Trump Admin Unveils New Stricter Performance Appraisal System for Top Career Officials

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

WASHINGTON—Trump administration officials at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) are set to introduce a comprehensive set of reforms to how the performance of top echelon of career executives is appraised.

There are more than 7,000 members of the federal government’s Senior Executive Service (SES), which represents the highest level of career management authority in the civil service. The reforms coming from the Trump administration are the most thorough since the Reagan administration in the 1980s.

“This new governmentwide SES Performance Appraisal System and Performance Plan will deliver enhanced accountability and help restore a ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people,’” a Feb. 25 memo to all department and agency heads from Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell reads.

“It will ensure that senior executives are responsive to the needs, policies, and goals of the Nation and otherwise is of the highest quality. In addition, this memorandum lays out additional next actions for agencies pursuant to SES Accountability,” Ezell wrote.

Ezell worked with OMB officials led by Director Russell Vought in developing the new rules for rating and rewarding the work of the federal civil service’s most senior career managers.

A copy of the document was made available to The Epoch Times.

The new system was mandated by one of the first executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office, titled “Restoring Accountability for Career Senior Executives.”

Then-Office of Management and Budget Director nominee Russell Vought testifies during the Senate Banking Committee nomination hearing in the Dirksen Senate Building in Washington on Jan. 22, 2025. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

The new system is intended to cover all SES executives by no later than Sept. 30, 2026, with implementation beginning on Oct. 1, 2025. Level 1 SES executives received $180,000 annually in salary, with the top level, Level 5, receiving $246,400 annually.

Members of the SES are also eligible for special awards within their agencies worth between 5 and 20 percent of their base salaries, as well as President Rank Awards, including at the Distinguished Level, worth 35 percent of base pay, and Meritorious Level, worth 20 percent of base pay.

“In addition, SES members may be eligible for cash awards, which are based on a special act or service, suggestion, invention, superior accomplishment, or productivity gain not linked to a performance rating,” OPM guidance states.

The average federal employee salary is $106,382, according to OPM data. The median average household income for all Americans is $75,149, according to the Census Bureau.

Virtually all SES employees are rated either “Outstanding” or “Exceeds Fully Successful,” with few being rated as “Minimally Successful” or “Unsuccessful.” Ezell said that fact means “senior executive ratings are systematically inflated, and poor performers are not being held accountable through a rigorous appraisal process.”

The first step in upgrading the system, according to Ezell, is challenging a longstanding regulatory ban on OPM requiring agencies to use “forced distributions” in awarding performance ratings.

A “forced distribution” would cap, for example, at 20 percent how many SES members within an agency could be rated above the middle rating of “Successful.” The purpose of such a system is to force decision-makers in appraising the performance of employees to be as precise and knowledgeable as possible in determining which rating is merited.

Members of the Senior Executives Association (SEA), which represents career SES members, have opposed such an approach since the creation of the service in 1978 under the Civil Service Reform Act. A spokesman for the SEA did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

In a 2019 guidance document quoted by Fedweek, OPM said that “by law, forced distribution of employees among levels of performance, or grading on the curve, is prohibited, because employees are required to be assessed against documented standards of performance versus an individual’s performance relative to others.”

In addition to moving to allow agencies to adopt forced distribution-based performance appraisal systems, the new OPM memo implements provisions in Trump’s executive order requiring each agency to abolish its current Executive Resources Board and replace it with a new one consisting of a majority of non-career SES members, including the chairman.

Trump’s executive order also directs each agency to abolish its current Performance Review Board and establish a new one consisting of SES members “committed to full enforcement of SES performance evaluations that promote and assure an SES of the highest caliber.”