{"id":417,"date":"2026-07-01T20:19:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=417"},"modified":"2026-07-01T20:19:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:19:42","slug":"opm-finalizes-nixonian-rule-centralizing-and-enabling-some-federal-firings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=417","title":{"rendered":"OPM finalizes \u2018Nixonian\u2019 rule centralizing and enabling some federal firings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Office of Personnel Management this week finalized new regulations granting the agency the power to remove federal workers across government over issues of suitability or misconduct, as the Trump administration launches a new phase in its quest to sidestep decades-old civil service protections.<\/p>\n

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For decades, OPM has had the authority to rule out federal job applicants over conduct that may make them unsuitable for public service. But once someone has been hired\u2014and completed a one-year probationary period\u2014individual agencies have been responsible for addressing misconduct using the same procedures as they employ to remove poor performers, known as Chapter 75 procedures, which include avenues for the impacted employee to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board.<\/p>\n

But last year, President Trump issued a memo instructing OPM to create a system by which the HR agency can remove employees for \u201cpost-appointment\u201d conduct, outside of the strictures of Chapter 75. In a final rule published in the Federal Register <\/em>Tuesday, OPM said going forward, both it and employing agencies may take a suitability action to remove a federal worker for alleged misconduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the clear intent from both Congress and the president\u2014stretching over decades now\u2014that agencies should not rely on Chapter 75 procedures to address post-appointment conduct covered by the factors described in [the suitability regulation], today agencies still largely must rely on Chapter 75 procedures to remove employees who engage in serious misconduct,\u201d OPM wrote. \u201cThis means that, illogically, the government has far greater ability to bar someone from federal employment who has committed a serious crime or misconduct in the past than it does to remove someone who engages in the exact same behavior as a federal employee.\u201d<\/p>\n

While MSPB still has jurisdiction over appeals to suitability determinations, OPM earlier this year proposed additional regulations that would bring those appeals in-house to OPM for adjudication. The suitability regulations are set to take effect July 30; the plan to move of some employee appeals to OPM has yet to be finalized.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s rule also expands the range of conduct that may attract a suitability determination to include: failure to comply with legal obligations, including the \u201ctimely\u201d filing of tax returns; refusal to sign a non-disclosure agreement or a violation of an in-effect NDA; and theft, misuse or \u201cnegligent loss\u201d of government resources or equipment.<\/p>\n

Jenny Mattingly, vice president of policy and stakeholder engagement for the Partnership for Public Service, highlighted how the administration has spread pieces of its campaign to reduce the federal workforce\u2019s civil service protections across an array of regulatory and policy changes. Complementing the addition of NDA provisions to the list of reasons for a suitability determination is OPM\u2019s push to issue a standardized governmentwide NDA for federal workers, which critics have assailed as an attempt to chill whistleblower activity and curb employees\u2019 constitutionally protected speech. And Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee announced last week that the panel would begin investigating tax delinquency among federal workers.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThese new criteria are very broad in some respects, and open to interpretation,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then, when you put the determinations of what those interpretations are into the hands of the political head of an agency, our concern is that it makes it easier to politicize the removal of federal employees . . . It really centralizes everything under OPM in a way that hasn\u2019t been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Meyer, a partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, a law firm specializing in federal employment law, said this regulation, taken in concert with the Trump administration\u2019s other civil service policies, amount to an effort to rebuild President Nixon\u2019s political control of the workforce prior to the enactment of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a pretty aggressive agenda to roll back the Civil Service Reform Act,\u201d he said. \u201c[This] is what this is trying to do: to bring back centralized control . . . This administration is as if Nixon got three terms: all the agenda items from 1969 through 1971 are moving forward. That\u2019s why [Arthur] Schlesinger called it \u2018The Imperial Presidency,\u2019 because of the centralization of power.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Mattingly said that even setting aside her organization\u2019s policy concerns, it remains an open question as to whether OPM can handle all of its new authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point there are multiple appeals processes\u2014not just suitability\u2014that are being pulled into OPM,\u201d she said. \u201cThe question we keep raising is: does OPM even have the capacity or the capability to handle these types of things? It\u2019s unclear whether OPM has the budget, the people or the skillsets to actually manage all of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Under final regulations published this week, the federal government\u2019s dedicated HR agency can remove federal employees from across government over suitability and conduct issues\u2014blocking most avenues for appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-workforce"],"yoast_head":"\nOPM finalizes \u2018Nixonian\u2019 rule centralizing and enabling some federal firings - Market Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marketrelocationreport.com\/?p=417\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"OPM finalizes \u2018Nixonian\u2019 rule centralizing and enabling some federal firings - 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