Agencies have a 90-day deadline to review and create lists of federal positions to potentially be converted to the Trump administration’s new “Schedule Policy/Career” federal employee classification, in effect defining who in the career federal workforce will see many of their job protections removed.

In a memo published Monday morning, Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Charles Ezell detailed how agencies should move forward with implementing President Donald Trump’s executive order on “restoring accountability to policy-influencing positions within the federal workforce,” while also announcing the suspension of portions of the Biden administration’s regulations aiming to prevent a return of the Trump administration’s previous Schedule F policy.

Ezell clarified that agencies have until April 20 — or 90 days after Trump signed the executive order — to submit their initial recommendations of the career positions to be converted into the new “Policy/Career” classification.

“Agencies are encouraged to submit recommendations on a rolling basis before this date,” Ezell wrote in the memo.

OPM did not immediately respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment.

The executive order, which Trump signed on his first day in office, revives the initial Schedule F policy from 2020, albeit with a few changes and a different name. In practice, Trump’s executive order aims to reclassify career federal employees in “policy-influencing” positions to remove their civil service protections, making them at-will and easier for agencies to fire.

Trump administration officials have stated that the purpose of reclassifying career federal employees in policy-related roles is a way to give agencies more flexibility, and to be able to remove employees who are not carrying out the president’s agenda.

“Separating employees who cannot or will not meet required performance standards is important, and it is particularly important with regard to employees in confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions,” Ezell wrote in the memo. “High performance by such employees can meaningfully enhance agency operations, while poor performance can significantly hinder them.”

Critics of the Trump administration’s efforts, though, said the executive order is an attempt to politicize the career federal workforce. Many have said it will ultimately harm the non-partisan nature of agencies and threaten national security.

“These moves are designed to weaken the federal government and inflict pain and trauma on those who have values and beliefs different than those of this administration,” Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Executive Director Tim Whitehouse said in a statement Monday.

The number of federal employees the new guidance could impact is uncertain. Some have said tens of thousands of feds could be reclassified, while other estimates put the number of impacted employees in the hundreds of thousands.

Based on the language of the new memo, the Trump administration’s interpretation of “policy-influencing” positions appears to be relatively far-reaching, according to a source familiar with OPM policy and regulations who agreed to speak to Federal News Network on background. The source said the categories identified in the memo can be construed quite broadly — especially considering the memo’s encouragement for agencies to expand the interpretation further. Because of that, it’s likely the ultimate number of reclassified positions would reach the higher end of previous estimates.

The Trump administration’s guidance outlined the types of positions agencies should generally consider for conversion into the “Policy/Career” category of the federal workforce. The guidance points to positions including — but not limited to — employees involved in drafting or creating regulations or guidance, program and project leaders, those working on the agency’s behalf in collective bargaining agreements with federal unions, employees who direct an organizational unit’s work, those in charge of grant applications, and those who work on public policy.

The memo also clarified that the outlined positions and job duties are “guideposts,” and agencies retain some flexibility in their interpretation of the executive order.

“Agencies may include positions in their petitions based on additional characteristics not expressly specified … and OPM may recommend that the president except those positions so long as the agency demonstrates that the position is of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating character,” Ezell wrote. “Conversely, OPM is not required to recommend that the president transfer positions to Schedule Policy/Career simply because they fall within the guideposts … OPM retains discretion to determine which categories and types of positions it will recommend for Schedule Policy/Career, and the president will make the final determination about which positions to transfer.”

In an effort to prevent efforts similar to Schedule F from returning in a future administration, the Biden administration previously finalized regulations in April 2024 to reinforce civil service protections for career federal employees. Part of the Biden administration’s final rule stated that “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating” positions refer only to political positions, and not career federal positions — in effect, securing job protections for the career federal workforce.

The new memo from the Trump administration, however, described parts of the April 2024 final rule as “procedural obstacles,” and changed the interpretation of the rule to say “policy-influencing” roles do cover career federal employees. OPM’s memo pointed to certain portions of the final regulations that were issued under the authority of the president, saying that Trump’s executive order “immediately superseded” those portions of the final regulations.

The Trump administration’s guidance said the Merit Systems Protection Board cannot hear appeals of career federal employees who are reclassified, due to the same interpretations of the regulations. The memo also rescinded the Biden administration’s OPM guidance on its final rule reinforcing civil service protections.

“Despite this declaration, federal employees who are affected by reclassification should consult with a federal employment attorney on their legal rights,” the Alden Law Group, a federal employment law firm, wrote in a blog post Monday.

The new guidance will likely lead to further legal action against the Trump administration. Already, the National Treasury Employees Union filed a Jan. 21 lawsuit against Trump’s executive order on the “Policy/Career” federal employee classification, arguing that converting career federal positions into political roles is unlawful.

The new guidance directs agencies to review positions in their workforce that are categorized as “policy-influencing,” based on the criteria OPM laid out in its memo. From there, OPM is directing agencies to “petition” OPM and subsequently recommend to Trump which positions should become “Schedule Policy/Career.”

After the initial 90-day deadline for agencies to create lists of positions to be converted to “Schedule Policy/Career,” agencies will get another 120 days to finalize their review and submit any remaining petitions, the memo said.

Following agencies’ recommendations for which positions to reclassify, Ezell said there will be another executive order from Trump to then actually transfer employees into the new classification.

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