Controversy over the Trump administration’s proposal to break apart the Office of Personnel Management and place its functions under the General Services Administration and the Executive Office of the President came to a head recently when proposed funding legislation moved to block that change and reports came out that OPM could potentially furlough and lay off 150 of its employees as a result.

But a senior administration official said in a July 30 press call that those reports were taken out of context, and the White House was “not concerned” about the notion that furloughs would be needed.

“Those furloughs were never an objective or a plan. The discussion of furloughs was taken completely out of context from a document that has since become public,” the official said.

“OPM is facing a funding challenge brought about by the congressional mandate to move background investigations to the Department of Defense, and that left OPM with a funding gap. If Congress doesn’t fill that funding gap, OPM was faced with a series of impossible choices. I am at this point fully confident that Congress, particularly the Senate, fully understands the nature of that funding gap.”

According to the administration official, the Office of Management and Budget has submitted an anomaly to the budget to help address that funding gap.

Anomalies adjust the spending levels in specific accounts that would otherwise face administrative or technical challenges if those accounts only received the same funding as the year before.

“The goal of that anomaly is to ensure that we don’t have any negative impacts on the mission or the people that do that work on Oct. 1,” the official said.

But the Trump administration will have more than just employee concerns to deal with in their proposed OPM-GSA merger. Two appropriations bills passed by the House would block the administration from using appropriated funding to facilitate the merger.

“Some of the cynical poison pills that are out there reflect an actual understanding that we do have an authority in the executive branch — as a coequal branch, after all — to make some changes,” the official said.

“Some cynical poison pills that got put into appropriations language, in particular, were part of recent negotiations that we had over the budget, and it was a priority of this administration to make sure that we can move forward with the agenda that requests what the American people are looking for, which is more effectiveness and efficiency in our government.”

The proposed merger is part of a governmentwide reorganization plan released by the White House in June 2018, and administration officials have pointed to three specific successes from that plan in the past year: the transformation of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation into a larger and more agile agency; the transfer of all background investigation authorities from the National Background Investigation Bureau to the DoD; and the establishment of the Cyber Reskilling Academy to get current federal employees prepared for the cybersecurity needs of the future.

“The Trump administration has made positive strides in the last year with its reorganization efforts,” said acting OMB Director Russ Vought in a news release about achievements in the first year.

“The Reorg Plan has provided agencies the roadmap to deliver a more efficient government that is providing better services for the American people while putting the taxpayer first.”

According to OMB Deputy Director for Management and acting OPM Director Margaret Weichert, the plan will not be able to go into effect all at once, but the administration believes in a “process” and “roadmap” for change.

“I think it’s very clear to most people, if they look at the organizational structures of our government, that those structures for the most part were optimized and designed for the nature of our government in the mid- to late-20th century. They’re not aligned to service delivery models,” said Weichert.

About Jessie Bur

Jessie Bur covers federal IT and management.

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