New Federal Career Staff Must Be Approved by Agency Leaders

Federal agencies must assemble hiring panels consisting of key political staff to vet potential new employees when the government reopens, the Trump administration ordered in a memo.

A joint memoWednesday from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management outlined how agencies must create committees to approve new hires that include the deputy agency head and the chief of staff to the agency leader, along with mostly other non-career senior officials. The memo acts on an October executive order from President Donald Trump creating new layers of vetting in federal hiring. It looks to “protect and expand upon these historic reductions in the Federal workforce and ensure that the Federal government is optimally staffed to deliver on key administration priorities,” according to the memo.

Agencies will be required to develop an annual staffing plan and provide quarterly updates to the OPM and the OMB.

The changes puts hiring decisions into the hands of senior agency staff and will allow the OPM and the OMB—which have been central to Trump’s overhaul of the federal workforce—to closely monitor who is hired as career staff.