Administration Proposes Moving Federal Layoff Appeals Out of Merit Board

The Trump administration on Monday proposed that appeals of reduction-in-force decisions, the layoffs agencies use to cut federal jobs, be decided by the Office of Personnel Management instead of the independent Merit Systems Protection Board, according to Al Jazeera and Government Executive. OPM, which reports to the president, released the plan on Feb. 9.

Government Executive reported that OPM put forward two sets of regulations that would let it, rather than the board, adjudicate certain appeals. One covers suitability determinations, which concern whether a person is fit for federal employment. The other covers reductions in force. SHRM, the human-resources association, described the combined effect the same way: OPM would take over appeals of termination decisions that the board has historically handled.

OPM argues the change will speed up cases and reduce costs. Government Executive and SHRM both report that the agency points to the board’s recent record: it went years without the quorum it needs to issue decisions between 2017 and 2022, and OPM says that during that period 14 of its suitability actions that were appealed took an average of five years and seven months to reach a board decision. The agency calls the board’s process cumbersome, and says its own review would reach answers faster.

Critics see a different problem. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the changes would take independent review away from federal workers and give the administration broad power to terminate employees without meaningful oversight, according to Government Executive and SHRM. The board is separate from the agencies whose decisions it reviews; OPM, by contrast, answers to the president.

The proposal follows a final rule OPM announced on Thursday, Feb. 5. That rule creates a new at-will category covering up to 50,000 high-ranking career employees whose work centers on carrying out the president’s policies, NBC News and Al Jazeera reported. Affected employees would lose the right to appeal firings to the independent board, which career employees have long had. OPM says the positions remain career jobs filled on a nonpartisan basis. The Partnership for Public Service and the American Federation of Government Employees criticized that rule, NBC News reported.

OPM Director Scott Kupor has defended the earlier rule as a way to hold career officials who carry out the president’s agenda to performance expectations, according to NBC News and Al Jazeera. Under the new proposals, workers would still have an avenue to appeal, but to OPM rather than to the board; opponents say an appeal to an agency answerable to the president is not the same as independent review.