For decades, Donald Trump has said the U.S. government should be operated like a business.
Now President Trump is seeking to implement the ‘biggest civil service change,’ in a generation.
USA Today reports:
President Trump will seek to “hire the best and fire the worst” federal government employees under the most ambitious proposal to overhaul the civil service in 40 years, officials said. […]
Trump is using the VA Accountability Act, which gave the Secretary of Veterans Affairs greater authority to fire and discipline workers, as a model. The White House says that law has resulted in the dismissal of 1,470 employees, the suspension of 443, demotions for 83 others last year.
Under the current system, federal employees get a review every one to three years. Employees whose performance is “fully successful” — as 99.7% are — get a within-grade “step” increase in addition to annual cost-of-living increases.
Trump’s plan would stretch out the amount of time it takes to go from step 1 to step 10 from 18 years to 27 years, saving $10 billion over the next decade, officials said. That money would then go to high-performing employees either as merit raises or one-time bonuses.
During his State of the Union address last week, President Trump teased plans for an overhaul, stating, “Tonight, I call on Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”
Rumblings about a shakeup began before President Trump’s address.
Last month, Robert Shea, a former White House Office of Management and Budget official hinted to Bloomberg Law that, “A pretty substantial reorganization”, may occur in the near future.
Another source told the publication that, “OPM may be ready for a big shakeup.”
