OPM Finalizes Schedule Policy/Career Rule to Strengthen Accountability
Washington, DC — The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) today announced the final rule establishing Schedule Policy/Career in the excepted service, a key civil service reform aimed at strengthening accountability, improving performance, and reinforcing a merit-based federal workforce.
The final rule implements Executive Order 14171, signed by President Trump on January 20, 2025, which directed OPM to modernize how policy-influencing positions are designated and managed across the federal government to ensure that employees holding these crucially important positions can be held accountable for poor performance or misconduct. Schedule Policy/Career applies to a limited set of policy-influencing positions that are confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating in nature. These roles will remain career positions and continue to be filled through merit-based hiring procedures, including application of veterans’ preference, but will no longer be subject to the removal procedures that have made accountability for poor performance and misconduct exceedingly rare.
“Schedule Policy/Career restores a basic principle of democratic governance: those entrusted with shaping and executing policy must be accountable for results,” Director Scott Kupor said. “This rule preserves merit-based hiring, veterans’ preference, and whistleblower protections while ensuring senior career officials responsible for advancing President Trump’s agenda can be held to the same performance expectations that exist throughout much of the American workforce.”
The final rule explicitly prohibits political patronage, loyalty tests, or political discrimination. The rule also makes clear that Schedule Policy/Career may not be used for workforce reshaping or mass layoffs or to circumvent existing reduction-in-force (RIF) laws and procedures. OPM will actively review agency actions to ensure compliance with both the letter and spirit of federal personnel law.
In the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, Congress expressly excluded policy-influencing positions from statutory adverse-action procedures as an accountability mechanism. The final rule relies on this existing statutory authority while preserving protections against whistleblower retaliation, discrimination, and other prohibited personnel practices. Instead of being enforced by the Office of Special Counsel, the prohibitions against such personal practices will be enforced by the employing agencies. OPM has issued implementation guidance and model agency policies (including a template policy protecting Schedule Policy/Career employees against whistleblower retaliation, political discrimination, and other prohibited personnel practices) to support agencies as they adopt the new framework.
The final rule was published for public inspection in the Federal Register on February 5, 2026, and will take effect 30 days after publication. Following the rule’s effective date, specific positions may be placed in Schedule Policy/Career by presidential executive order. Read Director Kupor’s blog post on the rule here.