On February 6, 2026, the Office of Personnel Management published a final rule, “Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service” (91 FR 5580), effective March 9, 2026. It creates Schedule Policy/Career, the renamed Schedule F: a category of “policy-influencing” career positions that, the rule says, “will be at-will positions excepted from adverse action procedures or appeals.” Trump first ordered Schedule F in October 2020 (Executive Order 13957) and revived it under the new name on January 20, 2025 (Executive Order 14171).
The rule did not move anyone itself. Agencies petition OPM, and the President places positions in the category by executive order. OPM's announcement said that after the effective date, “specific positions may be placed in Schedule Policy/Career by presidential executive order.” In the rule, OPM estimated that “approximately 50,000 positions governmentwide will be placed into Schedule Policy/Career,” about 2 percent of the executive branch workforce excluding the Postal Service, and news reports in February and March repeated that figure.
The order came on June 3, 2026. Executive Order 14410 (91 FR 34893) lists positions in an appendix, places them in Schedule Policy/Career and gave agencies seven days to notify the employees. Government Executive reported that a senior administration official said “just 8,000 jobs are targeted in Wednesday's executive order,” well below the 50,000 estimate, and that around 97% of them are GS-15s or senior-level employees. Government Executive's own lead put the number at “nearly 10,000” and did not reconcile the two figures. Federal News Network reported close to 8,000.
Government Executive reported that employees placed in the category “would no longer be able to challenge adverse personnel actions before the Merit Systems Protection Board,” and that whistleblower complaints from them “would be investigated by their own agency, rather than the Office of Special Counsel.” The Merit Systems Protection Board itself removed its jurisdiction over appeals about placement into excepted positions without civil service protection, also effective March 9. The Congressional Research Service notes that the statute protecting employees from prohibited personnel practices, including whistleblower retaliation, expressly excludes positions of a “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.”
OPM says whistleblower protections remain. The rule requires agencies to adopt internal policies protecting these employees from prohibited personnel practices, enforced by the employing agencies rather than the Office of Special Counsel, and OPM issued a model policy. Commenters on the proposed rule argued that internal policies have no enforcement mechanism outside the agency and leave employees dependent on the administration's good will; the rule answers that OPM will monitor compliance. OPM's stated reason for the change is that agency supervisors “report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduct.” OPM says the rule also bars using Schedule Policy/Career for workforce reshaping or mass layoffs, and Director Scott Kupor said on June 3, “There are zero loyalty tests in this.”
Lawsuits are pending. On March 4, 2026, a coalition led by AFGE, AFSCME, the AFL-CIO, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and Democracy Forward amended its complaint in a federal case in Maryland, before Judge Paula Xinis, that began in January 2025. They argue the policy violates federal statutes, the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act, and that OPM's definition of “policy-influencing” jobs is broader than the way Congress has used the term. The National Treasury Employees Union's separate case in the District of Columbia was stayed pending the rule; on March 17 the court accepted a plan for NTEU to amend within 14 days of an executive order placing positions. After the June order, the Government Accountability Project and the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association amended their complaint in late June to challenge the reclassification of about 8,000 employees. We found no ruling on the merits and no injunction against the rule or the order in the sources reviewed, the most recent of which date from late June 2026.
On March 5, 2026, OMB Deputy Director for Management Eric Ueland said that continuing to reduce the size of the federal workforce remains “priority number one,” after the administration had already shed more than 300,000 employees, according to Government Executive.
Related: Schedule F and the Plan to Purge Civil Service.
Correction (October 26, 2026): This entry previously said the rule took effect “around March 8, 2026,” and that it converted about 50,000 employees into at-will workers who lost their appeal rights and access to the whistleblower process. The Federal Register gives the effective date as March 9, 2026 (some February reports said March 8). The rule moved no positions; the first were moved by Executive Order 14410 on June 3, 2026, covering about 8,000 jobs by the administration's count. Whistleblower complaints from covered employees go to their own agency instead of the Office of Special Counsel, and OPM says protections remain. The earlier description of the March 6 filing is also corrected: the amended complaint was filed March 4. A statement that the administration had admitted it “over-restructured” and needed to rehire workers did not appear in the cited sources and has been removed. The primary documents and reporting on the June order have been added as sources.