Promoting Employee Accountability

What it does

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB or Board) are issuing proposed regulations governing performance-based reduction in grade and removal actions, non-disciplinary separations, and adverse actions, along with the MSPB's review of those actions, and proposing improved and additional training to supervisors. With this rule, OPM seeks to improve the accountability of employees for poor performance and misconduct by streamlining the administrative procedures used by agencies to take performance-based and adverse actions; and MSPB seeks to refocus its penalty review on a totality of the circumstances test rather than a rigid application of prescribed factors. The proposed rule also promotes transparency regarding employee poor performance and misconduct by restricting agencies' ability to engage in settlement agreements that remove official documentation of performance or conduct detrimental to the efficiency of the service.

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

What it would change

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

5 CFR 412, 5 CFR 432, 5 CFR 715, 5 CFR 752, 5 CFR 1201

Before this

No earlier Federal Register document under regulation identifier 3124-AA35, 3206-AO91 since Jan. 1, 2025.

Since then:

• Sept. 3, 2026 Final rule. Determining the Appropriate Penalty for Federal Employees Charged With Misconduct

What happens next and when

Comments must be received on or before August 3, 2026.

The agency's dates, word for word.

Reginfo.gov lists a rule with this regulation identifier as under review at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs since Oct. 26, 2026 (stage: Final Rule). See it

Check it yourself

• The document in the Federal Register
• Docket OPM-2025-0012 on Regulations.gov
• Title 5 on eCFR

The record as published

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