Federal employees who may soon lose their job protections under the Trump administration may, by extension, also lose access to additional benefits.
Supplemental guidance from the Office of Personnel Management clarified that Schedule Policy/Career positions will, for the most part, no longer be eligible for student loan repayment options, nor will they be able to receive recruitment, retention or relocation incentives.
The forthcoming benefits changes for Schedule Policy/Career employees align with what Schedule C employees and other political appointees already see. For instance, OPM’s guidance on recruitment, retention and relocation incentives states that political appointees, non-career Senior Executive Service members and “those in positions excepted from the competitive service by reason of their confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating natures” are all ineligible for the incentives.
Similarly, OPM guidance on student loan repayments notes that the only employees currently ineligible for the benefit are employees in those same categories of policy-related positions.
Recruitment, retention and relocation incentives are strategies agencies use to address challenges with hiring and retaining employees. Generally, agencies provide the salary-based incentives for jobs that are considered hard to fill. The bonuses are distributed over a certain time period and up to a certain percentage, as long as the employee meets the incentive requirements.
In its guidance on Schedule Policy/Career, OPM said existing agreements on pay incentives may continue for reclassified federal employees “under limited circumstances.” OPM added that Schedule Policy/Career employees may remain eligible for other monetary benefits, such as performance awards, severance pay and “critical position” pay. Other benefits for federal employees, such as retirement and insurance benefits, will remain unchanged for federal employees who are moved into Schedule Policy/Career, OPM stated.
The additional information comes after the Trump administration last week issued a final rule on implementing Schedule Policy/Career. The regulations were one of the last required steps before agencies begin converting career federal employees in “policy-influencing” positions to the new employment classification, in effect removing their civil service protections and make them easier to fire.
In addition to losing access to pay incentives and student loan benefits, Schedule Policy/Career positions will also no longer be eligible for the Presidential Rank Awards, OPM’s supplemental guidance states. The annual awards program honors career members of the Senior Executive Service. The Trump administration canceled the 2025 PRA program, but OPM has indicated it will run the program for 2026.
OPM also stated that the new Schedule Policy/Career regulations, on their own, do not automatically preclude impacted employees from bargaining unit eligibility. But governmentwide, bargaining unit eligibility has declined significantly over the last year.
As of December 2025, 38% of the federal workforce is in a bargaining unit, while more than half of federal employees are now ineligible for union representation. The recent federal workforce data from OPM marks a sharp reversal from earlier in 2025, when about 30% of employees were ineligible, and about 56% were in a bargaining unit. A smaller portion of the federal workforce is technically eligible for a bargaining unit, but not officially in one.
The decline in union representation comes as some agencies have been terminating their collective bargaining agreements in response to a pair of executive orders last year from President Donald Trump.
Schedule Policy/Career will become fully effective in early March, 30 days after OPM’s publication of the final rule. The rule’s implementation will require an executive order to officially convert agencies’ proposed positions to the new schedule.
In the meantime, OPM told agencies to begin preparing over the next few weeks for the final implementation of Schedule Policy/Career. That preparation includes revising internal policies on hiring, discipline and performance management, as well as preparing any “clarification petitions” on bargaining unit status to give to the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
“Agencies should not wait for the president to issue an executive order to begin implementation activities,” OPM wrote.
Once finalized, agencies will be able to suspend, demote or fire any Schedule Policy/Career employee without going through standard adverse action procedures. Positions converted to Schedule Policy/Career will no longer be able to appeal an adverse or performance-based action, nor will they be able to appeal their initial reclassification into the new schedule.
After positions are officially converted into Schedule Policy/Career, agencies will also not be able to move those positions back out of the employment category — unless they go through an OPM review process and get explicit approval from the White House, OPM’s guidance states.
The American Federation of Government Employees, in partnership with other federal unions and employee organizations, is expected to soon file a lawsuit challenging the Schedule Policy/Career final rule. It follows an initial lawsuit against Trump’s day-one executive order calling for the creation of Schedule Policy/Career.
“This rule is a direct assault on a professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service and the government services the American people rely on every day,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. “Turning tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of these professionals into at-will employees doesn’t make government more accountable. It makes it more vulnerable to pressure, retaliation and political interference, which is exactly the opposite of what the public is asking for right now.”
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date: 2026-02-11 02:15:00