Pay & Benefits
23,000 federal prison workers are set to take pay cuts up to 25% next month
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons said the decision to severely curtail retention incentive payments across the federal carceral system stems from fixed cost increases associated with operating under a continuing resolution.
Transition
The DOGE risk to fighting waste
COMMENTARY | We all want to get rid of waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in the federal government, but this is not the way to do it, argues one observer.
Oversight
Comptroller general says impoundment violations are a ‘high priority’ for GAO
Gene Dodaro said the Government Accountability Office will move “as quickly and thoroughly as possible” to enforce potential violations of the Impoundment Control Act as the Trump administration seeks to take a cleaver to federal spending.
Updated
Transition
Advisory government transparency committee terminated
The closure is the result of a Trump order targeting advisory panels throughout the federal government.
Workforce
Veterans Affairs axes another 1,400 probationary employees
The agency has now laid off 2,400 employees since Feb. 13.
Transition
Killing the Presidential Management Fellows program threatens the future of federal labor
COMMENTARY | A former fellow urges the Trump administration to reopen the door to this program that attracted talent and leaders to the federal workforce.
Transition
Judge temporarily blocks DOGE access to OPM and the Education Department
The lawsuit, led by the American Federation of Teachers, is one of several seeking to bar federal agencies from sharing sensitive information with the Department of Government Efficiency.
Transition
They worked to prevent death. The Trump administration fired them.
While the White House hasn't provided official figures, swathes of federal employees from across the public health sector, from organ donation to neonatal care, have been let go in the early days of the second Trump administration.
Workforce
Following confusion, OPM says Musk demand that feds report accomplishments is voluntary
Agencies have provided their employees with varying information about whether to respond to the request for federal employees to provide five accomplishments from the previous week.
Workforce
House Dems press administration on telework for military spouses
Although the Trump administration has issued guidance purportedly exempting the spouses of military service members from the president’s return-to-office mandate, lawmakers say some federal workers have heard differently.
Breaking News
Defense
Bloodbath: Joint Chiefs chair, CNO, Air Force vice chief, three top JAGs to be replaced
Trump, Hegseth announce plans to oust several of the military’s top officers amid larger DEI purge.
Breaking News
Defense
Pentagon to fire up to 61,000 workers, starting with 5,400 next week, says DOD
After the first round of firings, the Defense Department will launch a review intended to cut the civilian workforce by 5 to 8%, an official said.
Workforce
Judge, convinced of overseas employees’ safety, denies injunction against USAID
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols’ ruling Friday clears the way for the Trump administration to place the vast majority of USAID’s workforce on administrative leave as it prepares an effort to the shutter the agency.
Defense
Lawmakers to DOGE: Use a scalpel, not a sledgehammer at the Pentagon
Cutting first and asking questions later could hurt national security, House Armed Services committee members say.
Oversight
Musk might have violated federal employee ethics law, lawyers say
Enforcement of the Hatch Act, which restricts the political activity of government workers, has historically been weak against high-ranking officials.
Workforce
Judge denies federal unions’ request to block mass probationary firings
The federal judge said in a preliminary ruling that the National Treasury Employees Union likely must first bring their challenge to the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
Workforce
‘Salting the earth’: Trump ends presidential management fellowships and federal executive boards
The move to kill a key pipeline for aspiring civil servants and regional agency councils reflects a desire to make it impossible to rebuild the federal bureaucracy, experts said.
Workforce
Social Security offers 40 probationary feds reassignments to avert blanket firings
Around 40 Social Security Administration employees were given eight hours—or until 4:30 p.m. Thursday—to decide whether to accept reassignments to a field or hearing office, teleservice center or payment center and avoid being swept up in the Trump administration’s purge of the federal workforce.
Workforce
Trump’s plan to slash the federal workforce isn’t the first, it’s just the worst
COMMENTARY | The triple-meat-cleaver approach to workforce “reform.”
Workforce