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Inspector general fired by Trump talks leadership, OIG independence and his new memoir

Sean Michael Newhouse — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 17:55:51 -0400

Across his decades-long career in government, Larry Turner served in the Army, in senior positions at the Defense Department’s inspector general office and, ultimately, as the IG for the Labor Department. He was fired by the president, along with 16 other federal agency watchdogs, in January 2025.

Since his departure from government, Turner wrote a book recounting his abrupt firing as well as lessons in leadership that he’s learned throughout his life — tracing his path from being an introverted kid to heading a government oversight office.

In an interview with Government Executive, Turner discusses how IG staffers serve as a check on their boss, how he would strengthen the Trump administration’s anti-fraud initiatives and what he’d say to the president in order to change his mind about diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Editor’s note: The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Q. It's clear from reading the book that you really loved being an IG and being in the IG community — so much so that you coined the phrase, "It's a great day to be in the OIG.” So my first question for you is, what do you miss most about being an IG?

A. I actually miss the staff. Going through the military and going through the government and a couple years as a contractor, one of the things that I realized was my strength was leadership. When I say that, that sounds like a nice, corny thing to say. But after working for several different managers over my career, I know the importance of getting the best out of your staff and how you can get the best out of your staff.

When I would hire people or interview people for our jobs, I was really wanting to measure their passion about their work. We were a small OIG. We were about 350 employees. I would bring executives in and I would let them know that “Hey, unlike some places where you may be in this ivory tower, here you got to roll your sleeves up and actually go to work and manage people.”

I want people that are gonna get outside their office and go talk to the staff. That was how it was for me. That's why I love managing staff so much. When I left the government, all of a sudden, I found myself at home every day. I see my wife and talk to a few friends and colleagues on the phone, but I don’t have the daily interaction that I had with staff, which I just loved.

Q. In your book, you talk about the importance of IG independence. While IGs are supposed to be appointed “without regard to political affiliation,” most of the IGs who have been confirmed since the start of Trump's second term worked in the president's first or second administration. Your successor, Anthony D’Esposito, is a former GOP lawmaker who recently spoke at a Trump political rally. Considering all of this, do you feel you will be able to trust the findings of DOL OIG audits and investigations moving forward?

A. I would say with any OIG there's a possible perception that you may favor the administration or the secretary. People may question your findings. Was it independent? Was it nonpartisan? So that's the problem you run into, even if you were not trying to. Some of the criticism I see of some of the newer IGs, including my replacement, is because they, in some cases, have not stayed away from that. One of the things that you learn as an inspector general is that you have got to give the appearance of being independent and not influenced by the administration.

The other part about that is you don't know your staff’s political affiliation. I think our staff are just a slice of the American public, and so they are the ones that help you hold your feet to the fire. If they feel that you are siding with the administration, your employees could write a whistleblower complaint, somebody could go to the media or they could even turn you into the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

(Editor’s note: CIGIE oversees investigations into senior watchdog officials. Last year, the Trump administration prevented the group from receiving funding for about a month-and-a-half, but backtracked following objections from some Senate Republicans.)

That's one of those things where we police ourselves up. That's why I think it's so important to provide that independence. IGs are intentional about that because you make sure that you avoid meetings with the secretary that may have a certain slant in terms of what the administration is doing. IGs try to stay away from that, and the secretaries know that because sometimes they won't invite us to certain meetings, or we will opt out and they understand and agree with that.

Q. Could you provide an example of a meeting that you purposefully skipped while you were an IG at Labor?

A. Once a week there were certain internal-level meetings that the secretary or the deputy secretary would have. When you get a new secretary, a time or two, you may attend those until you realize that this was really based on administrative guidance. So those were meetings where you felt like, “OK, I don't need to be at this meeting.” You would let the secretary or the deputy know that, and they would say, “Oh, not a problem Mr. IG. I understand that, and we don't want to compromise your position.”

Q. You write in your book about growing up in a segregated town, attending a segregated school and being one of the only Black officers at your first assignment in the Army. You write openly about racism you experienced in your personal and professional life. Something that stood out to me was when you had a new colonel, and he would only say good morning to white staff members and not Black ones. You also describe yourself as a supporter of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. In contrast, the Trump administration has sought to remove DEI from the federal government. If you had an opportunity to meet with the president, what would you say to him to try and convince him to change his anti-DEI stance?

A. I would say that if your goal is to hire the best people, then you have to open up the hiring process. If you only look at people that know you or that look like you, then you limit yourself. I am greedy. I want the best people working for me. Why would I want anything else than that?

If I were talking to the president, that's what I would tell him. If you really are serious about hiring the best people, then you have to open up the gates for everybody to apply. And from that application process, it'll give you a chance to look at more people. One of the reasons I pushed DEI was because I understood that there were a lot of qualified people that have been working all their lives to qualify for certain jobs. If you shut that down, then you don't give them a chance to compete.

I would like to be interviewing the top three or four people that are really good. You want your best choices. You don't want to have one person that stands out and two or three that are just really bad. That was the thing that I always impressed upon my managers and senior execs. At the end of the day, I considered success as getting the best employee available.

There were times that I had to have like a teach-and-train moment with my execs because they had a candidate or two that was African American, and they were afraid to hire somebody white because “I'm worried about stepping on the boss’ toes.” But they misunderstood what I was saying that, at the end of the day, it's about hiring the best people.

Sometimes that can mean you may have more white staff members. Sometimes you may have more Asians. Sometimes you may have more African Americans. But when you go through that process, and the top person that rises to the level is whatever race, it just happens that way. But I think it's unfair to anybody, and takes away from your credibility, when you just hire somebody that you know, or some friend, or somebody else’s friend or family member, or something like that.

Q. You were one of the first officials to warn about the prevalence of fraud in pandemic financial assistance programs, and the issue became personal for you when someone stole your identity to file a false unemployment claim. The Trump administration has prioritized combating fraud in federal programs. Given your experience, what suggestions would you give to the Trump administration to improve their anti-fraud initiatives?

A. Let your staff go after the top fraudsters. When you're going and looking for fraud, you want to be able to open up all gates. You can't pick a certain group to look at. If you're seriously interested in fraud, you want to go to those places where you can identify the fraudsters and prosecute them.

The other part about that, and this is why I feel the current administration has missed out a little bit, is that you gotta have the staff and resources to do that. My last two years as the IG, we were in a hiring freeze because we didn't have the budget. Under the Biden administration, they were trying to get us another $100 million. And even under the Trump administration, I was scheduled to testify like a week before I got fired because they were trying to get us additional resources.

I think it starts with resources, and you can't really be serious about fraud if you are continuing to reduce the staff or your auditors or investigators — the people that do the job. It's like you're talking out both sides of your mouth. On one hand, you're saying we want to really go after the fraud. But on the other hand, you're saying we're going to cut your staff by 50%. So which is it? You can't have it both ways.

(Editor’s note: The Partnership for Public Service nonprofit reported that, as of May 31, the average Cabinet OIG workforce is 19% smaller than it was in December 2024. Federal workforce data shows that Labor OIG has gone from 315 employees in 2024 to nearly 250 currently.)

The other part about it is you’ve got to want IGs who are aggressive in going after fraud. I think there's a feeling right now that that is not really the mandate that has been given to IGs and their staff. I think there is a sense right now that some staffers are concerned about their jobs being at risk by going after certain fraudulent groups. I think that's the biggest challenge.

Q. Can you be more specific about staffers feeling that their jobs are at risk if they go after certain groups or individuals?

A. When 17 IGs were illegally fired, including myself, that was a terrible message to send to the IG community. If you were getting rid of IGs that were ineffective or were not doing their job, you could justify that and say, “Hey, this is why we're getting rid of them.” I think that would have went a long way with people accepting that. But when you didn't do that, then it got people saying, “Okay. They did their jobs and they got released.” So now, if you work for the people who were fired, you're concerned about “Am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to lose my job because I'm going after someone that may be in a certain party or may be a part of the current administration? If I go after a friend of somebody's or somebody in a red state, am I going to put myself at risk?”

One of the hardest jobs for all IGs to deal with is that sometimes you will get a request from a congressional member. And that congressional member may want you to investigate the secretary or somebody on their staff. Most IGs, when they get that request, they know that the price of poker just went up because they also know that “If I don't find what that congressional member wants me to find, are they going to hold that against me? If I do find that the secretary did commit a violation, I'm going to have the secretary mad at me.”

At the end of the day, most IGs don't care about that. They just care about getting it right. IGs follow the facts wherever the facts may lead us. We're like referees. We're independent, we're impartial and we don't even get distracted by political affiliation or what a senator or a Congress member wrote. You don't even worry about that. You’re just worried about “We got tasked with going out here and investigating something. Let's make sure we do a thorough job, and make sure we check and double check to make sure that it’s correct.”

Q. While in your book you praise many of your previous supervisors, you also discuss a “toxic” boss you had while at the Defense Department inspector general office. This individual was ultimately fired, in part, for making false claims against you. What advice would you give to a federal employee or any worker who has a boss that is creating a hostile work environment?

A. One thing I always told my staff is one of the keys to being successful is learning how to work under anybody. The first time that you have a boss that's difficult, don't just throw your hands up and say “I'm out of here.” It's almost like a math problem. You try to figure it out, and this route doesn't work. You try several things, and at some point, you may get to where you’ve exhausted all methods and all means. At that point in time, then I would advise someone to start looking outside for a different opportunity.

When you're younger and you're going through a difficult boss, sometimes you get frustrated and you want to let it get personal. What I've always advised my staff is to, first of all, always remain professional and always stay positive. At the end of the day, if it gets negative, a lot of times you're at a disadvantage because you're dealing with somebody that writes your appraisal. You always really just got to stay professional, and I think that's the hardest thing for a lot of junior employees to do because they take it personally.

But at some point in time, you may get to a point where you need to say, “You know what? I've tried all these different methods and ways to make this work. I've met with my boss, tried to find out what I can do to improve or change their opinion of me.” And sometimes you may work for somebody that just don't like you. And when it happens, the best thing I think an employee can do is start looking elsewhere. Some people get so frustrated they quit and walk away before they have something else. I would never advise anybody to do that. I would always say stay the course until you can find something better.

Q. This is my final question. Is there a question I didn't ask you that you wished I had?

A. I decided to write the book because throughout my time in the government, as well as in the Army, my leadership style has been somewhat unconventional. What I mean by that is that work does not have to be drudgery. I actually believe that work can be fun, and one thing I like about the OIG community is that a lot of our folks really love what they do. It's about creating an environment where they can continue being productive, and they want to come to work and their passion comes through.

I've had several managers who were toxic, and so it was for that reason that I wanted to be a leader. Too often, I hear GS-15s and -14s say “I want a non-managerial job.” I've never felt that way. I want a job where I can control something more than having somebody control me. If I'm the IG or the deputy IG, I can ensure that we have a positive environment where people can be productive.

I wrote the book because I'm a people's person. Oftentimes, when I was the IG and deputy IG — and throughout my career, and even now since I've left the government — I'm always giving advice or mentoring or coaching. But what happened was, I'm only giving that advice to a handful of people now as opposed to when I was giving it to a whole agency. I thought one way to share some of that knowledge and the success that I've had in my government career and military career was to write a book and just share some of those things with folks who are trying to learn, who are trying to be more effective as leaders and trying to get into the government.

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TSP funds were back in the black in August

Erich Wagner — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:47:30 -0400

Each portfolio within the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program gained value last month, snapping a two-month streak of lackluster market performance.

The international stocks of the Thrift Savings Plan’s I Fund sported the best performance, gaining 3.32% last month. So far this year, the I Fund has grown 19.18%.

The C Fund, which is made up of large- and mid-size businesses, increased 2.72% in August, good for 13.12% growth since the start of 2026. And the small- and mid-size companies in the S Fund finished August 2.27% in the black, bringing its 2026 gains to 16.10%.

The fixed income (F) fund grew 0.40% last month, reducing its 2027 losses to 0.16%. And the G Fund, which grows at a statutorily mandated rate, gained 0.41% in August. So far this year, the G Fund has grown 3.00%.

Likewise, each of the TSP’s lifecycle (L) funds, which move toward more conservative investments as participants get closer to retirement, gained value in August. The L Income Fund, designed for those already making withdrawals, grew 1.11%; L 2030, 1.75%; L 2035, 2.04%; L 2040, 2.31%; L 2045, 2.31%; L 2050, 2.43%; L 2055, 2.85%: L 2060, 2.86%; L 2065, 2.86%; L 2070, 2.85%; and L 2075, 2.86%.

Since January, the L Income Fund has increased 6.34%; L 2030, 9.78%; L 2035, 11.15%; L 2040, 11.87%; L 2045, 12.50%; L 2050, 13.14%; L 2055, 15.57%; L 2060, 15.57%; L 2065, 15.57%; L 2070, 15.56%; and L 2075, 15.56%.

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Shutdown threat possibly lifted as House passes stopgap spending bill

Jory Heckman — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 14:22:02 -0400

The House approved a stopgap spending bill on Tuesday that will keep the federal government funded through early December, taking a government shutdown off the table ahead of midterm elections this fall.

The House voted 370-48 to pass a continuing resolution that will keep the federal government funded through Dec. 11.

The continuing resolution includes a provision that temporarily blocks the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed rule that would put federal grant funding under review by political appointees. It also includes language that would prevent the Trump administration from transferring funds from other programs to Border Patrol.

The Senate passed the stopgap spending bill in a 90-6 vote in July before leaving for its summer recess.

Federal employees dealt with the longest government shutdown in history last year, followed by the longest partial shutdown, which impacted the Homeland Security Department. Both shutdowns led to federal workers missing paychecks.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Tuesday morning ahead of votes that Congress is “going to avoid the threat” of another government shutdown.

“On this CR we'll take up, it simply holds funding steady at current levels through Dec. 11th, as Republicans work to complete the full year appropriations process,” Johnson said.

The stopgap spending bill gives Congress more time to reach a deal on a comprehensive spending package for fiscal 2027. So far, the House has passed three of 12 spending bills that make up a comprehensive spending plan. The Senate hasn’t passed any of its FY 2027 bills yet.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla. said “the fiscal year deadline is outpacing the work that remains,” and that the continuing resolution will ensure constituents “will continue to get the services they need.”

“This will allow Congress time to get past the November elections, and allow us time to assess and move forward with further appropriations measures in November and December,” Cole said.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. said the CR is a “marked improvement” from an earlier version that would have kept the government funded through Dec. 4 – and did not contain provisions blocking OMB’s proposed rule.

“The continuing resolution we are considering today is in no way a substitute for the full-year funding process. It is merely a means to complete this important work while averting a lapse in government funding,” DeLauro said.

The House passed the previous Dec. 4 CR largely along party lines, with Republicans overwhelmingly voting in favor of the bill. House Democratic leaders rejected the earlier stopgap spending bill, but House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said this latest version would receive “broad bipartisan support."

Vice Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus Ted Liu, D-Calif., said he would vote for the CR, “even though doing CRs is a stupid way to run government.”

“It is not a good way to run our federal government. But it's the only alternative that's gonna be put before us,” Lieu said.

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Nearly 3,150 Labor employees seeking disability accommodations impacted by data leak, internal memo says

Jory Heckman — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:35:19 -0400

Updated at 10:03 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 1

Thousands of Labor Department employees’ sensitive personal and medical information was improperly shared to someone’s personal email account, according to an internal memo about the incident.

The Labor Department recently notified employees about an “internal incident” on July 22, in which an email containing a spreadsheet of personally identifiable information related to employees' reasonable accommodations requests was sent to an “individual's personal email address outside of the DOL domain.”

Following an initial investigation, the department “discovered that more than one email" containing PII or protected health information (PHI) was sent to the same personal email address outside of the DOL domain.

According to the Labor Department, the individual “had authorized access to the information in the performance of their DOL duties,” but did not have the authority to send the information to a personal email address.

According to a “talking points” memo obtained by Government Executive, the department’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management says the data leak discovered this summer impacted nearly 3,150 employees, all of whom submitted a reasonable accommodation request sometime over the past two-and-a-half years.

The talking-points memo states that the spreadsheet contained the personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) of employees who submitted reasonable accommodation requests between October 2023 and June 1, 2026.

The memo states that DOL “sent notification letters to all impacted individuals by mail," and that the department “is reviewing and considering current and new measures that may be necessary to safeguard the information.”

“The Department is extremely concerned about the recent disclosure of personal information maintained on behalf of DOL employees. DOL will continue to engage in remediation activities to recover and destroy all the information involved in this incident,” the department wrote in its talking-points memo.

A Labor Department spokesperson said in a statement that the department "takes this issue very seriously, and is taking every effort to ensure protection for all personally identifiable information and protected health information in the future."

Data impacted by the leak includes employees’ first and last names, duty location, work email address, job title, supervisor name and email address, pay grade and series. The spreadsheet also included information about each employees' disabilities or medical conditions that were the basis of their reasonable accommodation requests.

Naomi Berry-Perez, director of the department’s Civil Rights Center, previously told employees that “no Social Security Numbers (SSNs), dates of birth (DOBs), more specific medical diagnoses" were included in the spreadsheet.

Union officials said they’re frustrated the department waited about a month after discovering the data leak to notify impacted employees. They say the department has also been unable to answer basic questions about the incident – including the position, title and affiliation of the individual who sent the data to their personal email address, or why the information was sent to a non-agency email more than once.

Brent Barron, president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ National Council of Field Labor Locals (NCFLL), said the Labor Department has been “dragging their feet” processing employees’ reasonable accommodation requests, and was slow to notify employees impacted by the data leak.

“We take pride in protecting the American workforce, and our own agency can’t protect its employees,” Barron said.

Labor Department employees recently told Government Executive that the department is facing a backlog of hundreds of RA requests. Several reported waiting months or, in some cases, a year or longer for the department to process their requests.

Faced with a backlog of reasonable accommodation requests, the department is looking to roll out artificial intelligence tools to triage the workload. Experts warned that processing confidential medical records through AI tools could create privacy issues.

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Trump’s 2027 pay freeze has unions warning of recruitment, retention problems

Erich Wagner — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:06:45 -0400

Organizations representing federal employees and their allies in Congress in recent days have decried President Trump’s plan to freeze most federal workers’ pay while directing sizeable raises for federal law enforcement and members of the military.

Last week, Trump issued an alternative pay plan formalizing the call from his fiscal 2027 budget proposal to freeze most federal workers pay at 2026 levels next year. He also announced that he would direct the Office of Personnel Management to authorize a 3.8% increase in basic pay for federal law enforcement officers, to go along with a between 5 and 7% raise for military service members, depending upon their rank.

But unions and professional associations warned denying most feds a raise next year could exacerbate recruitment and retention crises at several agencies. Following the Trump administration’s push to cut down on federal headcounts last year, including through mass firings and encouraging early retirement and buyout programs, the non-postal federal civilian workforce fell below 2 million employees this year for the first time since the 1960s, per June data from the Office of Personnel Management.

“This is a slap in the face to the dedicated civil servants who keep our nation running and will make it harder for federal agencies to recruit and retain essential employees,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “For years, wages for federal employees haven’t kept pace with rising costs for housing, food, utilities and other essentials. Private-sector workers currently earn 27% more on average than federal employees doing the same job. To add insult to injury, the administration is asking for special approval to pay hundreds of employees ‘requiring an extremely high level of expertise’ up to $400,000 a year—equal to the president’s base salary—even as it denies workers a basic cost-of-living raise.”

Kelley referred to recently finalized regulations granting OPM greater authority to OK critical position pay that could allow up to 400 positions to earn more than double the current General Schedule pay cap of $197,200 per year.

William Shackelford, national president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, said that when coupled with inflation and a likely increase to health insurance premiums through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program next year, a pay freeze is effectively a pay cut.

“This ‘more work for less pay’ policy will only drive the most valuable employees out of federal service, costing Americans in degraded services—from care to veterans to law enforcement and support for our military, wasteful spending due to inadequate management of government contracts and grants, less reliable information and more,” he said. “[Pay] decisions do not only affect current employees—they reach into retirement, too. Annuities are based on high-3 average salary, so a freeze affects the value of future retirement pay as well as today’s paychecks.”

And Dave Spero, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union representing Federal Aviation Administration workers who install and maintain air traffic control and other aviation safety equipment, said a pay freeze could jeopardize agency efforts to hire hundreds of new technicians.

“The FAA’s workforce plan to hire an additional 750 technicians just became that much more difficult,” he said. “Aviation safety inspectors and other critical employees will begin to retire and the recruitment of these aviation safety professionals will suffer . . . These employees maintain and oversee the largest, safest and most complex air traffic control system in the world. Dismantling it by destroying the morale of the employees is heartbreaking.”

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., accused the administration of trying to “drive hardworking public servants out” of agencies, and vowed to fight for Congress to override the president’s plan.

“Last week’s announcement that civilian federal workers will not be receiving an annual cost-of-living adjustment for 2027—even while military and law enforcement personnel are given as high as a 7% raise—will only further reduce morale and retention at agencies and make it harder to recruit the best and brightest to serve,” he said. “I’m proud to represent more than 75,000 civilian federal employees in Maryland’s Fifth District, and I will continue to fight this administration’s efforts to denigrate them and deny them the pay and benefits they are due.”

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Federal disability employment program faced widespread compliance problems, whistleblower investigation finds

Sean Michael Newhouse — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 15:40:18 -0400

A federal agency that oversees a program intended to increase job opportunities for employees with disabilities may not be doing enough to ensure that its government contracts are supporting such workers, an investigation prompted by a whistleblower complaint found.

Additionally, the Office of Special Counsel, which protects whistleblowers, in a letter to the president last week criticized the agency’s response to the investigation, arguing that officials have neglected to take appropriate actions.

Through the AbilityOne program, federal agencies contract with nonprofits that employ workers with disabilities. The initiative supports jobs for 41,000 individuals and provided more than $4.7 billion in products and services to the federal government in fiscal 2025, according to its website. For example, all disposable gloves for the Transportation Security Agency come from organizations that participate in the program.

Nonprofits are eligible for AbilityOne if at least 75% of their “total direct labor hours” are performed by workers who are blind or have “significant disabilities.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2025 the employment rate for people with a disability was 22.8% compared with 65.2% for those without a disability.

A compliance specialist at the AbilityOne Commission, however, submitted a complaint to the OSC alleging that more than 50 participating nonprofits in a sample of 120 still received millions in contracts even though they failed to meet a program requirement during their last review.

This prompted an investigation by the AbilityOne inspector general that found:

In fiscal 2022, 87% of participating nonprofits were out of compliance with at least one program requirement.
There were 50 nonprofits that failed every compliance review between fiscal 2013 and 2022.
The agency did not act on a 2017 complaint by employees at Arbor Products, Inc., which alleged that the organization during an onsite visit “had deceived compliance inspectors into believing that blind or disabled employees were performing all direct labor,” until 2022. At that time, the entity became delinquent in paying program fees, lost its nonprofit status and was kicked out of the program.

Based on the investigation, however, AbilityOne reported that the whistleblower’s allegations were not substantiated and that no violations of law, rule or regulation occurred — perplexing OSC officials.

“AbilityOne exists to create real jobs for people who are blind or have significant disabilities. When large numbers of contractors fail basic program rules for years and the compliance system cannot show those failures were fixed, that is not a paperwork problem,” said Special Counsel Charles Baldis in a statement. “The Commission documented serious weaknesses and then declined to substantiate the whistleblower’s allegations to that effect. That conclusion is not reasonable.”

OSC officials noted that AbilityOne is overhauling its compliance practices and procedures, but they also cautioned that the agency does not appear to have made progress on two IG recommendations: to establish a training program for Commission employees on performing compliance reviews with annual refreshers and to improve the method for verifying the continued nonprofit status of program participants beyond annual self-certification.

Officials from the AbilityOne Commission in a press release last week disputed OSC’s characterizations.

“The Commission determined that the issues identified reflected systemic challenges and historical inconsistencies in a large, decentralized program — not intentional disregard of statutory mandates,” they wrote. “Many of the compliance concerns cited by OSC occurred during periods of operational disruption, including the pandemic, during which temporary flexibilities were granted in good faith and in consultation with relevant stakeholders. It is important to emphasize that recognizing areas for improvement does not equate to finding gross mismanagement, gross waste or statutory violations.”

Regarding the IG recommendations, the officials pointed to a congressionally mandated oversight panel that previously reported that AbilityOne’s workforce is appropriately trained but that the underlying issue is there aren’t enough staffers. They also contended that the agency “has historically followed standard federal practice in accepting IRS determinations and [self-certifications] from participating nonprofit agencies.”

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‘Not our decision,’ USPS chief says, as agency faces mail-in voting lawsuits and a looming cash crisis once more

Jory Heckman — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 11:34:00 -0400

The Postal Service is dealing with a familiar pair of challenges: legal scrutiny over its capacity to deliver mail-in ballots ahead of the fast-approaching election season, and a plea to Congress to help the agency avoid running out of cash.

In the lead up to this year’s midterm election, several federal lawsuits are challenging the Trump administration’s executive order imposing new rules on mail-in voting.

USPS is also once again at risk of running out of cash. The agency is calling on Congress to take up a legislative package meant to help put the agency on firmer financial footing – either through annual appropriations or a cost-cutting package that may include shuttering post offices and reducing delivery days.

It’s a déjà vu moment for USPS. In 2020, federal courts scrutinized the nearly insolvent agency’s readiness to deliver an unprecedented volume of mail-in ballots, a process that is now fairly routine. About one in three U.S. voters cast ballots by mail.

Postmaster General David Steiner, in a wide-ranging interview, told Government Executive that regarding these two issues, the legal battle over mail-in ballots and reforms to its struggling finances, USPS stands in the middle of policy decisions largely out of its control.

Steiner said USPS “is not a political organization,” and is prepared to carry out its end of executive order if the courts ultimately rule in favor of the administration, or comply if the courts decide to permanently block the EO’s implementation.

“We deliver the mail. Someone else makes the rules. We deliver the mail, and so we deliver the mail under the rules that are put on us, and that's exactly what we'll do. People can fight over whether the rules are valid or not. Once that fight is finished, we'll do whatever the courts say we can do. That's not our decision,” Steiner said.

The Supreme Court allowed USPS on last Monday to proceed with a final rule on its implementation of the executive order. Last Thursday, a federal judge in Massachusetts granted a temporary restraining order blocking USPS from carrying its final rule. But the ruling has already been appealed, and may soon head back to the Supreme Court.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuits argue the cash-strapped USPS is being directed to implement new restrictions with no time left to vet these changes ahead of Election Day. The Trump administration argues its order isn’t “restricting” mail-in voting, but introduces “modest envelope design requirements" on states that mail ballots to voters.

“You just can't do nothing”

USPS has floated the possibility of Congress providing “modest appropriations” – at least in the short term – to keep the agency from running out of cash. That would bring USPS more in line with its earlier business model, when it functioned as a Cabinet-level agency.

Absent those funds, Steiner said USPS will need to scale back days of delivery, shutter unprofitable post offices, and reduce the size of the USPS workforce – but the agency can’t make these changes without approval from Congress.

“Both issues are the same thing: other people make the policy, we just enforce it. On the EO, we're going to follow the rules that we get given. On the business, we don't get to make the policy decision. Congress gets to make the policy decision,” Steiner said.

Since 1971, the Postal Service has operated more like a business, funded largely through its own revenue. But an accelerating decline in mail volume has left the agency with few options to stay afloat through its own actions.

Steiner said he’s “agnostic” on which choice Congress makes, but said granting short-term funding would allow USPS to keep providing its same level of service to the American public.

“All I'm asking Congress to do is pick one of the policies,” Steiner said. “You just can't do nothing, because if you do nothing, we're out of business.”

Making mail-in ballots 'more safe and secure'

If the courts ultimately allow USPS to proceed with implementation of the executive order, Steiner said the agency has the capacity to make changes in a short period of time.

“It's really not dramatically different than what we've been doing for years,” Steiner said. “Not sure why it creates such a kerfuffle.”

Under the final rule, any state that plans to use mail-in or absentee ballots must provide USPS with a list of participating voters. USPS is also tasked under the executive order with launching a Federal Mail Ballot Portal for states to upload their voter lists.

“We don't compile the list. We don't review the list. We don't do anything with the list other than to make sure that the ballots on that are listed on that list are ballots that get delivered to the customer,” Steiner said.

The final rule also establishes new barcode and envelope-formatting requirements. USPS provided nonbinding guidance to states in previous elections, but now says it will reject ballots that don’t meet its standards.

Outbound ballots, USPS wrote in an FAQ, “will be rejected if during verification prior to acceptance the Postal Service cannot match the unique Intelligent Mail barcode on the envelope with the data in the Federal Ballot Mail Portal."

Steiner said the barcode requirement is very similar to the agency’s longstanding guidance, and “reduces the amount of work for our folks.”

“Honestly, if we could put that into law, we would put it into law, because it makes the mail more efficient,” Steiner said. “It makes it easier for us to deliver ballots, it makes it easier for election officials to trace the ballots. No one can disagree that that is a more efficient way, from our perspective, and from the mailer's perspective, to track and understand the mail.”

As part of a 2021 settlement with the NAACP and Public Citizen, USPS has agreed to deploy “extraordinary measures” for mail-in ballots ahead of subsequent elections. That includes extra deliveries and collections, special pickups, expanded hours at processing plants, Sunday collections and visual checks of various points for ballots. Steiner said these measures will remain in place for the 2026 election, noting that while they are costly for normal mail, the agency has performed them for years and views them as a “non-issue” from a cost perspective.

But postal experts remain wary about USPS’ capacity to roll out new changes just a few months out from Election Day.

Robert Fisher, a former USPS executive, postal consultant and the founder of the Research Alliance for Postal Policy, said USPS has done a “great job” delivering ballots in previous elections, but “to do what’s being asked in the short term, it’d be a disaster.”

“The scope of it, the complexity it adds, having to deal with so many exceptions to longstanding practices, it’s going to be a disaster, in spite of heroic efforts,” Fisher said.

Mike Plunkett, a former USPS manager for pricing strategy and innovation and manager of retail alliances, now president of the Association for Postal Commerce, said the last time USPS was asked to pull carry new, complex work in a short amount of time was working with the Biden administration to mail COVID-19 tests to households at the height of the pandemic.

“This, to me, seems orders of magnitude more difficult technically, because they have to coordinate among 50-plus states and territories. If you compile that list, and then put in place acceptance procedures for thousands of locations that will allow them to do verifications against those lists within less than 10 weeks, that is a tall order,” Plunkett said.

Voters are slated to receive mail-in ballots well ahead of Election Day.

“I have no idea how many disputes this will create, because inevitably there will be disagreements between the postal officials and the election officials,” Plunkett added. “And there’s no existing dispute resolution processes in place that I’m aware of, so they will have to create that on the fly too.”

President Donald Trump has been openly skeptical of mail-in ballots. Politico first reported that Trump, who is registered to vote in Florida, cast his vote in the state’s Republican primary via USPS.

Asked about vote-by-mail skepticism, Steiner said USPS has a solid track record of delivering ballots quickly and on time. In the 2024 election, the agency delivered ballots in 1.4 days on average.

“Yes, it's safe and secure. Can it be more safe and secure? Absolutely. All I can talk to is the part that we are responsible for. I don't know what happens to a ballot once it shows up in your hand. Is something going on there? No idea,” Steiner said. “Our job is to move mail, and when we move ballot mail, we move it safely and securely. Now, that's when it's in our possession, right? What happens to that ballot when it's outside of our possession? No idea. Could there be something going on? No idea.”

“Don't let that change the sense of urgency”

After the midterm elections, USPS will still need help from Congress to avoid running out of cash. There's a chance these negotiations may require support from a Democratic majority in the House or Senate, depending on the outcome of the election.

Steiner said USPS will be submitting a legislative proposal to Congress in “weeks, not months.”

Lawmakers have been critical of USPS leadership in recent public hearings, but Steiner noted that private talks with the Congressional Postal Service Caucus and the appropriations committees have ”been very constructive.”

“It's a problem-solving session, which I thoroughly enjoy,” Steiner said about these closed-door meetings. “Obviously, the hearings are more theater, but the private conversations we've had have been spectacular.”

USPS estimates that its public service obligations cost the agency about $6-9 billion annually to carry out. Given an accelerated decline in mail volume, Steiner has proposed Congress partially fund USPS through annual appropriations, or free up the agency to close post offices and reduce delivery days.

“I don’t think we need that amount of money to be profitable. I think it’s more like $4-6 billion. I think that would be the range that we’d be in,” Steiner said about the agency’s appropriations request.

According to the National Association of Postal Supervisors, USPS is authorized to request up to $460 million from Congress each year as “public service reimbursement.” But the agency hasn’t requested or received any public service reimbursement since 1982.

“All we're asking is let's bring that concept back. If you're going to ask us to do things that lose money, pay us for that,” Steiner said.

Steiner said Congress could put in a provision in the spending package that requires lawmakers to revisit USPS appropriations about every five years, because by then, the agency could be in better shape financially.

Steiner said three things are losing USPS money – its legal obligation to deliver mail and packages to every address six days a week, an inability to set its own prices without approval from its regulator, and keeping all of its post offices open, even though 60-70% of them are unprofitable.

“Take those shackles off of us, we'll be profitable in six months. Not hard. Let us operate like a business. If our mandate is to make money, let us operate like a business. We'll make money in six months. Now you're going to have less days of service. You're going to have less post offices. You're going to have higher prices, so that's one policy choice. The other policy choice is fund the mandates.”

If Congress doesn’t act on a legislative package for USPS this year, Steiner said the mail agency will be forced to consider lowering service standards, raising prices and closing thousands of “unprofitable” post offices.

“If we don't have a legislative solution, which I hope we will – or at least a view to a legislative solution. We don't have to have an actual bill, but I'd like to know which way Congress is going. If we don't know that by, call it first quarter of 2027, we'll start closing post offices. We'll start looking at how we can reduce service levels, and we'll do everything we can on pricing.”

Earlier this year, Steiner told lawmakers that USPS would run out of cash in early 2027, if it kept meeting all of its financial obligations. But the agency now expects to avoid a cash crisis until about 2031 by suspending its contributions to one of its employee retirement plans. USPS also put new restrictions on nonessential spending to avoid running out of cash sooner than expected.

Steiner stressed that USPS is buying itself more time through emergency measures – not paying its contributions to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) – and that Congress should not see this as an opportunity to “kick the can down the road.”

“If we do nothing now, not only are we out of money, our employees' retirement is out of money in 2031,” he said. “We had to do that to keep the doors open, but don't let that change the sense of urgency for you. Don't think that things are rosy. We are borrowing from our employees' retirement. It's what I told Congress, we're not comfortable with that. Our employees aren't comfortable with that. They shouldn't be comfortable with that.”

“I get the frustration”

Congress passed long-awaited reform legislation in April 2022 that saved USPS $107 billion in total costs. USPS warned lawmakers that it was also on the verge of running out of cash at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and received $10 billion in pandemic relief funds.

Congressional Republicans backed the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act after USPS rolled out its 10-year Delivering for America plan, championed by former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

Lawmakers and the agency’s regulator have soured on the plan, arguing that projected USPS cost-savings haven’t justified declines in on-time delivery. In June, two of Trump’s nominees to serve on the USPS Board of Governors told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that was time for the agency to come up with a new long-term plan.

“I get the frustration,” Steiner said. “We got out over our skis. We promised profitability, and you can see we didn't achieve profitability.”

At its core, the plan envisioned getting USPS to “break even” by cutting costs and boosting revenue through a reconfiguration of its postal processing facilities and transportation network. Under DFA, USPS is also running trucks less often between processing plants and post offices to transport mail, under a “Regional Transportation Optimization” (RTO) strategy.

Steiner said “it’s time to step back and take another look at” DFA, acknowledging that for some of its customers, elements of the 10-year plan have become shorthand for unreliable service.

“When they hear DFA, they think, ‘My letter didn't show up, it must be DFA.’ Whenever their letter’s late, they go, ‘RTO.’ They don't even understand what it is, but it's become sort of a catchphrase for all the problems of the Postal Service,” Steiner said. “End-to-end visibility will take the occurrences of that happening, and shrink it dramatically.”

More than a year into the job, Steiner has emphasized the need for USPS to improve on-time delivery metrics. Steiner said some elements of the DFA plan, including its overhaul of postal facilities, will result in greater efficiencies and growth in its shipping and packages business.

“The capital's been spent. It would be foolish to say let's start over,” Steiner said. “We now know how to operate the network, but we will operate it so much more efficiently when we know where every piece is at every point. And right now, we don't. We know where it is at certain points in the network, but we don't know every place, every point.”

“How do we fix it for the American public?”

As the head of USPS, Steiner holds meetings with lots of stakeholders. At times, he’s met with the president. Steiner said he’s met with Trump “a couple of times,” the first being when he interviewed with the board for the job of postmaster general. Trump also met with DeJoy and former Postmaster General Megan Brennan.

“I wouldn't say that we've had deep strategic conversations. I've given him sort of the 50,000-foot view,” Steiner said.

In his initial meeting with the president, Steiner said he also met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

“Howard has been hugely helpful. I don’t have a lot of conversations with the president. I’ve had quite a few with Howard, and Howard's goal is how do we make things faster, better, cheaper for the American public,” he said.

USPS has partnered with the Census Bureau on a small-scale test of the 2030 population count.

“[Lutnick] came to me at the very beginning and said, ‘Can you guys do the Census?’ He said, ‘Look, we're sending people out to get information on the Census, and we're sending them out 10 different times, and people aren't home. You guys go by every house every day. You are the absolute logical people to do this,’ and so we started a couple pilots in that regard,” Steiner said.

As USPS looks for ways to overcome its long-term financial problems, Steiner said he’s looking for more opportunities to collaborate with other agencies.

“I don’t talk to the president, but I talk to the administration, and everybody to a person in the administration has been hugely helpful in trying to figure out how to fix this, and every single one of them goes about it by saying, ‘How do we fix it for the American public?’” he said.

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Why a smaller government isn't automatically better

Gene Lockwood-Shabat — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 07:00:00 -0400

This hurricane season, FEMA, the agency responsible for coordinating the federal disaster response, is operating without a strategic plan. This predicament highlights a broader systemic shift: Washington is shrinking the federal workforce at a pace not seen in decades, even as public confidence in government sits near historic lows.

The 2026 Harvard Youth Poll found just 15% of young Americans trust the federal government, the lowest mark in the poll's history.

The Pew Research Center’s most recent survey found a similar low, 17%, among the general public.

Meanwhile, GAO's workforce data shows the civilian workforce contracted by more than 250,000 employees across 22 major federal agencies between December 2024 and January 2026, an 11% overall decline.

The question for government leaders isn't whether government can become smaller. (It can, and it has.) The question is whether it can become smaller while operating better.

History offers a precedent. The National Performance Review under the Clinton administration pursued a similar drawdown in the 1990s, calling for the elimination of 252,000 federal positions by 1999—a target Congress later increased to 272,900. Over that period, public trust in government also recovered according to Pew’s survey from the low levels of the mid-1990s, rising from the low 20s in 1994 to the 40s in 2000. While broader political and economic factors influenced that rise, including a strong economy and a budget surplus, the approach of the 1990s offers three lessons for government reform today that hold up regardless of politics.

Target work processes, not just headcount

The National Performance Review in the 1990s went beyond standard personnel cuts to focus on structural efficiency. Working with a Republican Congress, the Clinton administration cut red tape and consolidated overlapping functions, concentrating reductions in management and internal review layers rather than front-line service positions.

At the IRS today, reductions are outpacing operational redesign, and the service data shows it. The agency lost approximately 17,000 employees in 2025, or about 17% of its workforce, through deferred resignation and early-retirement programs. In July 2026, GAO reported that reduced staffing contributed to longer wait times, fewer calls answered, and delays in processing paper returns. Notably, IRS customer service representatives answered about two million fewer calls, while average wait times nearly tripled, from three minutes to eight.

At the Department of the Interior, GAO’s review of the Bureau of Indian Affairs found an 11% net workforce decline between January and July 2025, with some regional offices losing close to a third of their staff. GAO reported that agency officials said the reductions had resulted in a loss of experienced leadership and placed additional strain on short-staffed offices, while Tribal leaders reported impaired service delivery and concerns that the agency lacked adequate staff to carry out its responsibilities.

At the Department of Veterans Affairs, GAO reported that the agency cut its contracting staff by about 15% between April and November 2025. VA obligated more than $78 billion in contracts in Fiscal Year 2025 and has remained on GAO’s High-Risk List for acquisition management since 2019, with 23 prior GAO recommendations still open as of January 2026. GAO’s review underscores the importance of strategic workforce planning, employee involvement, and clear mechanisms for monitoring whether reorganizations are achieving their intended results. As of February 2026, VA had not yet developed a full plan to address the workforce challenges affecting its acquisition management.

Three agencies, three different missions, but the same underlying lesson: a smaller workforce requires a deliberate redesign of how the work gets done.

Empower front-line staff to redesign work and implement AI

The 1990s reforms gave federal employees a direct role in identifying outdated rules and inefficient ways of doing their jobs. The same principle should apply today. AI can help eliminate routine administrative work, but agency leaders shouldn't leave decisions about how to use it solely to vendors or headquarters. The employees who process claims, manage grants and answer calls often know best where time and effort are being wasted. They should help identify and redesign those processes before agencies automate them.

VA also offers a working example done well. At a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing in April, VA officials testified that the average time to complete a disability claim had fallen 42%, to 81 days, while its 12-month issue-based accuracy rate reached 94%, the highest in two years. VA attributed the gains to increased productivity and a whole-lifecycle approach to claims processing that included AI and automation. The lesson isn't that technology replaces the workforce. It's that government can use technology to take routine work off employees' plates, improve productivity and let them focus on the decisions that require human judgment.

Evaluate success by public experience metrics

The 1990s reinvention framework measured success against concrete customer-service standards, an approach later reinforced by statutory reporting requirements under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 and the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010. Agency effectiveness should continue to be judged by service delivery outcomes, such as call resolution rates, benefit processing speeds, and permit approval timelines.

Reducing headcount is a fiscal mechanism. Government reform is a management discipline. To ensure workforce contractions lead to better performance, not worse, agency leaders need honest answers to three questions:

Are workflows being streamlined, or are essential staff simply being removed?
Are front-line employees empowered to use tools like AI to redesign daily operations?
Can the agency demonstrate faster, more accurate service through metrics the public can see?

Shrinking the federal workforce doesn't automatically destroy public trust. But downsizing without operational redesign puts service performance at risk. The test of modern public administration is whether a smaller government is also a measurably better one. With the next crisis always on the horizon, we cannot afford to wait to find out.

Gene Lockwood-Shabat is a former senior federal executive with nearly three decades of public service across five federal agencies. From 2022 to 2025 he served as associate deputy assistant secretary for Planning and Performance Management at the Department of Veterans Affairs and VA’s Performance Improvement Officer.

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Here’s what Trump’s new ‘Space Academy’ could mean for the US military

Thomas Novelly — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 06:00:00 -0400

President Donald Trump’s mandate for a new “Space Academy” puts defense leaders under a NASA-led initiative that could mean military service requirements for the future school's graduates.

Trump signed the executive order on Friday at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston during a ceremony where he presented the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the four crew members who are to take the Artemis II spacecraft around the Moon. It appoints a commission, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink and chaired by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, to “strengthen the nation’s space workforce” by planning for a new national academy.

“Given the rapid growth of the U.S. Space Force and commercial space industry, and the expansion of our ambitions to the Moon and far beyond the Moon, it’s clear we will need to educate and train an entire generation of skilled service members, engineers, and civil operators,” Trump said at the ceremony.

The idea of a Space Academy isn’t new, but one defense expert told Defense One it’s unclear how a new institution would further the administration’s military space-related ambitions. The Space Force does not lack for recruits, although its civilian workforce was cut during last year’s federal workforce purge. Currently, the Space Force commissions new officers through the Air Force Academy, ROTC, or Officer Training School. Friday’s executive order instructs the commission to consider imposing military-service requirements on academy graduates.

The order calls for an evaluation of “service obligations for graduates, including service in the armed forces” and explores “prerequisites for applicants, including citizenship status, security clearances, and government employment or military status.”

Air Force officials declined to comment and clarify details of the executive order. White House spokespeople did not immediately respond when asked for details and how a Space Academy would interact with the armed services and officer-commissioning pathways. The commission has 120 days to submit a report to Trump “proposing key details” to establish the Space Academy.

A White House fact sheet said the Space Academy will “combine rigorous technical education with leadership development and public service, preparing graduates for careers supporting America’s military, civil, and broader space enterprise.”

“In the years ahead, we will return NASA astronauts to the lunar surface, build the Moon Base, get underway on nuclear power, ignite the orbital economy and launch more missions of science and discovery,” NASA’s Isaacman said in a news release. “I have no doubt that so much of the future talent that will graduate and contribute to these exciting endeavors will be educated at the United States Space Academy.”

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the conservative think tank’s playbook for the Trump administration, pitched the idea of creating a “Space Force Academy.”

“Explore creation of a Space Force Academy to attract top aero–astro students, engineers, and scientists and develop astronauts,” the playbook read. “The academy could be attached initially to a large existing research university like the California Institute of Technology or MIT, share faculty and funding, and eventually be built separately to be on par with the other service academies.”

Todd Harrision, the American Enterprise Institute’s defense budget and space expert, called the executive order “out of left field” and fears it will further muddy civilian and military roles.

“NASA, the Space Force, and the intel space agencies—they all have very well-defined lanes and responsibilities and areas of expertise,” Harrison said. “Intermingling them like this does not sound like a good idea.”

Harrison also questioned the idea of a government-run “Space Academy” when there’s world-class private and public universities that produce top-notch aerospace and engineering students. The Space Force recruits from such schools under its University Partnership Program.

Trump’s push to bolster space-related careers comes as the Space Force works to rebuild its civilian workforce after the administration’s hasty cuts last year.Officials have been aggressively trying to hire talent to manage a requested $71.3 billion service budget, which would be the largest year-on-year increase, by percentage, for any military service branch since 1952, according to a report from the Aerospace Corporation.

The Space Force hasn’t struggled to hit its uniformed recruiting goals. Service leaders have pitched plans to double the number of its guardians. Harrison said it’s not clear how the Space Academy aligns with those realities.

“It’s not consistent with the other workforce changes the administration has been making,” Harrison said. “It doesn’t appear there is a clear need for this. The other thing too is … they’re going to need authorization and funding from Congress to actually do this. So, what is their plan there?”

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National Archives says agencies’ AI use does not automatically create federal records

Edward Graham — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:15:00 -0400

Recent guidance issued by the National Archives and Records Administration says that the use of artificial intelligence platforms “does not, in and of itself, result in the creation of federal records,” although it notes that AI inputs and outputs may still qualify for recordkeeping if they influence broader agency operations.

In an Aug. 21-dated memo to agencies, NARA says that “whether an AI material is a federal record depends on the circumstances surrounding the creation, maintenance, and use of the materials, such as whether the agency relies on it in decision-making, uses it to conduct official business, circulates the material to others, or incorporates it into an agency system.”

Under the Federal Records Act, agencies are mandated to create, maintain and preserve records documenting, in part, their functions, policies, decisions and procedures. As NARA notes in its memo, recorded information “does not become a federal record merely because it is made or received by a federal agency.”

The new guidance says agencies need to look at how the output from AI tools is used to determine whether or not it qualifies as a federal record. NARA says, for instance, that an employee who uses an AI platform to conduct preliminary research for a work-related white paper but does not use the outputted information in their report or circulate the responses is not likely to be covered by the law, even if there is a record of their searches.

“Agencies may decide to maintain an audit trail of all of its employees’ actions on their laptops and other work devices, including actions performed in an AI system,” the memo says, “Mere retention of the audit trail within the AI system does not establish that the audit trail is a federal record. The audit trail would become a record, however, if, for example, the agency decides to capture it and use it to conduct an investigation.”

NARA also notes that uses of commercial AI programs, such as Gemini and ChatGPT, are likely not considered federal records, although the memo says each agency is responsible for ultimately determining whether AI materials or output fall under the law.

The guidance also calls for agencies to incorporate federal records management requirements into their own internal AI policies moving forward.

“Although there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution for agencies to implement policies, processes, and procedures related to the use of AI, NARA recommends agencies adopt formal AI policies in collaboration with legal, information technology, and other relevant stakeholders,” the memo says.

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Trump formally proposes pay freeze for most federal workers, 3.8% increase for law enforcement

Erich Wagner — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:44:04 -0400

Most federal employees would see their pay frozen at 2026 levels next year under an alternative pay plan issued by President Trump this week, though for the second straight year, federal law enforcement officers would receive a 3.8% increase.

Trump first proposed the pay freeze as part of his fiscal 2027 budget proposal. Though the document was silent on federal employee compensation, officials with the Office of Management and Budget quickly clarified that its omission equated to a planned freeze for 2027.

In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, dated Thursday, Trump said increasing most federal employees’ pay would be “unacceptable and unfair” given the inflation that occurred under the Biden administration. Inflation actually has risen from 2.8% when former President Biden left office to 3.3% as of last month.

“I have therefore decided to set at zero the pay adjustment to be made for the 2027 pay year,” Trump wrote. “This decision will maintain fiscal responsibility without harming the government’s ability to recruit and retain well qualified employees.”

But in the next paragraph, Trump said that for the second straight year, he instructed the Office of Personnel Management to issue a 3.8% increase in basic pay to federal law enforcement personnel next year, “to increase recruitment and retention” in those roles.

The issuance of a pay freeze would mark a departure from last year, however. While Trump proposed a pay freeze as part of his fiscal 2026 budget, ultimately he elected to institute a 1% across-the-board raise for non-law enforcement federal workers last August.

Alternative pay plans have been a routine exercise across Democratic and Republican administrations. Presidents have until the end of August to issue those proposals, else much larger increases to locality pay would automatically take effect, due to the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act.

Congress may override the president’s proposal, typically as part of appropriations legislation. Though the House’s spending bills are silent on federal employee compensation—effectively endorsing Trump’s plan—the Senate has yet to unveil its draft of the spending package that typically serves as the vehicle for pay raises.

In early 2019, the newly Democratically controlled Congress successfully overrode Trump’s plan to freeze federal worker pay that year, ultimately instituting a 1.9% average pay raise retroactive to the beginning of that year.

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OPM memo pushes agencies to speed up hiring with AI

Christian Robles — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:30:10 -0400

After the federal government lost thousands of workers last year, the Office of Personnel Management released guidelines to help agencies safely use artificial intelligence that would speed up lengthy hiring procedures.

“We owe job applicants and taxpayers a faster, better hiring process, and AI is an obvious step,” wrote Adam Starr, OPM’s chief information officer, in a blog post. “It currently takes on average a whopping 87 days to hire in the federal government. Clearly, the current process is not working.”

Agencies should review AI involved in hiring processes and determine whether they are “high-impact” or “presumed high-impact,” according to a memo released on Thursday. High-impact use cases are ones where AI “output serves as a principal basis for decisions or actions with legal, material, binding, or significant effect on” civil rights, privacy, access to critical government programs, critical infrastructure, public safety and more, according to the document sent to agency heads.

For high-impact cases, agencies must either implement “minimum risk management practices” or request that their chief AI officer waive some of those requirements, according to OPM.

If an agency determines a presumed high-impact AI application does not meet the definition of high-impact, it must submit written notification to the CAIO. That documentation should describe controls like human review, sampling and audit logs, and performance monitoring, the memo recommends.

In determining the appropriate response, agencies should start by reviewing whether AI is presumed high-impact or high-impact, the memo explains.

Presumed high-impact cases could include AI tools that draft job descriptions, qualification requirements, evaluation statements, interview questions and other materials, according to the document. But OPM generally does not consider AI used to draft those materials high-impact because they are usually not the “principal basis for a decision or action,” it adds.

The presumed high-impact cases category could also include AI tools that screen resumes, review documents to determine veterans’ eligibility and score candidates, it continues. Agencies should consider whether these AI tools serve as the “principal basis” for hiring decisions and actions and therefore are high-impact, the memo explains. The AI tools typically would not fall in the high-impact category if a human independently reviews a hiring candidate’s record or other safeguards are in place.

Federal agencies have already begun using AI to hire employees. A General Services Administration official has recently said AI helps HR officials and hiring managers quickly develop General Schedule job classifications, according to Government Executive.

In addition to the memo, OPM is looking to bring AI features to USA JOBS, USA Staffing and USA Hire. Those features will include improved search capability, plain language job titles and descriptions, and other tools to help job seekers connect with federal openings, according to Starr.

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DHS watchdog says Noem-era policy hampered probe into FEMA employees skipping homes with Trump signs

Sean Michael Newhouse — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:11:26 -0400

The inspector general for the Homeland Security Department said that the scope of his office’s audit into an incident in which Federal Emergency Management Agency employees passed over the homes of disaster survivors based on politics was limited by a lack of action from department officials, including the secretary.

Auditors determined in a report released last week that FEMA staffers violated policy while responding to Hurricane Milton in 2024 when they skipped over 11 homes in Florida for displaying signs in support of Donald Trump at the direction of their supervisor. The Office of Special Counsel reached a similar conclusion last year after its own investigation, and the disaster agency removed the supervisor shortly after the incident occurred.

The IG asserted, however, that the office was not able to determine if political bias or other prohibited practices impacted other disaster responses because FEMA delayed access to records of employees documenting their interactions with survivors. Auditors in March 2025 requested the data, according to the report, but then in September 2025 the contractor supporting the system underpinning such records shut it down “because then-Secretary [Kristi] Noem did not act on the FEMA request to fund the contract before its lapse.”

During his confirmation hearing, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin testified that he would reverse Noem’s policy that required her to sign off on any department spending that is more than $100,000, which critics argued slowed disaster response efforts.

In March, DHS IG Joseph Cuffari notified lawmakers that department officials denied access to requests for information from his office in 11 cases. Cuffari, who was confirmed during Trump’s first term, was spared from the 2025 mass firings of IGs. A panel of agency IGs and other federal investigative officials in 2024 substantiated allegations that Cuffari abused his authority and engaged in substantial misconduct, mostly in relation to an outside investigation into former employees who submitted whistleblower complaints against him.

FEMA officials told the IG that the agency would need to procure a new sole-source contract with the vendor to restore the data on employee interactions with disaster survivors.

The IG also found that FEMA did not consistently provide training to its employees and supervisors on the Hatch Act, which aims to ensure federal programs are implemented in a nonpartisan manner, and that senior officials were not required to review notes from employees about their interactions with disaster survivors. Auditors pointed out that the 2024 incident could have been uncovered earlier, as workers documented that the presence of Trump signs was the reason they skipped certain homes.

DHS’ watchdog recommended that FEMA determine an “appropriate frequency of ethics and Hatch Act training” for all employees who could be deployed following a disaster and that supervisors perform quality control reviews of survivor interaction surveys. The agency concurred with all of the recommendations.

“We’ve made sure that everyone responsible for this incident has been punished, and we’ll make sure that nothing like this ever happens again,” Mullin said in a statement after the report’s release.

Marni Washington, the fired FEMA supervisor, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that some hurricane survivors threatened employees based on their perceived political affiliation and that her team only avoided homes that had a Trump sign and another indicator of hostility, such as a sign that homeowners would shoot trespassers.

Congressional Democrats have accused the administration of politicizing FEMA, pointing to a March media report that the president had approved 89% of disaster funding requests from states with a Republican governor and two Republican senators compared with 23% for states with Democratic leadership.

Trump had proposed eliminating FEMA, but a White House-backed panel in May instead recommended reducing the size of the agency while giving state and local governments a larger share of responsibilities following emergencies.

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Agencies have a new question to answer about employee misconduct

Bill Pedersen — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:00:00 -0400

Agencies across the executive branch must reassess longstanding practices for addressing employee misconduct following a flurry of regulatory activity by the Office of Personnel Management. OPM’s two recent updates to the federal suitability regulations, little more than a month apart, rewrite the employee misconduct playbook for the over 1.35 million competitive service and career Senior Executive Service members of the federal workforce.

OPM’s first rule, published June 30 and already in effect, introduced a new tool for addressing employee misconduct: suitability actions based on post-appointment conduct under 5 CFR 731. These actions allow agencies to tap into OPM’s resources to remove individuals who have engaged in gross misconduct.

This is a significant change. Instead of relying solely on the agency’s staff and traditional adverse action procedures under Chapter 75 of Title 5, the law governing most serious disciplinary actions against federal employees, OPM can step in to act.

OPM’s second rule, published Aug. 3 and effective Sept. 2, streamlined the appeals process for suitability actions and moved the venue for appeals from the quasi-judicial Merit Systems Protection Board to OPM. The new appeals rule replaces the prior MSPB appeal route with an OPM appeal process.

Together, the rules create an alternative path when an individual poses an unacceptable risk to the integrity or efficiency of the federal service that can:

Reduce the agency’s level of effort required; and
Accelerate timelines for resolving threats to the government’s people, property, information and critical missions.

Figure 1.0 illustrates how OPM’s rules reshape the landscape and why agencies should take a timeout to reassess their employee misconduct playbooks.

Figure 1.0 How employee misconduct is addressed

The suitability path shifts responsibility from the agency to OPM after evidence gathering. This single action drastically reduces the burden on the agency’s HR, employee relations and attorney resources. The streamlined appeals process could also lead to a faster final resolution when someone challenges an action.

OPM’s final rules might provide agencies with a straightforward approach to address a possible rise in employee misconduct cases due to the ongoing government efforts to implement continuous vetting. This is part of a comprehensive overhaul of the federal personnel vetting system called Trusted Workforce 2.0.

Continuous vetting, a core element of Trusted Workforce 2.0, aims to proactively detect potentially problematic behavior among trusted federal employees. Identifying risky conduct earlier than traditional reactionary methods is expected to enhance the government’s ability to mitigate risk before a concern escalates into a serious problem.

Continuous vetting uses automated records checks, traditional investigative activity at certain time intervals or in response to certain life events, and information maintained locally at the agency, like disciplinary or security incidents.

Agencies generally embrace the enhanced ability to identify potential risks delivered by continuous vetting. Its expansion to cover the non-national security populations of the workforce fills a void where vetting processes either previously omitted staff in low-risk positions or saw varied compliance with requirements to check in on the conduct of the public trust population. A Government Accountability Office report on Trusted Workforce 2.0 found that agencies reported improved access to real-time information on personnel, while also identifying challenges with implementation.

The looming question facing agencies, though, is what will they do with all of this new information about employee misconduct once it’s identified?

Being prepared to adopt the new post-appointment suitability path rules could be the best move to handle a possible surge in employee misconduct cases. Agencies interested in this should start rethinking their traditional workflows and familiarize themselves with the updated suitability policies and guidance.

Key considerations include:

Identifying information-sharing protocols between agency mission areas (HR, Information Security, Insider Threat, OIG, etc.) to ensure communication breakdowns do not block effective risk management;
Developing workflows that create clear lanes of responsibility;
Providing position-specific training tailored to HR, employee relations and personnel vetting/security staff on updated suitability regulations to equip them to adopt new processes; and
Creating operating procedures for evidence gathering and submitting suitability referrals that comply with OPM’s suitability regulation and its implementing guidance in OPM’s Suitability and Fitness Processing Manual.

Agencies exploring how to reengineer processes to leverage OPM’s suitability updates can obviously look to recent guidance issued by OPM. OPM’s ability to help agencies might be limited because its suitability office is currently focused on expanding its capacity to handle up to four times more suitability actions each year. At the same time, it is establishing a new suitability appeals function.

Recruiting trusted industry partners with expertise in suitability is one play call agency leaders could use to ready themselves where OPM’s capacity to provide support may be limited.

OPM’s new rulings changed the playing field, and continuous vetting may increase the need to address employee misconduct. Game day is not the time to learn a new playbook. Agencies should use this early implementation window to build the workflows, train their teams and establish the partnerships they will need to put these new authorities into practice.

Bill Pedersen is a Personnel Vetting Enablement & Strategy Lead with Xcelerate Solutions and brings decades of experience in federal personnel security, suitability and vetting reform. As a former Division Director within OPM’s Suitability Executive Agent Program, he led Trusted Workforce 2.0 initiatives, authored key national policies and earned the OPM Director’s Individual Award for Customer Service.

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EEOC votes to propose new rule stripping feds of hearing rights, class action complaints

Erich Wagner — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:27:45 -0400

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted 2-1 Wednesday to propose new regulations that would overhaul how federal workers may pursue workplace discrimination claims, removing employees’ right to request a hearing before an administrative judge and outright banning class action cases outside of federal court.

Currently, federal workers alleging discrimination at their employing agency must undergo up to 90 days of pre-complaint counseling, which includes informing employees about the EEO process and sometimes mediation, after which their agency will conduct an internal investigation. Once that is complete—or after 180 days—the employee may request a hearing before an EEOC administrative judge.

But under a new proposed rule, set for publication Friday in the Federal Register, complainants would no longer go through pre-complaint counseling, instead directly filing their complaints to EEOC within 60 days of the alleged discriminatory incident. And they would no longer be guaranteed a hearing; that decision would instead be made by officials within the EEOC’s Office of the Federal Sector.

Under the plan, complainants would have to affirmatively request a hearing when they appeal a final agency decision, and in some cases submit an explanation justifying its need. Those who do receive a hearing under the new process would no longer have the benefit of discovery, a practice by which parties can request and receive documentation related to the case.

Additionally, while employees with similar allegations of discrimination may elect to have their individual complaints processed “jointly,” EEOC would cease consideration of class action cases. If employees wish to proceed as a class, they would each have to exhaust their individual cases before the agency and then file a class action lawsuit in federal court.

EEOC’s two Republican appointees, Chairwoman Andrea Lucas and Commissioner Brittany Bull Panuccio, said the proposed changes are needed to speed up the resolution of discrimination cases. Between fiscal 2021 and 2025, successful complainants waited an average of more than two years from when they requested a hearing to receive an administrative judge’s decision granting relief.

“As things stand today, EEOC administrative judges spend most of their time and energy on motion practices for cases, sometimes often cases without merit,” Lucas said. “The proliferation of so many clearly meritoriousless complaints indicates the process has become susceptible to abuse. Employees can use lengthy and complex administrative judge proceedings to evade performance accountability and stymie routine performance personnel actions that have no plausible link to unlawful discrimination.”

Lucas argued that though federal employees currently have the expectation that they may request a hearing before an administrative judge, that technically is not a right.

“It’s important to start with the concept of what in fact are the statutory rights provided by Title VII [of the 1964 Civil Rights Act],” she said. “What we’re talking about here is not changing anyone’s statutory rights. We’re talking about an administrative process that EEOC has created, a process that we were entitled to take some steps to do via rulemaking, and that we can also have the authority to change it via rulemaking. Again, it is a creature of regulatory creation that is not working right now for federal employees, and therefore we have the right and the obligation to reform that process.”

But Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, who as the commission’s lone Democrat appointee voted against the regulations, said that while she would not defend the status quo, the new proposal “kneecaps” federal employees who believe they’re victims of discrimination.

By removing complainants’ right to a hearing, agencies, whose internal EEO investigations routinely miss deadlines for submitting a final agency decision, would have no incentive to ensure their investigations are timely and thorough, she said. With reports of severe contractions in the headcounts at EEO, HR and civil rights offices across government, many employees could be left in "limbo," unable to advance their complaint.

“In the past, EEOC has identified impediments to [final agency decisions], including inadequate investigations and heavy caseloads,” Kotagal said. "With no pre-complaint counseling and mandatory FADs, these challenges will balloon under this proposal. Although this [notice of proposed rulemaking] purports to make the process speedier, the reality is that myriad other aspects of it, like insufficient consequences for noncompliance, undermine that objective symptomatically.”

Courtney Mickman, an attorney focusing on federal employment issues and a former EEOC administrative judge, said the proposal for agency staff to vet which complaints receive an administrative judge, estimated in the regulations as taking “one half hour,” is unrealistic.

“30 minutes is a truly unbelievable statement,” she said. “Earlier this afternoon, I had an initial conference in a case, and the report of investigation was 184 pages, and I specifically told the judge in that case that the report was deficient,” she said. “[I’m] not sure how many people can line-by-line go through 184 pages in 30 minutes, but the average report is 500 pages. And in lengthy hostile work environment claims I’ve seen ROIs hit 1,000 or 2,000 pages.”

And Michael Fallings, managing partner at Tully Rinckey, another federal employment law firm, said that the removal of discovery from EEOC’s process would hamstring complainants and administrative judges alike.

“The [agency] investigators are asking boiler plate questions in writing for officials to answer, so that means there are no follow ups, and a lot of times management officials just don’t understand a question and write, ‘I don’t understand,’” he said. “There’s not really a good or consistent process for obtaining relevant documentation either—that’s why discovery is often needed, to seek that additional info. Sometimes what happens is the administrative judge already recognizes and orders for additional documents to be produced by the agency or the complainant, but without discovery that’s not going to occur.”

The move to end consideration of class complaints, which EEOC officials said would not apply to already filed cases, comes after the agency quietly instructed its staff to cease work on those cases, and a week after the commissioners by a 2-1 vote moved to decertify a handful of classes in pending cases. In a statement, the American Federation of Government Employees, which sued the agency last month over the stop-work directive, decried the proposal.

"The changes being proposed by the EEOC will result in discrimination cases taking longer to resolve at greater cost to taxpayers, which is a disservice both to federal employees and the American public,” said Kendrick Roberson, the union's national vice president for women and fair practices. “The Trump administration is assigning the fox to guard the hen house. Under these proposed changes, when federal workers allege that an agency has discriminated against them, they will no longer have the right to have their case reviewed by a neutral judge. Instead, the agency will decide if the agency engaged in discrimination, and that is a crystal-clear conflict of interest and a denial of justice.”

Kotogal sought to at least secure a longer 60-day window for members of the public to submit comments on the proposed rule, but was rebuffed. Comments on EEOC’s proposal will be due Sept. 27.

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NSA wants access to ‘all’ AI models, top official says

David DiMolfetta — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:00:38 -0400

The National Security Agency wants access to artificial intelligence models across the commercial market and is holding extensive discussions with leading developers as it moves to carry out new White House directives on the technology, the agency’s deputy director said Thursday.

“We want access to all the models, and we’re going to take advantage of that,” Tim Kosiba said on a panel at an Intelligence and National Security event in Bethesda, Maryland.

Kosiba said NSA has used AI in various forms for decades, but the rapidly improving capabilities of newer systems are driving a more aggressive effort to obtain and deploy the fast-evolving technology.

“The transformative change that we see today is what these models can actually do,” he said.

The remarks offer one of the clearest public indications that NSA is actively engaging major AI developers as it assumes a central role in the government’s new framework for evaluating advanced models. They also follow months of internal deliberations among officials regarding the role the U.S. intelligence community’s primary signals intelligence and cyber organization should play in advancing U.S. AI competitiveness.

“There are a lot of conversations happening amongst industry, especially the frontier model companies,” Kosiba said. He didn’t identify the companies involved, say which models NSA currently uses or disclose whether any developer has provided the agency with access to an unreleased system.

The term “access” may cover several different arrangements. NSA could use a model through a company-controlled service, deploy a version inside a government environment or receive access for security testing of classified networks.

The conversations are occurring as NSA helps implement a sweeping June executive order directing national security agencies to create classified tests for determining when AI systems have developed sufficiently advanced hacking capabilities to warrant additional scrutiny.

The order calls for a voluntary arrangement through which developers can give the federal government access to qualifying models for as many as 30 days before releasing them to other trusted partners. It explicitly prohibits the creation of a mandatory government licensing or approval process for new AI models.

NSA’s director is responsible for deciding which systems meet the threshold for a “covered frontier model,” in consultation with the Office of the National Cyber Director, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other government offices.

A related national security directive issued in June instructed intelligence and defense agencies to form “deep, proactive partnerships” with industry and make the most advanced models available to national security personnel without delay. It also encouraged the government to avoid becoming dependent on a single company by obtaining technology from a diverse group of suppliers.

Kosiba’s comments didn’t establish that the voluntary pre-release program is fully operational or that companies have begun providing models through it. The White House told major developers earlier this month that open-weight models would not be included in the testing program. Unlike closed systems controlled by companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, open-weight models make their underlying settings available for others to download and modify.

Government access to advanced AI has expanded. OpenAI’s latest GPT-5.6 models became available to federal customers this month through its FedRAMP-authorized enterprise service after their public release in July.

The push for broad access comes as the Defense Department remains locked in a legal and policy dispute with Anthropic over restrictions the company placed on certain military uses of its models. The Pentagon designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk after the company declined to relax some of those safeguards, prompting a lawsuit in which a federal judge temporarily blocked parts of the government’s action.

Parts of NSA temporarily lost access to Anthropic’s Mythos 5 amid an export control dispute between the company and the Trump administration, demonstrating how government access to commercially controlled systems can be affected by policy decisions outside the agency. The administration has subsequently lifted the restrictions that had affected access.

AI-enabled cyber risks have become an increasing flashpoint in recent months after Anthropic unveiled its first version of Mythos, an advanced model it withheld from public release because of concerns that its ability to find and exploit previously unknown software vulnerabilities could be misused.

Since then, Anthropic, OpenAI and other developers have introduced a growing family of models with similar capabilities, forcing policymakers to consider how to test the systems, control access to them and harness their abilities for cyberdefense without giving attackers the same advantage.

As NSA pushes to adopt AI faster, Kosiba said humans will remain responsible for checking that its use complies with surveillance laws and the agency’s internal rules.

“What the models are putting out, how we’re leveraging technology today, will always require that human to double-, triple-check and make sure we are in complete compliance with the law,” he said.

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Want to retire at the end of 2026? Start planning now

Tammy Flanagan — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:00:00 -0400

If you're planning to retire at the end of 2026, it's time to get busy preparing. End-of-year retirements are popular, especially for federal employees who are saving annual leave for a large lump-sum payout in 2027.

The Office of Personnel Management continues to process a historically high volume of retirement claims, and while digital submissions are improving processing efficiency, overall claim inventories are still above target levels. This is why early preparation helps during the transition from employee to annuitant.

Employees can reduce potential delays by confirming service records, reviewing benefit elections, preparing financially for the transition period and submitting retirement paperwork early through their agency's recommended process.

Some recent retirement processing numbers:

In July 2026, OPM processed 14,370 digital claims and 3,471 paper application packages. By comparison, in January 2026, OPM processed 6,465 digital applications and 9,106 paper applications.

The 2025 Deferred Resignation Program contributed to the 2026 surge. Large numbers of employees left federal service under the DRP, creating delays for payroll providers and human resources offices responsible for initial retirement processing.

As of the end of July 2026, OPM still had 24,784 claims awaiting adjudication, above its goal of 13,000 or fewer pending claims. Although the inventory has improved from a high of 65,237 claims in February 2026, processing times remain a key consideration for employees planning a year-end retirement.

Checklist to get ready

1. Build a cash reserve for the transition.

Your final paycheck should arrive within a few weeks of retirement, and your lump-sum annual leave payment usually follows soon after. However, timing can vary.

Interim retirement payments may begin within 6 to 8 weeks, while final adjudication may take several months. In July 2026, digital claims averaged about 98 days from receipt at OPM, while paper claims averaged 156 days.

It is not clear whether those are 22-day work months or 30-day calendar months, but either way, these are only "averages."

2. Confirm that your records and paperwork are complete.

Verify that your federal service is fully documented in your eOPF, including appointment dates, work schedule changes and retirement coverage changes.

Keep copies of key records in your personal personnel file.

Confirm whether any military service credit deposits are complete.

Verify that all service is creditable for retirement eligibility and computation before setting your retirement date.

3. Update beneficiary designations for CSRS or FERS, TSP and FEGLI.

4. Review survivor benefit elections.

If applicable, consider spousal survivor benefit options before submitting your retirement application.

5. Confirm FEHB eligibility.

Remember, you must be "covered" by FEHB (or PSHB) for the five years immediately preceding your retirement date. You also must be retiring with immediate retirement eligibility.

6. Determine whether a former spouse is entitled to benefits.

If applicable, review your divorce decree or court order. Include a copy with your retirement application if benefits are payable to a former spouse.

7. Review life insurance needs.

Consider your FEGLI coverage and review the Continuation of Life Insurance form, SF 2818

Additional information is available from OPM's life insurance resources

8. Give sufficient notice and begin the application early.

OPM advises employees to contact their employing agency about recommended submission timeframes. Agencies generally need at least 60 days to process a retirement application before sending it to OPM, but some agencies may require more time.

9. Final retirement estimate

Do you understand the numbers on this estimate? If not, ask questions to be sure.

This is an "estimate." OPM is responsible for the final numbers. Be sure to receive a final retirement estimate and be sure that you understand and agree with the dates and numbers.

10. Understand the difference between paper and digital applications.

Paper applications: Employees complete the Application for Immediate Retirement, SF 3107 for FERS or SF 2801 for CSRS. HR reviews the application, completes the Certified Summary of Federal Service, which you will need to sign and return, and submits the package through payroll to OPM.

Digital applications: When an employee notifies HR of a retirement date, HR sends an invitation to access the Online Retirement Application system. HR and payroll review and complete their portions before electronically releasing the application to OPM.

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Data from Labor employees seeking disability accommodations impacted by 'internal incident'

Jory Heckman — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 14:01:25 -0400

The Labor Department is informing employees who requested reasonable accommodations for a disability or medical condition that some of their personal health information was improperly shared outside of the department’s network.

In a notice sent last week, Naomi Berry-Perez, director of the department’s Civil Rights Center, told employees seeking reasonable accommodations about an “incident that may have affected the privacy of some of your information.”

According to the notice, shared with Government Executive by impacted individuals, DOL learned in an “internal incident report” on July 22 that a single email containing a spreadsheet of personally identifiable information related to employees' RA requests was sent to “one individual's personal email address outside of the DOL domain.”

“The individual had authorized access to the information in the performance of their DOL duties. However, the individual did not have the authority to send the information to a personal email address,” Berry-Perez wrote.

She told employees that, following an initial investigation, the department ”discovered that more than one email" containing PII or protected health information (PHI) was sent to the same personal email address outside of the DOL domain.

“DOL is currently assessing the scope and impact of these related incidents. DOL is engaging in remediation activities to recover and destroy all the information involved,” Berry-Perez wrote. The department, she added, is also “reviewing and considering current and new measures that may be necessary to safeguard your information.”

It’s not entirely clear how many DOL employees received these notices or are impacted by the incident. Labor Department employees recently told Government Executive that the department is facing a backlog of hundreds of RA requests. Several reported waiting months or, in some cases, a year or longer for the department to process their requests.

“We have been contacted by about 80 people in an hour,” a union official employee said about the notification letters. "Essentially everyone who has applied for an RA.”

The Labor Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“If DOL determines that additional categories of PII/PHI left the DOL domain, verifies additional incidents where your information has been disclosed, or identifies additional recommended steps that may safeguard your information, additional notifications will be provided,” Berry-Perez wrote.

She told employees that the department “has identified all of the information that was involved in the incident,” which includes employees’ first and last names, duty location, work email address, job title, supervisor name and email address, pay grade and series.

The spreadsheet sent to a personal email address also included applicants' PHI, which in this case included “categories of functional limitations that are the basis for the reasonable accommodation request.” Functional limitations listed on the spreadsheet included whether employees had any of the following conditions:

• Dexterity/mobility issues

• Low vision/blindness

• Physical disability

• Deafness/hard of hearing

• Mental health

• Cognitive learning disability

• Chronic health condition

• Pregnancy

“No Social Security Numbers (SSNs), dates of birth (DOBs), more specific medical diagnoses beyond the above-listed functional limitations, medical documents, or additional financial information were included in this spreadsheet,” Berry-Perez wrote.

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Pushed out by the Trump administration, these ex-feds want to make agency firings simpler and fairer

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 05:59:00 -0400

After being pushed out of their jobs last year by the Trump administration, Maureen Klovers and April Mohr Harding co-founded We the Doers, an organization that aims to take the expertise of former civil servants and use it to improve government operations.

Because she had been in a new Senior Executive Service position for less than a year, Klovers was briefly fired as a result of the mass removals of newly hired or promoted agency staffers in their probationary periods. Ultimately, however, she decided to leave government service through the deferred resignation program rather than be reassigned to a new location as part of the Agriculture Department’s reorganization initiative.

Similarly, Harding, who was a senior official at the IRS, participated in DRP after being told that her position was slated to be eliminated as part of workforce reductions.

In the midst of the Trump administration’s overhaul of the procedures for removing agency staffers, which critics contend is chipping away at federal employees’ due process rights, We the Doers on Thursday issued a report on federal firing reform. Klovers and Harding argue that their recommendations would make it easier to terminate an underperforming employee for cause while still preserving civil service job protections.

“[Firing] is one of those very polarizing things — and our approach to this, as with all of our work — is really to bring the lived experience of people who have moved through the actual process into the conversation and to pretty aggressively pursue a common sense set of solutions that is not partisan and that is based on the things that we can all agree on — which is if someone's not in the right job, there should be a way to move them on or move them out,” Harding said. “And if that happens, it should be as quick and painless as possible for all parties involved.”

For its report, We the Doers in the spring convened 10 former or current federal managers who addressed an employee performance or conduct issue as a first- or second-level supervisor. Across a dozen cases that these individuals were directly involved in, it took an average of 19 months between when the manager initiated the removal process and when the employee resigned, retired, transferred to another agency or was fired.

Klovers and Harding also consulted with federal HR officials and a former Democratic and Republican member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates federal employee appeals concerning violations of merit principles. We the Doers is financially supported by the Fund for Constitutional Government nonprofit.

Harding said that their "most high-impact" recommendation is to establish a standard, governmentwide removal process. She argued that the federal firing process seems simple on paper, but that it is complicated by agency-specific policy and possible additional requirements in union collective bargaining agreements.

“This is an example of a much broader issue in the sort of breakdown between theory and practice in workforce management. The process as documented at different levels is pretty straightforward and pretty clear. But then it immediately exponentially grows because there is so much variation,” she said. “That's a big part of why [the removal process] feels opaque and confusing to people. Because you can do it in one place and then do it in another place — or do it in the same place with different people supporting you — and have a different experience. If we don't clean that up, then the rest of the reforms won't be effective.”

Klovers shared, for example, that she had to discipline an employee who wasn’t showing up for work. An HR official told her that before she could issue a written reprimand she needed to engage in informal counseling. (i.e. “Just tell [the employee] you have to show up for work when you're scheduled.”) In contrast, other feds who We the Doers interviewed said their agency mandates an automatic written reprimand when a worker is AWOL.

Klovers and Harding also recommended that lawmakers “consolidate all post-removal appeals and investigative processes for federal employees into a new, strengthened, non-political single adjudicatory body.”

Currently, feds can appeal a removal decision to the MSPB, the Office of Special Counsel (which specializes in whistleblower cases and can act as a prosecutor before the MSPB) as well as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (which has jurisdiction over claims of discrimination in the public and private sectors).

An agency attorney who We the Doers interviewed said that they handled a case that took a decade to resolve because the employee “bounced back and forth” among those three agencies.

“At the end of those 10 years, none of the witnesses were available because they died, moved or other things had happened, and so the agency ended up having to settle with the employee because after 10 years they didn't have a case because they had no witnesses,” Klovers said. “That's an extreme example, but it's an example of why it's such a problem that there are three different bodies an employee can go to.”

The duo acknowledged that a challenge to establishing such an agency is a recent Supreme Court decision that permitted the president to fire without cause members of bipartisan boards, such as the MSPB.

“We think it's critical to get buy-in from both sides of the aisle and to have a fair process to have an adjudicatory body that is truly independent,” Klovers said.

Some of We the Doers’ other recommendations include:

Requiring agencies to track how long it takes to remove employees, or “time to fire.”
Mandating agencies to request agency-funded second medical opinions for most Family and Medical Leave Act or reasonable accommodation requests from employees on an active performance improvement plan. Based on their interviews, Klovers and Harding found that staffers can take advantage of these processes to delay removal or use a denial as grounds for a complaint.
Assessing supervisors’ ability to address “performance and conduct issues in a professional, expeditious manner.” The duo noted that OPM in June similarly required performance plans to include a section regarding how “timely and efficiently” supervisors address “poor and mediocre performance” of employees they oversee.

Since the start of Trump’s second administration, OPM has issued rules to grant itself the ability to fire government employees for post-appointment conduct (which previously only applied to job applicants), take over adjudication of appeals for reduction-in-force decisions from MSPB and overhaul federal worker discipline.

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Lawmakers call for watchdog review of DOT’s passenger privacy practices

Edward Graham — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 18:21:44 -0400

Two Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Government Accountability Office to launch an investigation into the Transportation Department’s airline passenger privacy practices, warning that the agency has failed to safeguard U.S. citizens’ personal data by not moving to regulate the practices of commercial airlines.

In a Wednesday letter to GAO acting Comptroller General Orice Brown, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, noted that “although DOT has had sole authority to safeguard passenger data for over 40 years, DOT has never taken a single enforcement action related to privacy.”

The lawmakers added that DOT’s “abdication of its role as a privacy regulator” has allowed passengers’ data to be “exposed to corporate exploitation, warrantless government surveillance, and warrantless seizure of money and other property.”

In one notable case, 404 Media reported in June 2025 that a data broker owned by several U.S. airlines sold Customs and Border Protection access to travelers’ flight information. The Drug Enforcement Administration similarly profiled train and airline passengers using their data to identify individuals for questioning, with the lawmakers’ letter saying the agency “for years bribed airline employees millions of dollars to covertly siphon off Americans’ private data.”

The missive said “a Congressional Research Service review found no instance of [DOT] taking a public enforcement action or issuing civil penalties regarding consumer privacy violations,” despite the agency having four decades’ worth of authority to police such offenses. DOT has said it receives few complaints regarding consumer privacy violations and that it investigates any concerns as they arise — “a reactive approach to airline privacy,” the lawmakers said in a Wednesday press release.

Similar concerns raised by Wyden during the Biden administration ultimately led to DOT launching an industrywide review of U.S. airliners’ privacy practices, with then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg saying in March 2024 that the move was “the beginning of a new initiative by DOT to ensure airlines are being good stewards of sensitive passenger data.”

Despite Wednesday’s letter noting that Transportation’s review included requests for information from major U.S. airlines about their privacy policies and procedures, the lawmakers said that, “more than two years after this announcement, it remains entirely unclear whether a meaningful review ever took place.”

None of the responses from U.S. airlines were ever made public, and Transportation did not release any subsequent reports or take any actions against airlines for privacy violations. Under the Trump administration, the lawmakers said that “DOT appears to have abandoned this effort” and “has not announced any additional privacy reviews.”

Wyden and Brown’s letter calls for GAO to launch a formal investigation “into the DOT’s systemic abdication of its consumer privacy enforcement mandates,” and similarly requests that the watchdog provide legislative recommendations to address “DOT's inaction and compel the agency to more vigorously protect the privacy rights of travelers.”

The missive outlines several priority areas for GAO to review, including reporting on the status of Transportation’s 2024 industrywide privacy practice evaluation, examining the agency’s coordination with the DEA and assessing the current “complaint-driven oversight model” when it comes to investigating potential consumer privacy violations.

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GSA's $13 billion fraud claim relies on cases predating task force

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0400

The General Services Administration claims it has uncovered more than $13 billion in suspected fraud by federal contractors since launching its anti-fraud task force in March.

The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud is using governmentwide contract data, public reporting, and inspector general enforcement information to uncover the fraud, GSA said in its announcement.

“Let this serve as a warning to any bad actors thinking of stealing from the federal government: we will catch you, we will work with law enforcement to ensure your arrest, and we will do everything in our power to help recover every dollar you stole,” said GSA Administrator Edward C. Forst.

The GSA announcement doesn’t offer examples of the fraud but links off to a Breitbart News article that cites examples the organization says GSA provided it.

But the examples Breitbart cites predate the launch of the fraud task force and at least one case predates the Trump administration.

The alleged fraud of the cases adds up to about $117 million, and the companies paid $29 million to settle the allegations.

GSA did not respond to a request to confirm the Breitbart story or provide information on the number of fraud cases it has referred to the Justice Department.

While not actually uncovered by the fraud task force, the allegations at the three companies cited by Breitbart are egregious.

Sierra Nevada Corp. agreed to pay $7.75 million to settle False Claims Act allegations because it hired a consultant, Michael Henry, while he was still employed by the Defense Department’s Joint Staff/J6.

He formed a business with another, unnamed Sierra Nevada employee, but took that person’s name off the business to hide any connection, according to Henry’s 2025 plea agreement. DOJ indicted Henry in 2024 of “acts affecting a personal financial interest,” the court document states.

Henry helped the company win three contracts with DOD. Breitbart reports that Sierra Nevada allegedly committed $44 million in suspected fraud.

Sierra Nevada’s settlement with the Justice Department was announced last month. DOJ said the company “knowingly made, or knowingly caused to be made, material false statements, material false certifications, and material omissions” involving organizational conflicts of interest.

According to court records, Sierra Nevada didn’t put any OCI mitigation practices in place when it hired Henry.

The agreement with DOJ settles the allegations but is not a finding of civil liability, according to the Justice Department.

The second case Breitbart cited involves two companies and their senior executives. Broadway Electric and Cornerstone Contracting created a scheme to win contracts reserved for service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses as well as other small businesses. Cornerstone is a subsidiary of Broadway Electric.

Broadway and Cornerstone were not qualified to bid on the contracts, as they were not service-disabled small businesses.

The Justice Department said the companies and their senior executives, John Oehler and Christian Blake, would enlist a SDVOSB to be the prime. While Broadway and Cornerstone did the work of preparing bids, securing bonding, and performing most of the work, they would pay the small business a fixed fee of between 1 and 3%, according to the settlement.

Part of the $21.3 million settlement will go to two whistleblowers, who will share $3.7 million.

The companies ran their scheme from 2019 to March 2025. The companies and the executives “admit, acknowledge, and accept responsibility” for their actions, according to DOJ.

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Politicizing government investments hurts all of us

Jason Walsh — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:00:00 -0400

The federal government has a fundamental responsibility to spend tax dollars in the best interest of taxpayers. This should not be a controversial stance.

And yet, the Trump administration is attempting to politicize the allocation of federal funds. Nestled into a massive new rule proposed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is a revision of Section 200.205 in the Uniform Guidance (UG) that would require political appointees to review and approve any awarding of federal funds. The revision would upend longstanding processes for how federal funds are awarded and would impact all federal agencies that award funding. For example, under the current UG, the Labor Department uses a peer review process in award decisions. That process is managed by a career civil service grant officer. A review board awards points based on the funding announcement criteria for awards and the grant officer has final say on award determinations. This ensures that grant decisions are merit-based rather than politically motivated.

The Section 200.205 revision in the proposed rule would still allow most of this process, but in the end, a political appointee would have final say based on subjective criteria, like “anti-American values” or the “president's policy priorities.” Perhaps even more disturbing, the OMB rule attaches new ideological conditions on funds in an effort to ensure they don’t promote diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and it would allow federal agencies to exclude specific types of nonprofit organizations from eligibility before an application is even opened. This effectively removes any fair competitive environment where potential applicants are aware of the rules prior to applying.

This kind of politically motivated funding decision-making can be disastrous. For example, under the second Trump administration’s Agriculture Department policies overseeing wildfire funding require states to yield to the administration on unrelated efforts, including deportation and eliminating DEI programs. Because of that, $15 million in wildfire-prevention grants for an area in Washington state have been long delayed. That area was impacted by wildfires earlier this month and 65,000 residents had to be evacuated. As of Aug. 8, those funds were still on hold. More than 900 homes, businesses and buildings have been destroyed.

The award of congressionally mandated funds should not be tied to any president’s whims. Doing so, by design, deprioritizes the public good.

This has long been well understood and is why, historically and under current guidance, there is a firewall that allows apolitical career staffers to make merit-based award decisions without the participation of political appointees. I experienced this myself as an Obama administration appointee at the Energy Department. I ran an office that regularly made competitive grant awards, but I didn’t touch the selection process, which was conducted by career staff. Even as an administration appointee, I was kept separate from the selection process because the appearance of political favoritism had to be avoided to maintain the integrity of the process.

The bottom line: Taxpayers will not benefit from a system under which grants are awarded based on who curries the most favor with the president. Politicizing the grantmaking process by adding arbitrary requirements to fulfill presidential priorities and enabling political appointees to block projects they deem distasteful will hold back our ability to fund the projects our nation needs to maintain its research, development and deployment edge in a rapidly shifting economy.

We’ve already seen what the Trump administration’s attempts to politicize federal grant funding look like. A federal court ruled that the Trump administration acted unconstitutionally when the Energy Department canceled billions of dollars in grants for clean energy projects that were awarded in states that didn’t vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. This is not speculation. The Trump administration admitted to basing the cancellation decisions solely on whether projects were based in blue states. With these terminations, Trump used the federal government to sacrifice jobs and investment for partisanship. The courts correctly interpreted this as an assault on the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law. Now OMB is attempting to institutionalize this same approach to federal funding.

The harm caused by this proposed rule would stretch far beyond the projects targeted. It could make it less likely that high-quality applicants would compete for federal grants and loans, undermine trust in federal contracts, jeopardize private investment and weaken U.S. competitiveness. If private-sector and nongovernmental leaders cannot trust the impartiality and stability of government decisions and commitments, they may be less likely to include partnerships with the federal government in their business and innovation strategies. This could drive talent, capital and partnerships toward countries with more stable, apolitical funding environments, putting U.S. leadership in energy, science and technology at risk. It weakens the government’s ability to partner with companies to invest in strategic sectors, support vital domestic industries and ensure next-generation technologies scale in the United States, ironically, goals the Trump administration claims to support.

Jason Walsh is executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance. Walsh previously served in the Obama administration, as the director of the Office of Strategic Programs in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and as a senior policy advisor in the White House Domestic Policy Council, where he led the Obama administration’s efforts to align and scale up federal investments in workers and communities impacted by the shift away from coal in the power sector.

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Unions: OPM’s suitability and performance management overhauls assert ‘plenary’ authority over federal firing

Erich Wagner — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 17:24:14 -0400

A coalition of unions that represent roughly half of all civilian federal employees sued the Trump administration Monday, seeking to halt a pair of recent regulatory changes that erode federal workers’ civil service protections and instill unprecedented power in the government’s dedicated HR agency.

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, centers on a pair of regulations finalized by the Office of Personnel Management this year: one requiring agencies to follow a forced distribution when conducting performance appraisals—effectively limiting how many employees receive top ratings—and another granting OPM the ability to fire employees across government for post-appointment conduct via suitability decisions, which previously only applied to job applicants, not incumbent employees.

The unions argued that the regulations at various points conflict with the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, as well as violate the Administrative Procedure Act’s requirements that regulations be sufficiently reasoned and consider the reliance interests of stakeholders.

And they said the suitability rule, when considered in conjunction with separate regulations taking review of those and other personnel actions away from the Merit Systems Protection Board, effectively bypasses Congress’ intended bifurcation of the old Civil Service Commission into two agencies.

“Because an employee can only appeal a suitability action with OPM itself, the same agency (OPM): (1) establishes the use of suitability actions for removing employees, (2) takes such actions against employees, and (3) purports to determine whether its own actions were proper,” the lawsuit states. “In short, OPM has granted itself plenary and, in its view, unreviewable authority to fire employees across the government. It is hard to imagine a scheme that is more contrary to Congress’ design.”

In addition to the removal of appeals rights for feds fired under a suitability action, the labor groups called out the lack of transparency in who would effectuate those removals.

“There are no requirements or standards for determining who at OPM is authorized to make decisions regarding suitability actions, nor is that information public,” they wrote. “OPM’s website currently claims: “OPM’s Suitability Executive Agent Programs serves as the federal government’s suitability and fitness authority.’ OPM provides no further information regarding who comprises ‘SuitEA’ (which is not a subcomponent created or regulated by statute or regulation.”

The adoption of a “forced curve” on agency workforces through the new performance management process violates the Civil Service Reform Act’s requirement that performance appraisals must be based on objective criteria—ranking employees in relation to one another is inherently a subjective metric, the unions said.

“A small team with only high performers will need to rank some as less high performers,” the unions wrote. “Further, if two employees have the same objective performance rating and the new ‘distribution’ requires that they receive different summary levels, this is an invitation for favoritism based on subjective and impermissible factors. OPM has not shown that more dispersed evaluations are also more accurate and objective or that the use of objective criteria is no longer feasible.”

In a joint statement, union officials warned that these changes—if allowed to proceed—ultimately will erode agencies’ ability to serve the public.

“Congress built the civil service on a simple principle—that public servants are hired, judged and fired on merit, not on politics,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “OPM does not have the authority to write those protections out of the law, and no statute gives it the sweeping power it has claimed here.”

“These rules proposed by the Trump Administration are yet another illegal continuation of their attacks on federal workers and the apolitical civil service, as they seek to eliminate long-held worker due process rights while implementing a ‘fox guarding the henhouse’ employee appeal process,” said International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers President Matt Biggs. “These actions are un-American.”

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GSA says it’s uncovered ‘record-setting’ $13B in suspected procurement fraud

Christian Robles — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 17:08:55 -0400

The General Services Administration announced that it has found $13 billion in suspected procurement fraud since March 2026 in what is the largest suspected fraud bust in the agency’s history, according to a Tuesday press release.

In collaboration with the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, GSA uncovered the suspected fraud by using contracting data, public reporting and inspector general enforcement information, the agency said.

“Anyone who lies their way into receiving taxpayer dollars is putting their business, their reputation, and their freedom at risk. GSA is fully committed to working with Vice President [JD] Vance’s task force to root out fraud and protect the integrity of federal procurement,” said GSA Administrator Edward Forst in the release.

GSA said it will refer suspected fraudsters to the Office of the Inspector General or Department of Justice for investigation.

GSA is also conducting a review of COVID-19 spending, the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program spending, contractor eligibility, bid rigging, cybersecurity false claims, bribery and other contractor-integrity risks.

GSA’s $13 billion estimate appears to have been added to fraud.gov, the White House’s official tabulation for suspect fraud, on Tuesday, a Nextgov/FCW comparison of current numbers on the website and previous tallies recorded via the Wayback Machine.

According to Fraud.gov, GSA has prevented $202.2 million in fraud through administrative actions and recovered $29.5 million in fraud through enforcement actions since January 2025.

Spokespeople for GSA and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on the fraud.gov listing by the time of publication.

“As we saw with the efforts from DOGE, this is a trust but verify situation. ‘Suspected’ procurement fraud is a lot different than adjudicating the incidents and seeing the results of the investigations,” Tim Brennan, president of the Center for Procurement Advocacy, told Nextgov/FCW.

“If this number is real, then we need to do more to reinforce the acquisition workforce with attracting additional qualified personnel and providing better training across the government. Contracting officers have incredible workloads and with the early retirements and reductions in force, they will have a harder time preventing fraud in the future. Hopefully this results in positive changes that protect the government from fraud going forward,” he added.

GSA did not offer examples of suspected procurement fraud in its release but examples included in a Breitbart exclusive predate the launch of the White House fraud task force, according to Washington Technology. At least one case predates the Trump administration.

The agency did not respond to the outlet’s request to confirm the Breitbart story or provide information on fraud cases referred to the Justice Department.

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