EO implements Schedule Policy/Career for ~8,000 positions

On 3 June 2026 President Trump signed Executive Order 14410, “Implementing Schedule Policy/Career in the Excepted Service,” reclassifying approximately 8,000 senior policy-influencing federal positions into the Schedule Policy/Career excepted service.¹² The order ships with a 229-page appendix listing position-description numbers at more than 248 organisational units across the executive branch; approximately 97% of the affected positions are at GS-15 or Senior Level pay grades.² Agencies have seven days from the date of the order to notify affected employees.² The order implements the framework established by Executive Order 14171 of 20 January 2025, which itself restored Schedule F — the framework originally created by Executive Order 13957 of 21 October 2020 and revoked under President Biden in January 2021.³⁴ Government Executive reported that the order drew immediate opposition from federal-employee unions and congressional Democrats on the day of signing.⁵

1. Reclassified positions become at-will: chapter 75 adverse-action procedures and Merit Systems Protection Board appeal rights that apply to competitive-service employees no longer apply, and agency heads may remove employees on the grounds the order names — “poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives” — without the procedural steps required of removals in the competitive service.²⁶⁷ Title VII civil- rights protections, prohibited-personnel-practice rules under the Civil Service Reform Act, and the order’s own “without respect to political affiliation” requirement remain in force.²⁸⁹

2. Operative reclassification depends on the OPM Schedule Policy/Career final rule, which OPM issued in February 2026.¹⁰ The June 3 order transfers the named positions under the final rule’s procedure; further reclassifications under the same framework require OPM to amend the appendix through rulemaking subject to the Administrative Procedure Act, not by executive order alone.¹¹¹²

3. Litigation challenging the Schedule Policy/Career framework predates the order. In Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility v. Trump, No. 8:25-cv-00260 (D. Md.), filed 28 January 2025, plaintiffs represented by Democracy Forward moved on 4 March 2026 for leave to file a second amended complaint adding the American Federation of Government Employees, AFSCME and the AFL-CIO as plaintiffs and challenging EO 14171 and the OPM final rule on statutory grounds — including the competitive-service protections at 5 U.S.C. §§ 2102 and 3302 — and on Administrative Procedure Act grounds.¹³¹⁴¹⁵ In National Treasury Employees Union v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-00170 (D.D.C.), filed 20 January 2025 and stayed, the court on 17 March 2026 accepted NTEU’s proposal to file an amended complaint within 14 days of any executive order placing positions in Schedule Policy/Career.¹⁶¹⁴ District-court proceedings in both cases determine whether the reclassification is enjoined while the merits advance.