What is Schedule Policy/Career (formerly Schedule F)?
- Schedule Policy/Career is a federal employment category, or “schedule,” established by the current Trump administration via executive order. The order permits agency leaders to reassign some federal positions from their current employment category into a new category.
- Additionally, in April 2025, the Office of Personnel Management proposed a new rule to regulate Schedule Policy/Career as directed by the January 2025 executive order.
- Schedule Policy/Career will broadly apply to career federal employees in policymaking roles.
- However, the full scope of which positions might be affected is unclear, as the executive order directs agency heads to recommend specific roles to the president that will fall under Schedule Policy/Career. Following the finalization of the new OPM rule, President Trump will sign a new executive order officially moving positions to the new schedule.
- See more under “How do I know if Schedule Policy/Career will apply to me?” below.
- Schedule Policy/Career employees will have fewer employment protections, making them easier to fire.
How do I know if Schedule Policy/Career will apply to me?
- It is unclear how the Schedule Policy/Career guidelines will be implemented because much of the reclassification process is at the president’s discretion.
- The executive order creating Schedule Policy/Career directs agency leaders to identify all employees in competitive service positions or in other schedules already excepted from the competitive service “of a confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating character.”
- The executive order lists certain job duties that agency heads should consider—for example, whether the position involves developing or drafting regulations or guidance. It also directs OPM to issue guidance on additional categories of positions that agencies should consider for the Policy/Career schedule.
- It is up to the agency heads to decide how to apply these considerations and then make a recommendation to the president on which positions to reclassify as Schedule Policy/Career.
How is Schedule Policy/Career different from Schedule F?
- The January 2025 executive order and April 2025 proposed rule clarify that Schedule Policy/Career is directed at career federal employees in competitive and exempted service positions. The executive order also includes some guidance for agency heads to use when determining which roles to recommend for Schedule Policy/Career, and it directs the OPM director to issue further guidance about additional categories of positions agencies should consider for recommendation.
- Additionally, the executive order and proposed rule state that Schedule Policy/Career employees, or applicants for these positions, are not required to personally or politically support the president or the policies of the current administration. The 2020 Schedule F executive order did not make this distinction.
How many federal employees were placed in Schedule F during the first Trump administration?
- The Government Accountability Office found that no agency placed positions in Schedule F before the executive order was revoked in January 2021.
- However, according to GAO, some agencies had begun to consider doing so. For example, OPM approved the Office of Management and Budget’s request to move 136 types of positions into Schedule F. This shift would have involved 415 employees—or 68% of OMB’s workforce.
- The April 2025 proposed rule says “OPM estimates that approximately 50,000 positions would be moved or transferred into Schedule Policy/Career.”
Are there any roadblocks to implementing the Schedule Policy/Career executive order?
- The Biden administration finalized a rule in April 2024 that established procedural requirements for moving positions from the competitive service to the excepted service, or from one excepted service to another.
- The rule mandated that the civil service protections employees accrue cannot be taken away if their position is involuntarily moved. It also gave civil servants who are involuntarily moved and stripped of those accrued protections the right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board.
- In April 2025, the Trump administration proposed a new regulation that rescinds the Biden administration’s rule and formally regulates Schedule Policy/Career. The new Schedule Policy/Career regulation by the Trump administration must go through a rulemaking process which generally takes months to complete.
- The Trump administration has decided to forgo the usual notice and comment process to remove the Biden administration rule which may result in challenges in court. The April 2025 proposed rule states that President Trump has used his executive authority to make the January 2024 amendments to OPM’s regulations invalid.
What job protections would Schedule Policy/Career positions have?
- The executive order requires agencies to follow the principle of veterans’ preference as far as “administratively feasible,” which leaves its implementation unclear.
- Additionally, the Trump administration’s rule proposed in April 2025 states that individuals in Schedule Policy/Career will retain the competitive status they have earned otherwise.
- Individuals moved to Schedule Policy/Career positions would lose certain due process rights, such as notice of removal and the right to appeal if removed from a job.
- The January 2025 executive order also requires agencies to establish rules around prohibited personnel practices. It is unclear what approaches agencies may take in implementing these rules.
If I was hired into a competitive service position, could my role be retroactively moved to Schedule Policy/Career?
- Attempts to retroactively move employees into Schedule Policy/Career are likely to be challenged in court.
- Federal employee unions, as well as other organizations, challenged the 2020 Schedule F executive order, and lawsuits have already been filed to challenge the new 2025 directive.
What can Congress do?
- Congress could pass legislation that creates or prevents the creation of new federal employment categories or modifies federal employee protections.
- Additionally, once it is finalized, Congress can vote to reject the new Schedule Policy/Career OPM rule using a Congressional Review Act resolution.