Originally published Trump’s picks for OPM, OMB face federal workforce probes from Senate committee on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2025/04/trumps-picks-for-opm-omb-face-federal-workforce-probes-from-senate-committee/ at Federal News Network
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/AP25093618999876-1024x683.jpg
Two of President Donald Trump’s picks to take the reins in a major overhaul of the federal workforce faced probes from senators during their dual nomination hearing Thursday.
Scott Kupor, Trump’s nominee for director of the Office of Personnel Management, and Eric Ueland, nominee for deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, fielded a range of federal workforce questions from lawmakers on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Senators heard more on Kupor and Ueland’s positions on a number of topics affecting the federal workforce, but none of the officials’ answers indicated they wouldn’t have enough Republican support to make it out of the committee, and likely through the full Senate. HSGAC is expected to vote on Kupor and Ueland’s nominations on April 9.
Probationary terminations, reductions in force
Throughout the two-hour hearing, the mass terminations of probationary federal employees repeatedly returned to center stage. Several Democratic committee members pressed Kupor and Ueland on what their role would be in the Trump administration’s attempts to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
“OMB and OPM have led efforts to indiscriminately fire tens of thousands of probationary employees, including longtime public servants who were recently promoted due to their exemplary performance,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), HSGAC’s ranking member, said during the nomination hearing. “The administration has engaged in mass firings without any analysis of the impact to services and programs communities across our nation rely on.”
Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.), however, criticized the current makeup of the federal workforce and called for a reduction of “federal bureaucracy.”
“Hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats are writing rules, managing programs and often dodging accountability, sheltered by a system that protects performance and mediocrity, and resists reform,” Paul said. “You don’t fix a broken machine by adding more broken parts.”
During the hearing, Kupor avoided answering specific questions on the administration’s recent terminations of probationary employees, instead saying only generally that the federal firing process “requires transparency and communication.”
But the terminations of probationary employees, as well as the early stages of reductions in force (RIFs), have so far have left many federal employees feeling a combination of frustration, confusion and anger. Due to mixed messages from leadership, many have said they no longer trust their agencies, even after some employees have been reinstated. Many feds are still anticipating being swept up in broader agency RIFs, which will occur in the coming weeks and months.
“We need to recognize and respect the humanity of the workforce,” Kupor told the committee. “If we’re going to fire somebody or eliminate a service, and it’s a critical service that needs to be provided, we should make sure that there is a way to deliver those services.”
Dismantling, reducing agencies
During the nomination hearing, Ueland — Trump’s pick for OMB deputy director for management — defended the administration’s recent dismantling of agencies including the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“I do think it’s lawful,” Ueland told the committee. “USAID has been effectively shuttered and certain key roles and responsibilities removed to the Department of State, with the secretary’s insistence that appropriate health and lifesaving programs will continue.”
A federal judge, however, ruled in March that the dismantling of USAID likely violated the Constitution, and blocked DOGE from making further cuts to the agency. But already, USAID has been cut to just a fraction of its prior workforce and programs.
In the nomination hearing, Ueland also outlined his expectations for further workforce and program reductions at the Education Department. The agency laid off nearly half of its workforce in a RIF that began last month.
“There are a variety of statutes [for a] reduction in force that clearly are going to be invoked as part of the process of reducing the footprint of the Department of Education, and finding ways to return authority and responsibility of education programs to states,” Ueland said.
Ueland also indicated that the Federal Emergency Management Agency may be a nearing target from Trump’s list, as the administration pushes forward with digging into the programs at a number of federal agencies.
“There is no doubt that the roles and responsibilities of FEMA — as well as many other organizations, agencies and departments of the federal government — deserve a review, especially given some of the most atrocious, irresponsible and long-lingering do-outs that we’ve seen as examples of FEMA failures here in the past few years under the previous administration,” Ueland said.
The federal hiring process
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) turned the conversation to the front end of the process for federal employees during the hearing. He asked Kupor about his plans for reforming federal hiring, which has been a long-standing pain point for agencies.
“There’s been a lot of conversation about federal workers being removed, but we have just as much of a struggle, quite frankly, on the other side,” Lankford said. “We have made the federal workforce incredibly complicated — to hire, or to remove, or to be able to do oversight through that process.”
Currently, it takes around 100 days on average to recruit a new federal employee. The Trump administration in January set a goal of bringing the government’s time-to-hire down to 80 days. Kupor said he expects OPM under the Trump administration to review all parts of the federal hiring process, from start to finish.
“We do a really poor job of hiring people out of universities, for example — they don’t utilize our interns for full-time employment,” Kupor said. “There are all kinds of things I think we can do, and we should do, both to streamline the process and, quite frankly, to ensure that we get the highest quality applicants through the process very quickly.”
Return-to-office for federal workforce
Kupor fielded multiple questions from lawmakers about federal telework, as well as the recent return-to-office mandate from Trump. Democrats and Republicans have been at odds for years over how telework and remote work should apply to the federal workforce, now post-pandemic.
Though Republicans have by and large criticized teleworking federal employees, Lankford held that telework should still be an option for agencies in certain circumstances — particularly for law enforcement spouses and military spouses.
“There are some jobs that you can do by telework, where you’re answering a phone and answering a question, for instance,” Lankford said during the hearing. “This is a great opportunity for people that are already serving in our military, are serving in law enforcement, for their spouse to also develop a career if they get into that job.”
Although recent OPM guidance has said military spouses should be “categorically” exempt from the recent return-to-office requirements, many military spouses have said they are still being pushed back to work on-site full-time. In some cases, agencies appear to be attempting to find loopholes to the exemptions. Military spouses have said, “it almost feels like they are purposely trying to misinterpret the guidance.”
At the same time, most federal employees have already returned to the office full-time. Once there, some feds are finding shortages of desks, office supplies and parking availability, while also reporting declines in productivity and morale.
When asked about exemptions to the return-to-office mandate, Kupor said allowing military spouses to telework “does make sense,” but he added that, “I think we need to approach those as individual matters.”
Revising federal workforce performance standards
If he’s confirmed, Kupor said he intends to update the performance management system for all federal employees. During the hearing, he repeatedly pointed to a statistic that over 60% of federal employees are ranked above average in their performance reviews, while 0.4% are ranked below average. The data appears to come from a 2016 Government Accountability Office report, which uses data from 2013.
“This simply defies logic,” Kupor said. “I think OPM should do a complete review of that — figure out ways in which we can have a system that rewards innovation, rewards good work, but also one in which, if we have individuals who unfortunately are not able to perform their functions, managers have the ability to remove those people in a timely manner from their organization.”
And when it comes to poor performers, Kupor said, “if you can counsel them and fix them, that’s great. But if they can’t perform, have them go to some other place where they can actually exercise their appropriate skills.”
The Trump administration has already taken steps toward changing the performance review system for certain sections of the federal workforce. In February, OPM published guidance to change performance reviews for the Senior Executive Service. The guidance makes adherence to the President’s policies the “most critical element” of reviews for SES members. It also directs agencies to place a 30% cap on how many SES members can be ranked at higher performance levels.
More recently, OPM applied the same SES performance system guidance to all Senior-Level and Scientific and Professional (SL/ST) employees.
“That’s what President Trump expects out of us — to take a look at the rules of the road for the federal workforce, find ways to innovate, create and ultimately set new norms about high performance and the accountability that comes along with the opportunity and the privilege of federal service,” Ueland said. “We are all at-will employees.”
The push toward making federal employees “at-will” is another central part of the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul the career federal workforce. The administration intends to reclassify broad swaths of federal employees as Schedule Policy/Career — in effect reviving the prior Schedule F classification from Trump’s first term. Any employees reclassified into the new schedule would see their job protections removed, making it easier for agencies to fire them.
The Partnership for Public Service has said there is a need to reform the government’s performance management system, and better deal with poor performers. But the nonpartisan organization recommended a much different approach, involving better management training, and a more streamlined review and appeals system. The Partnership called OPM’s recent changes to the SES performance management system, as well as the Schedule Policy/Career classification, “another step to further politicize the workforce.”
Cuts to collective bargaining
Democratic committee members also questioned Kupor during the nomination hearing on how he plans to engage with federal unions if he enters the OPM leadership role.
“I very much will have an open door, and if anybody wants to come talk to me and provide input and feedback on the process, I’d be very happy to do that,” Kupor told lawmakers.
The questions came after Trump signed an executive order last week, effectively canceling collective bargaining at most agencies for “national security” reasons.
“I’m actually excited about the opportunity the executive order lays out for giving the federal government the ability to align mission with responsibility and ensure … we have the highest qualified workforce assigned appropriately to the mission task and responsibilities of the federal government itself,” Ueland said.
Trump’s order, however, gained strong pushback from multiple federal unions who are suing the administration over the action. The National Treasury Employees Union called the order “absurdly broad.” House lawmakers also introduced a bipartisan bill attempting to reverse the order, and the full Senate Democratic Caucus wrote a letter to Trump, saying the order was a “gross overreach.”
“Does it concern you that the executive order issued by President Trump last week to eliminate collective bargaining rights for one-and-a-half million civil servants might make that engagement more challenging?” Peters asked Kupor during the hearing.
“My understanding of that executive order is that it does recognize the President has the ability to designate certain areas that are associated with national security, where federal labor union employment may be less relevant than in other places,” Kupor replied. “Look, I haven’t had a chance to study it in detail, but I certainly will do so, and I’m sure that OPM will be a part of that process.”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email [email protected] or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman. 11
Copyright
© 2025 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
Originally published Trump’s picks for OPM, OMB face federal workforce probes from Senate committee on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2025/04/trumps-picks-for-opm-omb-face-federal-workforce-probes-from-senate-committee/ at Federal News Network
Originally published Federal News Network
