Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service

What it does

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is issuing a rule to increase career employee accountability. Agency supervisors report great difficulty removing employees for poor performance or misconduct. The final rule authorizes agencies to move policy-influencing positions into Schedule Policy/Career. These positions will remain career jobs filled on a nonpartisan basis. Yet they will be at-will positions excepted from adverse action procedures or appeals. This will allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives. The rule requires agencies to establish internal policies protecting employees from prohibited personnel practices.

The Personnel Management Office's summary, as published in the Federal Register.

What changed in the regulation

9 parts of Title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations:

5 CFR 210, 5 CFR 212, 5 CFR 213, 5 CFR 302, 5 CFR 432, 5 CFR 451, 5 CFR 537, 5 CFR 575, 5 CFR 752

Wording on eCFR: the day before it took effect and from the day it took effect (first part listed).

Compared with

The Personnel Management Office has published 29 final rules in 2026 so far, compared with 14 in all of 2025.

Counted by the Tribune from Federal Register records since Jan. 1, 2025.

Before this

2 earlier Federal Register documents under regulation identifier 3206-AO80 since Jan. 1, 2025.

• May 23, 2025 Proposed rule; extension of comment period. Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service
• April 23, 2025 Proposed rule. Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service

Since then:

• Aug. 25, 2026 Final rule; correcting amendments. Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service, and Recruitment and Relocation Incentive Waivers; Correcting Amendments

What happens next and when

Effective March 9, 2026.

The agency's dates, word for word.

Check it yourself

• The document in the Federal Register
• Docket OPM-2025-0004 on Regulations.gov
• Title 5 on eCFR

The record as published

Source: the Federal Register (public domain). The document in the Federal Register