Originally published All Schedule G employees require White House approval, OPM says on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/hiring-retention/2025/07/all-schedule-g-employees-require-white-house-approval-opm-says/ at Federal News Network
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The Trump administration is detailing how it expects agencies to recruit more political appointees through the new “Schedule G” hiring category, while also reminding agencies that all non-career hires must be approved by the White House.
The Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday outlined how agencies should adopt the federal employment classification President Donald Trump created earlier this month. Generally, the new Schedule G broadens agencies’ options for hiring political appointees, beyond the avenues already available to presidential administrations for picking their own staff members.
In its guidance on Trump’s new hiring authority, OPM said agencies will have to run any Schedule G hires they want make by the White House for review and approval.
“As a matter of practice,” OPM said, agencies will have to send all their political hires to their White House liaison — a position that coordinates with the White House on hiring and retention of political appointees — before agencies can advance any Schedule G appointments.
The requirement of White House approval for political appointees mirrors the Trump administration’s process for Schedule C, the government’s main employment mechanism for recruiting political appointees. Most presidential administrations will appoint about 1,550 Schedule C employees, according to the Partnership for Public Service.
In an April guidance, the Trump administration similarly said all Schedule C appointments should be reviewed and approved by the White House. That guidance also encouraged agencies to exercise more flexibility in setting pay rates and providing pay raises to political appointees.
The Trump administration argued that the existing Schedule C authority left a “long-standing gap” in agencies’ ability to fill roles that focus on “policy-making or policy-advocating” work. OPM’s new guidance pointed out that Schedule C only covers positions that are “confidential or policy-determining.”
“The addition of Schedule G positions now eliminates this gap in the excepted service schedules,” OPM said.
Although Trump’s July 17 executive order described a specific need for more political hiring avenues at the Department of Veterans Affairs, OPM said in its new guidance that all agencies can use the Schedule G authority to make excepted service hires.
“Schedule G brings needed flexibility to the process of appointing non-career policy roles across government, to ensure key policy-determining and policy-advocating positions are staffed in alignment with the administration’s priorities,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said Tuesday. “OPM will work closely with agencies and the White House to implement this authority.”
Agencies who want to hire Schedule G positions will have to use OPM’s Executive and Schedule C System — the same HR application agencies already use for Schedule C appointments.
OPM said it’s still working to update its Guide to Processing Personnel Actions, which will eventually detail the new hiring codes agencies should use to make Schedule G hires.
The creation of Schedule G is the second new federal employment classification that Trump has added for the federal workforce. On his first day in office, Trump also created Schedule Policy/Career — a revival of the previous Schedule F employment category from Trump’s first term. Career federal employees who are moved into that category lose their civil service protections, making it easier for agencies to fire them. As a modest estimate, roughly 50,000 federal employees are expected to be converted to Schedule Policy/Career.
Max Stier, the Partnership for Public Service’s president and CEO, has argued that the new Schedule G hiring authority is redundant. He warned that it will add further confusion to an already complicated political appointment process in the federal government.
“Our nonpartisan civil service is critical to keeping the services we rely on running continuously, even when political administrations change,” Stier said earlier this month. “Adding even more political appointees — who will only be in government for a few years — means that effective, stable service delivery will suffer.”
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Originally published All Schedule G employees require White House approval, OPM says on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/hiring-retention/2025/07/all-schedule-g-employees-require-white-house-approval-opm-says/ at Federal News Network
Originally published Federal News Network
