OPM on CrossGov.com

OMB and OPM Withdraw Shutdown Layoff Guidance Under a Union Settlement Ahead of the December 11 Deadline

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

OMB and OPM have formally withdrawn the 2025 guidance that let federal agencies start layoffs during a government shutdown. Memo M-27-01, dated October 23, 2026, is the notice a union settlement required, with funding set to lapse after December 11.

The memo is short. OMB Director Russell Vought and OPM Director Scott Kupor tell agency heads and chief human capital officers that three documents are rescinded in full and no longer operative: OMB’s September 24, 2025 email on the possible lapse in appropriations starting October 1, 2025, and OPM’s two shutdown documents from the same week, its “Guidance for Shutdown Furloughs” and its “Special Instructions for Agencies Affected by a Possible Lapse in Appropriations Starting on October 1, 2025.” Those documents had told agencies to consider reduction-in-force notices for employees in programs without funding, and treated the work of running layoffs as an excepted activity that could go on while most staff were furloughed.

OPM Final Rule Bars Administrative Leave for Federal Employees Serving as Poll Workers

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Office of Personnel Management has written a ban on paid administrative leave for federal employees who serve as poll workers or poll observers into federal regulation. The final rule was published on October 19, 2026, and takes effect November 18.

That is two weeks after the November 3 midterms. For this election, federal employees who want to staff a polling place work under OPM’s current policy, which already says no. Since July 2025 OPM’s template for agency leave policies has barred administrative leave for poll work, “whether that service is partisan or nonpartisan, paid or unpaid.” Employees can still use annual leave, compensatory time, credit hours, a schedule change or leave without pay. The rule moves that position from guidance into regulation, which takes another rulemaking to undo.

Federal Hiring After the Cuts: Strategic Hiring Committees, a One-for-Four Rule and 8,000 Jobs Moved to Schedule Policy-Career

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In August 2026 the federal government employed 2.674 million people on Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll figures, down 336,000 from 3.010 million in January 2025. GAO counted about 378,000 departures from 22 large agencies in 2025 against about 127,000 hires.

The government is hiring again, slowly, and under rules that look nothing like the old system. OPM’s own data, as of October 10, show job announcements up 7.6% in fiscal 2026 on the year before, with 12,511 positions open.

DOGE Ends as GAO Calls Its $110 Billion Savings Claim Unreliable and the Federal Workforce Shrinks 11%

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Department of Government Efficiency formally ended on July 4, 2026, the date written into the executive order that created it. There was no closing report. OMB Director Russell Vought said there wouldn’t be one. In practice DOGE had stopped existing months earlier. In November 2025, Reuters quoted OPM Director Scott Kupor saying of it, “That doesn’t exist.” Its functions had been folded into OPM.

What DOGE leaves behind is two sets of numbers: the savings it claimed and the people who left government. GAO has now checked both.

New OPM Layoff Rules Put Performance Ahead of Seniority as Schedule Policy-Career Lawsuits Wait for a Ruling

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On September 2 a new Office of Personnel Management rule on reductions in force took effect. When agencies lay off staff, performance ratings now count ahead of tenure and length of service in deciding who stays. Under the old rules, which dated back decades, seniority and veterans’ preference weighed most. Companion rules move layoff appeals from the Merit Systems Protection Board to OPM itself.

The next round of federal layoffs, if there is one, will run under these rules. Four unions have sued over the companion rules in federal court in California.