NCS
—
The once-obscure Office of Personnel Management, primarily the human sources division of the federal government, is now ground zero for Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash forms and deconstruct huge parts of the administrative state.
Current and former OPM staff describe an agency that’s been taken over by a shadow operation of political appointees affiliated with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Isolated on a safe ground inside the agency’s Washington headquarters, DOGE personnel, many with deep ties to Musk and his firms, at the moment are successfully answerable for OPM, issuing government-wide directives which are seen as blueprints for finishing up the administration’s imaginative and prescient to shrink the government.
That has left profession staff sidelined, feeling blindsided and scapegoated.
“The federal workers at OPM don’t even know what’s going on, and we are getting blamed for allowing Elon Musk and DOGE into OPM,” a just lately departed OPM official informed NCS. “It’s very well known within the agency that it’s the shadow OPM, not the career employees pushing the buttons.”
DOGE crew members arrived at OPM on Inauguration Day.
Soon after, sources mentioned profession workers and executives misplaced administrative authority over numerous programs and platforms associated to or tied straight to personnel knowledge for thousands and thousands of federal employees.
“It kept some people from doing the jobs they were hired for,” a present OPM worker informed NCS. That individual mentioned info know-how specialists at OPM now spend their workday answering DOGE and political appointees’ questions on how programs work “instead of being allowed to do their jobs.”
DOGE crew members have secluded themselves on the fifth-floor director’s suite, which sources now say is guarded by tight safety with strict limits on who can enter.
The former worker who spoke to NCS described a safety guard seated outdoors of the director’s workplace who retains a printed paper with headshots of profession staff who’re authorized to enter.
Two present OPM staff who, like others, agreed to communicate with NCS beneath the situation their names not be printed over worry of retribution for talking to the media, mentioned they’ve seen an elevated safety presence at the agency since the begin of the Trump administration, and particularly when Musk is in the constructing.
OPM didn’t reply to NCS’s request for remark.
On GPS: ‘Tech bro Maoists’ are burning down the nation that helped them prosper
Career staff at OPM who used to talk coverage and tips to federal companies now watch powerlessly as OPM fires off directives to the greater than 2 million federal employees.
OPM beforehand didn’t ship mass emails to the federal workforce — it solely communicated steering to companies and their management.
But now OPM communicates straight with all federal employees from [email protected], an e mail handle arrange by DOGE that profession staffers are unable to entry, sources informed NCS.
The first main information delivered to the complete federal workforce from [email protected] was the January 28 announcement of government’s deferred resignation program. The e mail, identified amongst government staff as “The Fork in the Road,” supplied employees the probability to stay on the payroll by means of September in the event that they agreed to resign.
Shernice Mundell, an OPM worker and member of the American Federation of Government Employees who was terminated in February due to her probationary status, informed NCS she first heard about that e mail on the information. Two different OPM sources mentioned the human sources workers at the agency didn’t know something about “The Fork in the Road” till they began getting inquiries from federal employees.
Mundell was one in every of 1000’s of probationary staff fired final month beneath a directive from the Trump administration. A federal choose in California final week discovered these mass firings were likely unlawful, saying OPM “does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe” to rent or hearth any staff apart from its personal.
More just lately, federal employees acquired an e mail from [email protected] asking them to list five things they achieved at work in the previous week. But two OPM sources mentioned the emails should not coming from precise agency staff.
Rob Shriver, who served as OPM’s performing director beneath the Biden administration, informed NCS he’s been in fixed contact with staff at OPM, who he mentioned are pained by the lack of belief by the federal workforce.
“The entire organization has been corrupted by DOGE,” mentioned Shriver, a senior adviser at the authorized advocacy group Democracy Forward. “It’s a terrible spot for the OPM career folks to be in. They are not able to shape any of the messaging that’s coming out. In talking to several of them, they’re not being consulted, or they’re not being asked if they think this is something that should be done, if it’s legal. They have absolutely no ability to weigh in with any of their expertise.”
Shriver now leads a program defending government staff in the face of the Trump administration’s downsizing of the workforce.
OPM has develop into DOGE’s major messenger for directing federal companies on how to shrink their workforces, which agency workplaces to shutter and which contracts to cancel.
It’s additionally conserving a tight maintain on even the extra mundane info popping out of the agency.
“Making a simple change on the OPM website to put out information on a weather alert, like all Washington facilities are closed, we used to be able to make that change,” one in every of the present OPM staff mentioned. “Now it has to go through the fifth floor before that change can even be made.”
Gaining fast entry and management to the knowledge and pc programs of OPM was basic to DOGE’s potential to infiltrate key Washington nerve facilities. Political appointees and advisers related to Musk or main tech companies now sit in prime management positions throughout companies that comprise the federal government’s personnel, know-how, property and acquisition operations.
Sources mentioned OPM is seen as a testing ground for DOGE’s government-wide techniques — a sentiment that was laid out by prime DOGE leaders throughout their first assembly with profession workers the day after the inauguration.
“OPM is looked at as a model. The goal is to reduce the footprint of the federal workforce,” Anthony Armstrong, a senior adviser at OPM and a banker who helped Musk purchase Twitter, informed staff, in accordance to the just lately departed worker who was in the assembly.
In one other assembly 10 days later, Brian Bjelde, a longtime engineer at Musk’s SpaceX and now one other prime adviser at OPM, informed profession staff there could be huge restructuring throughout the federal workforce, in accordance to that very same individual, who was additionally in that assembly.
Bjelde instructed agency leaders to draft a plan for a 70% lower of their respective workforces. “OPM is leading all agencies doing this exercise,” Bjelde mentioned, in accordance to the individual in the assembly.
One OPM supply informed NCS the proposed cuts had been so deep that a few of the managers requested to draft plans had to embody their very own jobs in the cuts.
And now, only one month later, OPM has instructed all companies to draw up related plans for large-scale layoffs, issuing a joint memo with the Office of Management and Budget mapping out how agency leaders ought to conduct large-scale terminations.
The Social Security Administration mentioned it goals to cut about 7,000 jobs, roughly 12% of its workers. Managers at the General Services Administration have been requested to put collectively proposals for 50% reductions in the group, in accordance to a supply with information of the matter.
Current and just lately departed OPM staff describe the agency’s workforce as simply as demoralized and confused as many different government employees.
As for Mundell, she is updating her resume and has filed for unemployment in DC. She mentioned as a result of she was abruptly shut out of the government IT system when she was fired, she by no means bought to obtain the paperwork wanted to file for unemployment, together with her final six paystubs.
“I’ve never been fired from a job before,” mentioned Mundell. “My faith is saying God is going to get me through it. Some days I’m optimistic, some days I’m not.”