publicly signed onto the letter. Ultimately, the agency handed out a range of disciplinary measures, from letters of reprimand to unpaid suspensions and even termination.

Last December, half a dozen of those employees who were targeted with firing challenged their terminations before the Merit Systems Protection Board, with the help of environmental advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. On Tuesday, whistleblower organizations Lawyers for Good Government and the Government Accountability Project announced they would aid in other EPA workers' cases.

According to L4GG and GAP, 15 complaints in connection with the firings and other discipline have already been filed with the Office of Special Counsel, alleging violations of the employees’ First Amendment and whistleblower protections, and “many more” will be lodged in the coming days.

“Lawyers for Good Government is proud to stand with these courageous employees for doing exactly what the law protects, and what the public demands, in telling the truth about dangerous government misconduct,” said Traci Feit Love, L4GG’s founder and executive director. “Retaliation against them is not just illegal, it’s a direct assault on the democratic principles that protect public servants who expose threats to public safety.”

Recent reporting from E&E News suggests that EPA leadership was warned that disciplining those who signed the dissent letter was likely unjustified under the rules governing federal employment. Officials within the agency told leadership that signing the letter did not run afoul of ethics rules, and a top EPA lawyer warned taking action against them constituted a “significant” risk of legal liability in an email apparently accidentally divulged by EPA’s Freedom of Information Act office.

“Taking any such action would present significant legal risk, as the letter is likely protected speech under the First Amendment,” said Nate Nichols, an assistant general counsel at EPA within its employment law practice group.

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McMahon distances herself from past Education layoffs, vows some rebuilding even amid elimination effort

Eric Katz — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:51:06 -0400

The Education Department went too far with some of its cuts last year and certain issues were handled in an “inadequate” way, the agency’s leader told lawmakers on Tuesday as she vowed to reempower some parts of her agency.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon stressed that the cuts were in motion before she arrived at the department and in some cases were “difficult” to defend. The department has laid off one-third of its employees and has seen an overall cut of about half of its workforce through those cuts and various incentive programs.

McMahon did not strike an entirely remorseful tone, however, as she repeatedly defended both efforts to outsource core Education responsibilities to other federal agencies and the larger project of shuttering the department entirely. She has overseen 10 partnerships with the departments of State, Interior, Health and Human Services and Labor to date, which has led to Education employees detailing out to those agencies and conducting largely the same work from a different location while remaining on the Education payroll.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee panel that held Tuesday’s hearing, questioned the virtue of such changes.

“You are sending Department of Education employees to work at other agencies to administer the same programs from different buildings,” Baldwin said. “At best, this will prove nothing about what the Department of Education does. It's making everything more complicated for states and local school districts.”

Lawmakers and advocates have repeatedly expressed concerns with the Trump administration’s plans, echoing those within the department both before and after the changes took effect. Baldwin alluded to previous findings of issues with Labor’s grants management, suggesting it was ill-suited to take on even greater responsibilities from Education. McMahon conceded “there are opportunities in every agency to improve their grant programs.”

“There's some hiccups along the way at the beginning, but in the end, this is a program that I believe will help our students,” the secretary said, adding the prevalence of students unable to read or write at their associated grade level made clear that Education required a shakeup.

While McMahon boasted of her success in having “shrunk our bloated bureaucracy,” she acknowledged some services have been negatively impacted and lamented some of the reductions in force.

“The RIF happened a week after I got sworn in,” McMahon said. “The process had been in place to reduce greatly the Department of Education, the number of people there, under very stringent budget requirements that we were given.”

Asked by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., how she could defend the cuts given growing backlogs in some areas, McMahon acknowledged it was a challenge to do so.

“It is very difficult when I’m trying to address those particular issues except to know that those things were happening and we look forward to them stop happening,” McMahon said.

When Murphy pushed back that the resulting challenges were foreseeable due to the staff cuts, the secretary responded, “Well, that is hindsight.” Murphy asked for clarification, leading McMahon to say, “You know perfectly well what that means.”

Several senators focused on backlogs to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and cases before the Office of Civil Rights, with the latter drawing particular scrutiny after the department shed half of the component’s staff. McMahon said the department is working diligently to address casework and has asked laid off OCR staff to return. Education joins the Health and Human Service Department, Interior Department, General Services Administration, Internal Revenue Service and other agencies that have recalled employees it had pushed out.

McMahon suggested the department’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal would lead to the hiring of more attorneys to process claims at OCR. Murphy pushed back, noting the office was slated for a 35% cut in the proposal. McMahon denied the claim, suggesting Murphy’s numbers were inaccurate.

The budget would in fact cut the OCR by 35%, from $140 million to $91 million. As of February, the office employed 327 individuals. While McMahon insisted the budget would increase that total, it instead proposed a total of 271 employees, a 17% reduction. The secretary later said that staffing level “a floor number,” and she was hopeful “we’ll have the ability to increase” it.

The issue was one of several in which McMahon told lawmakers they would have to “agree to disagree,” something Democrats on the panel were reluctant to accept.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of disagreeing,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. “I think it’s a matter of very poor policy.”

In Education’s fiscal 2026 appropriations bill, lawmakers included language prohibit the transfer of funding for interagency agreements without direct support in law and stated that "no authorities exist for the Department of Education to transfer its fundamental responsibilities under numerous authorizing and appropriations laws, including through procuring services from other federal agencies, of carrying out those programs, projects, and activities to other federal agencies.” Lawmakers did not appear to explicitly ban the agreements and details altogether, however, instead asking for biweekly briefings with significant details on the costs, staffing implications and impacts on grantees and other stakeholders.

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DHS funding bill stalls as House GOP seeks changes to Senate deal

Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:20:16 -0400

House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to make changes to a Senate-passed bill that would end the shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, a move that will further delay funding and prolong the stalemate that began in mid-February.

The holdup could again interrupt paychecks for workers at the Transportation Security Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency, both of which are part of DHS. Huge backups in airline security lines resulted in March when TSA officers went without pay for weeks until the administration scrambled to reprogram funds.

Johnson, R-La., has chosen not to negotiate potential tweaks in the funding bill with Senate Democrats, who will be needed to advance it if the House makes alterations.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a Tuesday afternoon press conference the bill that’s stalled in the House doesn’t “need tweaks.”

“They're just stuck. So they come up with, ‘We need some technical changes,’” he said. “Hold up national security for technical changes? It's absurd. They can pass the bill right now.”

Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said during a brief interview she was “flabbergasted” by Johnson’s comments.

She added during the press conference she has “no idea what technical changes they're looking at.”

House hasn’t voted on DHS funding

The Senate unanimously passed a bill to fund the vast majority of the Department of Homeland Security in late March and again in early April. Johnson hasn’t put it to the House floor for a vote, blocking it from becoming law.

The legislation doesn't include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Border Patrol, a compromise negotiated after Republicans and Democrats were unable to broker agreement on guardrails for immigration enforcement operations.

Republicans plan to provide upwards of $70 billion in additional spending for ICE and Border Patrol in a party-line budget reconciliation bill they hope to pass in the coming weeks.

Johnson said last week he believes the “sequencing is important” on when each of the two bills becomes law. But time is running out for the tens of thousands of federal workers, who are about to miss out on their paychecks once again.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement the executive order President Donald Trump signed earlier this month to pay all DHS employees despite the funding lapse can only stretch so far.

“That money is dried up if I continue down this path the first week of May,” Mullin said. “My payroll through DHS is just over $1.6 billion every two weeks so the money is going extremely fast and once that happens there is no emergency funds after that.”

‘We’ve got to get these agencies funded’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he’s working with House GOP leaders to “massage” the DHS funding bill in hopes it will become law sometime soon.

“I'm very sympathetic,” he said. “We talked last night and he's got to manage his challenges there. We have to manage our challenges here. But one way or the other, we've got to get these agencies funded.”

The disconnect between House Republicans and their Senate GOP counterparts on when to fund DHS is just one of several challenges party leaders are attempting to address this week.

“We're trying as best we can to coordinate strategy with the House. But, you know, it's a unique situation. We've got very narrow margins and people with real strong opinions,” Thune said. “So it's going to take, obviously, I think, the heavy involvement of the White House to bust some of these things loose. But we're trying as best we can to ensure that we can get all of these issues across the finish line and ultimately on the president's desk.”

Republican leaders will need the support of their own members as well as at least some Democrats in order to get major legislation, including the DHS funding bill, to Trump.

But as of midday Tuesday, it didn’t appear they’d looped in key negotiators on possible changes to the Senate-passed spending bill.

Recess next week

Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt, chairwoman of the subcommittee in charge of funding DHS, said she didn’t know what changes House GOP leaders wanted to make.

“I am not aware. I just know that we need to find a pathway forward,” she said. “And nobody should be leaving here, or certainly flying off to (congressional delegation trips), until we do.”

Both chambers of Congress are scheduled to leave on Thursday for a weeklong break.

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, ranking member on the DHS funding panel, said House Republicans hadn’t reached out to him or his staff.

“I don't know why he's making this more complicated than it needs to be,” he said. “Our bill, which passed the Senate 100 to zero, would pass the House easily.”

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House GOP on Trump’s 2027 pay freeze: ‘That’s politics’

Erich Wagner — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:44:56 -0400

Republican appropriators in the House last week thwarted efforts by their Democratic colleagues to override President Trump’s apparent plan to freeze civilian federal employees’ pay next year and restore civil service and workplace protections currently on the chopping block.

The House Appropriations Committee voted along party lines to advance its draft of the fiscal 2027 Financial Services and General Government spending bill last week, the culmination of a marathon markup hearing that spanned multiple days. That legislation is traditionally the vehicle by which lawmakers move to overrule a president’s pay raise plans for the following year.

Earlier this month, President Trump released his budget blueprint for fiscal 2027, but the document was silent on civilian federal compensation. An Office of Management and Budget spokesperson told Government Executive that the plan envisions a pay freeze next year, while military personnel would get raises between 5 and 7% next year, depending on their rank. Last year, Trump’s so-called “skinny budget” was similarly silent on federal pay, but the president ultimately implemented a 1% across-the-board increase for most feds, with supplementary increases for feds in some law enforcement positions.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., urged lawmakers to support a 3.1% raise for feds, a figure he said was aimed at approximating the cost-of-living adjustment federal retirees and Social Security beneficiaries would likely see next year. Democrats earlier this year put forth a plan to provide a 4.1% average pay raise to federal civilian workers, split between a 3.1% across-the-board increase and a 1% average increase in locality pay.

“[This raise would be] a recognition of the extraordinary service that they perform on a regular basis for the American people, and very importantly, in carrying out the duties that we have assigned them through legislation,” Hoyer said. “[This] enmity toward government ought not be enmity toward federal employees. We ought not to devalue them.”

But Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, chairman of the panel’s financial services and general government subcommittee, said his caucus would not step on the president’s toes in his efforts to reshape the federal workforce, including on issues of compensation.

“Just as President Biden increased the workforce by 6%, this administration has made streamlining the workforce and reducing spending two of its main goals,” he said. “Presidents often use alternative pay plans when setting pay increases, and this president has chosen to increase law enforcement [salaries] at a higher rate than office workers, which is his prerogative. That’s the reality of politics, and that’s exactly why we have elections every four years.”

The amendment failed by a 28-32 vote.

Hoyer also proposed an amendment that would have barred federal agencies from using fiscal 2027 funding to implement a pair of new job categories—Schedule Policy/Career and Schedule G. The first, formerly known as Schedule F, threatens to strip at least 50,000 career federal workers in “policy-related” positions of their civil service protections, making them at-will employees, while Schedule G creates a new avenue to hire more political appointees into government.

“What they want to do is, which the [1883] Pendleton Act was designed to avoid, is the politicization of the civil service,” Hoyer said. “The pride of our country has been that we have a non-hack civil service, a civil service composed of people who carry out their duties faithfully, and if they don’t, they ought to be fired. But what they should not be is turned into 50,000 additional political appointees, by either administration, Democrat or Republican.”

Joyce again declined to mount a policy defense but nonetheless opposed the measure. Republicans defeated the amendment by a 27-33 vote.

“While I certainly appreciate his various positions regarding some of the administration’s changes to the federal workforce, they fall within his prerogative,” he said. “The previous president made workforce changes as well, and these prerogatives only reinforce that elections have consequences.”

Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., offered another amendment, this time blocking federal funds from being used to terminate collective bargaining agreements pursuant to the president’s pair of executive orders stripping two-thirds of the federal workforce of their union rights on national security grounds. The proposal mirrored a bill that the House approved on a bipartisan basis last December, following a successful discharge petition, but has stalled in the Senate.

“I represent a district where we have tens of thousands of federal government employees, many of whom were impacted by that EO, and these people are hardworking patriotic Americans, dedicated to serving the United States,” he said. “Many of them are veterans, who elected to continue to serve the public by becoming federal employees after they left military service and I think it’s important to treat all of these people fairly.”

But Republicans again opposed the measure, on the grounds that the issue falls under another committee’s purview. The amendment failed by a 29-31 vote, with Rep. Nick Lolota, R-N.Y., a sponsor of last year’s bill, joining Democrats in support.

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Former civil servants aim to shape policy as members of Congress

Sean Michael Newhouse — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:19:30 -0400

After Donald Trump was re-elected in 2024, Chris Backemeyer urged the federal employees he supervised not to leave their jobs.

“I was trying to encourage them to stay in government and to continue their public service,” he said. “I tried to explain how, even when parties change, we're nonpartisan civil servants who are supposed to be implementing their policies, you’ll still find rewarding work, we need your expertise — all that sort of thing.”

Soon after, however, the senior State Department official realized that this administration change would be different from the several other transfers of power he had previously experienced.

“The [Department of Government Efficiency] came in, and they just wanted me to fire a lot of people. We were asked to basically pick 15%, and that's when I realized that I was playing by different rules,” he said. “I was trying to be faithful to the oath that I took to the Constitution. But there wasn't any mission or purpose left when DOGE came in. It was just about destruction and retribution. That's when I decided to leave.”

But Backemeyer could be returning to the federal government soon; this time as a member of Congress. He is one of dozens of former civil servants who left or were pushed out under Trump who are now running for political office.

Backemeyer, a Democrat, is a candidate for a House seat in Nebraska, where he was born and raised.

He argued that his experience in government, which included overseeing billions in foreign assistance, advising Vice President Kamala Harris on national security and participating in nuclear negotiations with Iran, would bolster his ability as a lawmaker to identify waste, fraud and abuse.

“A lot of the inefficiencies in federal agencies are a result of reporting requirements and appropriations that are required to be made for pet projects,” Backemeyer said. “In Congress, I want to work really hard to identify places where we can find more efficiency and try to get rid of some of the special interest projects that gum up the works and make our government less efficient.”

Backemeyer switched careers after 9/11, which resulted in him spending about two decades at the State Department. Today, however, he cautions people interested in public service about working for the federal government.

“I certainly have not discouraged people from considering public service, either through the civil service or otherwise in the federal government, but it is a hard place to be,” he said. “I have warned people that it's a difficult time to be in those jobs. As a general matter, I encourage everybody to figure out how they can find their own corner to fight in right now, because the only way that we reunite our country and move forward is through an active public debate and civic activism.”

Likewise, Lauren Reinhold, a Democrat running for a congressional seat in Kansas, originally intended to remain working in government during Trump’s second term. Both of her parents were federal employees, and she had enjoyed serving in several different roles at the Social Security Administration as well as the National Labor Relations Board.

But she chose to leave after the Trump administration began implementing Schedule Policy/Career, which would remove civil service job protections for tens of thousands of federal employees.

“I realized the job would become loyalty-based, patronage-based and not about serving the public anymore and [instead] about serving essentially a potentially authoritarian government,” she said.

Rather than go into the private sector, she decided to run for Congress in response to the Trump administration’s reforms and cuts to agencies across the federal government, including at SSA.

“It was so upsetting to me that I've felt driven to run for this office to fight for Kansans and our federal services,” she said. “And I wanted to keep serving, so that's why I didn't go into a for- profit or corporate environment.”

Similarly, Terry Jackson, who left his Justice Department job under a settlement that resolved claims of disability discrimination with respect to the Trump administration’s crackdown on telework and remote work, is running for a House seat in Maryland.

“I want to take these experiences that I have had — being in the military, being a federal employee, seeing how government works — I have the lived experience that I can take with me to Congress, and I can advocate for people who experience these types of situations,” he previously told Government Executive for an article about federal employees with disabilities being ordered to work in-person despite exceptions for them from the return-to-office directive.

Former feds are also competing in Republican primaries. For example, Kim Farington, who served in the federal government for more than 30 years, is running to challenge Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. She mostly worked in agency finance roles and says on her campaign website that her first priority is to “expose and eliminate inefficiencies, waste, and fraud in government spending, and reduce the national debt.”

A New York Times analysis found at least 36 first-time political candidates who left their federal jobs in 2025.

Reinhold hopes that she — and other former feds running for elected office — can increase trust in government, which has been at a historical low for years.

“I want to be an ambassador to restore trust in our federal services. Get people to recognize the importance of federal services — the ways they depend on it, even if they don't agree with everything the way it's done,” she said. “For the most part, people see my experience as good. I'm so excited, not just for myself, but all these other candidates who are running for offices at the state, local and federal level because we're going to really be able to impact government and bring trust back to government and make it more effective.”

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Agencies doled out $186B in improper payments last year, GAO says

Natalie Alms — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:48:58 -0400

The federal government made at least $186 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2025, according to a report released Monday by Congress’ watchdog.

The Government Accountability Office’s new estimate comes as the Trump administration continues to doggedly pursue its “war on fraud” to hunt out fraudulent government spending.

The latest numbers offer a point-in-time look at how the government is doing with preventing payments that shouldn’t have been made or were made in the incorrect amount. The category is broader than fraud, which is defined by willful misrepresentation. Although the majority of the $186 billion evaluated by GAO are overpayments, at least $10 billion of the total is money that should’ve been sent out, but wasn’t.

The government’s improper payments total is up by about $24 billion from the prior fiscal year, although that’s largely because of changes in what programs reported data, GAO said. The watchdog audited the improper payment data from 15 agencies’ financial statements across 64 programs.

Most of the improper payments are concentrated in five programs, GAO found, including Medicare, Medicaid, the earned income tax credit and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The Trump administration has been zeroing in on fraud in Medicare and Medicaid already, as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz announced last week that the Trump administration will require all states to revalidate Medicaid providers.

Oz has also announced state-level Medicaid probes, mostly of blue states, as part of his effort to stamp out fraud, although that rollout hasn’t been flawless. Last month, CMS admitted to an error in the fraud analysis of Medicaid in New York that it used to justify the scrutiny into the state program.

The White House is also working across federal agencies to comb through government programs as part of Trump’s anti-fraud task force being led by Vice President JD Vance.

The crackdown is happening as midterms loom, with voters saying that they’re concerned about healthcare affordability.

Critics of the administration’s anti-fraud work say the administration is using the issue as a pretext for political goals and that false claims and the dismantling of government watchdogs are worsening the problem.

“As someone who has spent my career fighting fraud, I welcome any renewed attention on ferreting out fraud,” Mark Lee Greenblatt, formerly the inspector general at Interior Department, told Nextgov/FCW. But he said some of the administration’s moves have been “puzzling.”

“They’ve proposed slashing OIG budgets markedly. And that is counterproductive to the fight against fraud,” said Greenblatt. “If you want to fight fraud, fund the fraud-fighters.”

Trump fired Greenblatt and about 20 other watchdogs soon after taking office last year. He also issued nearly three dozen pardons and commutations for people accused of fraud last year.

Lawmakers have also taken on the mantle of fraud fighting. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is planning to mark up nine bills tomorrow focused on the issue. Among them is a proposal to create a permanent anti-fraud data platform for OIGs. Oversight officials have long recommended that lawmakers improve data sharing within the government.

The bills being considered are a “huge bright spot,” Linda Miller, an anti-fraud expert who worked at GAO for years, told Nextgov/FCW. They remove “a ton of barriers that I have been talking about for a decade.”

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From bowling repairs to zoology, Trump admin consolidates job titles affecting 5,000 feds

Eric Katz — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 14:55:28 -0400

Bartenders, meatcutters, woodworkers and bookbinders will all no longer be official job titles in the federal government after the Office of Personnel Management announced on Friday it was consolidating 115 occupational series that it said are obsolete or redundant.

The change will impact around 5,000 employees, the federal government’s human resources agency said, though the employees will be shifted into new job titles and may not see any impact to their pay. OPM said the consolidated roles, which will be absorbed into the many hundreds of remaining job series, will help streamline positions with low employment or obsolete duties, modernize job classifications, promote more transparent qualification standards and better support hiring based on skills rather than educational attainment.

In the first phase of the overhaul, OPM said it focused primarily on job series with fewer than 100 employees across government, outdated roles that require non-transferable skills, little or no hiring activity over the last few years or no projected need for replacements based on workforce planning. It also identified roles that are duplicative with other occupational categories or that no agency identified a need to maintain.

The impacts will be felt across a wide range of governmental activities. The elimination of the “office automation clerical and assistance” role will affect the most individuals at 862. More than 600 “guides” throughout government — those who give talks, tours, explanations and provide other services to guests at parks and other sites of public interest — will be absorbed into the “general arts and information” job series.

Just two staff involved in “bowling equipment repairing” — whose work includes “minor repairs to bowling approaches and pins” — will see their job series phased out. Many military bases throughout the country maintain bowling alleys on site. The vast activity at military sites account for additional job series the government no longer needs, in part due to the outsourcing of such work, including bakers, bartenders, meatcutters and waiters. Those roles will now be consolidated into the “general food preparation and serving” category.

Some of the eliminated jobs no longer have any people working in them: the government currently employs zero elevator operators or film assemblers and repairers, and the titles will be abolished.

Interior of passenger elevator, showing operator controls. Credit: Library of Congress

One federal HR official praised OPM for the changes, saying it made sense to generally clean up and simplify the list of federal roles and would significantly reduce back-end burdens when hiring for certain specialized or scientific roles.

“It’s the most reasonable and data driven change we’ve seen [from OPM] so far,” the official said.

OPM said the effort would bring “clarity and consistency” across the government and better support the needs of agencies.

“The evolution of work across government, including new technologies, scientific advances, and shifting mission demands, has led many series to become low-use, outdated, or overlapping,” OPM said.

It reminded agencies to follow all existing statutes on pay and grade retention, as well to adhere to their collective bargaining requirements. The agency said it would “provide comprehensive implementation guidance” to ensure a consistent approach across government, protect employee rights and minimize disruption.

OPM acknowledged that employees and stakeholders would have questions about the changes and vowed to ensure a smooth transition. Some of the consolidated jobs require highly specialized skills and extensive hands-on training and those expectations will not change, it said. It will work with agencies to help them write clear position descriptions for specialty, mission-critical jobs.

Some of the impacted jobs are technical or scientific in nature, such as for the government's nearly three-dozen zoologists or its more than 300 employees in fish and wildlife administration. Those employees will become general natural resources managers and biologists. The federal HR official said the more generalized categories will make it far easier for hiring personnel to determine whether an applicant meets minimum qualifications.

As OPM stated, many of the consolidated job functions already appear to be waning in prevalence. The government will no longer hold a specialized title for its nine theater specialists and its lone remaining “coin/currency checker” — whose job is to visually examine finished coins for defects, discoloration or missing letters, as well as U.S. currency, stamps and bonds for any imperfections — will no longer have such a distinct title.

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The ‘doers’ need a budget: Why a $100 million council fund can end federal management failures

Dana Fowler — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 07:00:00 -0400

When a problem exists within one federal agency, it’s a safe bet it exists elsewhere — maybe everywhere. But how would any agency leader know that? Only by bringing key executives together will you discern a pattern, identify the scale and scope of the problem, and be able to develop and implement potential solutions.

A forum exists today to focus on cross-government management issues and solve big problems — in theory. In practice, the Federal Executive Councils are vastly underutilized, underfunded and ultimately without ‘power’ to solve real cross-agency issues. Today’s chaotic environment challenges us to rethink and repurpose the councils into a more functional, directed and empowered community.

Members of the councils may not have chainsaws, but they do have deep knowledge of Financial Management (CFO), Acquisition (CAO), Data (CDO), Human Capital (CHCO), Information Technology (CIO), Grants (GMO), Evaluation (EO), Performance (PIO), Privacy (CPO) and Real Property. These are not the “talking heads” you see on the news or even those leading critical federal programs. These are the leaders who ensure those folks can do their jobs. These are career executives whose work keeps the lights on, pays the bills, ensures contracts are legal and programs are evaluated. These are the people who know where the systems are broken, what legislation ties their hands and where critical investments can solve pervasive problems.

Currently, the policy direction for management functions within the federal government is established by the Office of Management and Budget, specifically the M-side (Management) as they are known. While well intentioned, staff on this side of OMB is overextended and generally has limited agency experience. Policy is often developed by OMB staffers without any input from the agency staff — “the doers” — who must implement these government-wide directives. These agency staff often have both deep technical knowledge in the key operational areas — IT, procurement, HR, data collection and reporting — as well as broad-based knowledge of potential implementation challenges, unintended consequences, hidden costs and tradeoffs.

Even when input from agencies is solicited, this is typically more performative than informative, often via working groups in which agencies are expected to salute and not raise any questions or concerns.

This disconnect between OMB and agencies can lead to fundamental errors in policy, undermining future implementation. Further, when the M-side releases a guidance document directing agencies to comply, there is absolutely no incentive to do so beyond avoiding the ‘stick’ — and even that is limited as it is the B-side (Budget) who control the purse strings. Neither side of OMB has money to fund these new tasks, so most are assimilated by existing functions with limited staffing. The directives are thus relegated to simply one more ‘compliance’ task.

Alternatively, the Federal Executive Councils, properly unleashed, could craft management policies based on real experience “in the trenches” at agencies. Proposed policies could be sufficiently pressure tested with the broad agency representation on the councils and ensure implementation is possible within existing limitations. Ultimately, these councils could tackle and manage big challenges which have, to date, been slow to resolve, like fraud detection, budget transparency and acquisition streamlining.

Solving big problems that cross federal silos cannot be accomplished with current funding models. Federal appropriations law typically limits the use of funds to mission and mission-support. When a problem exists that extends beyond a single agency, there are tight controls on how dollars can be spent.

Currently, a small fund exists for the Federal Executive Councils and their innovations, but it is far less than it would take to solve these issues. As such, the current fund has been used for projects with relatively limited impact — handbooks for a specific council, trainings, shared hiring announcements, etc.. These monies are collected from existing agencies and their use is expanded by Congress. Imagine what could be accomplished with an unrestricted, direct appropriation to seasoned management executives, in the $100M or greater range, more than five times the current fund amount. Executives would stay plugged into their agency work, while spending a dedicated portion of their time on cross-federal work.

The time is ripe for big change, impactful change. Political appointees — with or without chainsaws — simply can’t do the job if they don’t understand the federal space, the policy constraints and the problems. Let’s use the Federal Executive Councils to confront the challenges and give them a budget that will allow them to innovate, test and scale solutions to tackle government’s biggest management problems. Members of our Federal Executive Councils are a virtually untapped resource for cost-effective, impactful, cross-agency solutions to some of the federal government’s most vexing challenges.

Dana Fowler, a former federal manager, is currently senior advisor for We the Doers, a nonprofit focused on government reform informed by career leaders. For a period of nine years, Ms. Fowler worked with the Executive Councils, first as deputy director of the Performance Improvement Council, then as deputy associate director of the Federal Executive Councils support team in the Office of Governmentwide Policy at GSA.

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Trump evacuated from White House Correspondents’ Dinner after shots fired

Jane Norman, States Newsroom — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 22:33:25 -0400

President Donald Trump was declared safe by the Secret Service after being evacuated from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at a hotel in Washington, D.C., on Saturday night after shots were fired.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president would deliver a statement in the briefing room at the White House later Saturday night. In a social media post, Trump said he was in “perfect condition.”

Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, said in a statement on social media the incident occurred near the main magnetometer screening area at the dinner. “The president and first lady are safe along with all protectees,” he said. “One individual is in custody.”

An initial press pool report from the hotel after the shooting occurred said, “There were several loud bangs, and the Secret Service, with guns drawn, rushed the pool out of the room. The Secret Service pushed us back, screaming ‘Shots fired.’”

Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News said on social media shortly after 9 p.m. Eastern that she was behind the podium with other guests, “in a hold,” and Trump was still down the hall and did not want to leave.

Trump himself confirmed that in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job,” he wrote. “They acted quickly and bravely. The shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’ but, will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement. They will make a decision shortly. Regardless of that decision, the evening will be much different than planned, and we’ll just, plain, have to do it again. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said on air that he heard “a really loud blasting away,” and the next thing he knew, he was being pushed to the floor by police. “I was just a few feet away from the gunman, and it was a really scary moment,” Blitzer said.

The annual formal dinner, at the Washington Hilton hotel, is hosted by an organization made up of journalists who cover the White House. Trump’s invitation to the event had been controversial, given his frequent personal attacks on reporters and the news media in general.

The Hilton was also the site of another attack on a president when, on the afternoon of March 30, 1981, gunman John Hinckley shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan while he was leaving the hotel. Reagan recovered after a stay in the hospital. Reagan’s press secretary, James Brady, also was wounded.

Details of the shooter’s motive and plan were not immediately clear, but if the shooter was targeting Trump, it would be the third attempt on his life.

Trump was injured in an assassination attempt during a campaign stop in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. Another suspected assassin was arrested near Trump’s home in Florida on Sept. 15 of that year.

This is a breaking report that will be updated.

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