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OPM finalizes rules expanding its power over RIFs, employee appeals
Taken together, four regulations set for publication Monday would shift adjudication of several types of adverse action appeals from the Merit Systems Protection Board to the Office of Personnel Management.
Erich Wagner
July 31, 2026 05:22 PM ET
RIFs
OPM
MSPB
Erich Wagner
The Office of Personnel Management moved Friday to finalize regulations that collectively seize jurisdiction over thousands of employee appeals, as the federal government’s dedicated HR agency moves to centralize power over the federal workforce.<br>Across three final rules slated for publication in the Federal Register Monday, OPM implemented plans to take over adjudication of federal workers’ appeals of reduction-in-force decisions and suitability actions, as well as cases involving employees still serving in a probationary period. A fourth rule overhauls RIF procedures more broadly, primarily by emphasizing recent performance reviews over tenure.<br>Currently, a federal employee seeking to appeal an adverse personnel action stemming from a RIF, suitability decision or action that happened while they in their first probationary year of service does so by petitioning the Merit Systems Protection Board. Under the quasi-judicial agency’s jurisdiction, the employee’s case is heard by an administrative judge, with final review by the MSPB’s three-member board. Following a final decision by the agency, the employee—or their employing agency—can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.<br>But under the new process, appeals would primarily be handled by OPM’s Office of Merit System Accountability and Compliance and ultimately reviewable by the OPM director. Employees would no longer be able to appeal final agency decisions in federal courts.<br>In a blog post Friday, OPM Director Scott Kupor said the MSPB is too slow to handle its current workload.<br>“The current MSPB backlog stretches to many months and, in some cases, years,” Kupor wrote. “That is not good for employees who deserve timely resolution of their appeals and it is not good for agencies, which are left in management limbo while cases wind through a slow and costly adjudicatory process. Our proposed internal appeal processes are designed to be faster, more efficient, and, critically, structurally independent, with separate staff handling determinations and appeals.”<br>MSPB’s backlog in both Trump’s first and second terms stemmed from a lack of a quorum of presidential appointees atop the agency that until last week referred to itself as independent. The 2025 dearth of a quorum began after Trump fired Democratic appointee Cathy Harris in February of that...