Preserving Competence in the Civil Service
If one wanted to cripple the leadership and efficiency of the civil service, it would be difficult to design a more efficient way to do it than the creation of Schedule F. Not only would the result of Schedule F have been a routine, mass firing every four to eight years of the upper echelons of the bureaucracy that enables the government to function, but it also would have created an incredible incentive for competent feds who would make excellent leaders to do everything in their power to avoid promotion to the level where their talents could be best used.
The impacts of such a system would have been catastrophic and far-reaching; a full 88 percent of staff positions at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) could have been classified as Schedule F, risking the complete gutting of OMB with every new administration. This led to many former OMB officials – who had served both Republican and Democrat administrations – writing in strong opposition of the Executive Order (EO) that created Schedule F.
For these, and other, reasons, and in the name of avoiding the replacement of key, experienced personnel with political appointees, FMA was strongly opposed to the creation of Schedule F.
Since the EO creating Schedule F was issued in October 2020, FMA has done everything within our power to block this harmful assault on the non-partisan civil service. We are extremely pleased that our efforts have paid off, and the Biden Administration acted swiftly to end this harmful policy. The only way career civil servants can effectively carry out their critical missions is by remaining free of political concerns. The value of having a competence-based civil service devoted only to doing their jobs, ensures that said jobs will be done far more effectively than if they had been forced to conform their statements to transient political concerns or face firing.
The American people benefit from a civil service made up of experienced civil servants devoted to and capable of doing their jobs in a competent manner. President Biden’s decision to end Schedule F will help to preserve this critical workforce. As frequent FMA ally Representative Derek Kilmer (D-WA) said on President Biden’s recent Executive Order on Protecting the Federal Workforce: “Federal workers are public servants – they go to work every day dedicated to serving their country and helping their fellow Americans. They deserve our support.”
President Biden’s EO also rescinded three EOs from May 25, 2018, which made it less difficult to remove unacceptably low performing employees. FMA was concerned by the 2018 EOs, because they were implemented with limited consultation with stakeholders or consideration of how they should be implemented. However, the importance of ensuring that managers have tools available to address employees with unacceptably low performance is unquestionable.
FMA values the insights of federal unions and recognizes that both federal managers and federal union members are fundamentally on the same side -- the side of the American people. A sustainable system acceptable to both management and employees alike is far more durable, viable, and effective than one in which either group feels unprotected or ignored. We urge the Biden Administration and Congress to engage in a deliberate process of consulting with stakeholders, including management and unions, to create a better and universally acceptable system for providing accountability and ensuring that the federal government is serving the American people in the most efficient manner possible.
The views reflected in this column are those of FMA and do not necessarily represent the views of FEDmanager. To learn more about the Federal Managers Association (FMA), visit their website: FedManagers.org.