Let’s Talk About Some Bad Ideas for Civil Service Reform

While the Trump administration touts salary freezes and reduced retirement benefits for federal workers (to attract new talent?), at last week’s Merit Systems Protection Board Summit, MSPB Vice Chairman Mark Robbins discussed some other proposed civil service reforms. Spoiler alert: They won’t help employees. Some proposals are common sense, like excluding shutdown-created furloughs from the list of appealable adverse personnel actions (federal employees gained little from appealing furloughs during previous shutdowns). But others double down on the federal government’s bad management practices.