Federal Personnel Agency Revises Guidance on Terminations After Court Ruling

The Office of Personnel Management says it is not directing agencies to take specific actions against newer employees.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management in Washington on Feb. 14, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

A federal personnel agency at the center of the mass terminations of government workers issued a revised memorandum to department heads on March 4 after a court found that the terminations of newer employees were likely illegal.

“Please note that, by this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees,” the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said in the revised memo. “Agencies have ultimate decision-making authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions.”

Charles Ezell, the acting OPM director, had issued the document to department heads on Jan. 20, the same day President Donald Trump was sworn in. Ezell wrote that when departments fired newer employees or workers on probationary status, the workers would generally not be able to ask for intervention from the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Ezell also directed agencies to identify employees on probationary status and determine which ones should be retained.

In a separate memo dated Feb. 14 and filed with a federal court, OPM directed agencies to “separate probationary employees you have not identified as mission-critical.”

In another memo sent on Feb. 24, OPM said that when agencies fail to take advantage of probationary periods, “poor performers tend to remain in the federal service far too long because supervisors are less likely to remove an employee with full appeal rights.”

The American Federation of Government Employees and other unions sued the government over the termination of probationary workers, alleging OPM does not have the authority to order agencies to terminate workers.

OPM responded that it did not issue an order but merely guidance.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Feb. 27 ordered the government to reinstate some of the terminated probationary workers and ruled that the OPM’s communications, including from Jan. 20, shall be stopped and rescinded as it concerns workers at six agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Agencies, including the National Science Foundation, said they were complying with the order.

The foundation’s director, Sethuraman Panchanathan, “ordered the immediate reinstatement of terminated probationers with back pay and no break in service based on updated guidance from OPM and the Federal Courts,” a spokesperson told news outlets in a statement on Monday.

According to court filings, about 200,000 federal government workers are on probationary status. Tens of thousands of them have been terminated.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for March 13.