Schedule F Memo is Out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Non-supervisory attorneys (excepted, career
/permanent) could be under schedule F???

yes

I think it’ll depend on whether your agency head wants that role to be fireable. If this was a sane administration, I’d say absolutely not, a line attorney isn’t implementing policy when they take a deposition or negotiate a subpoena. “I’ll have to take that back to my management” is my most frequent phrase lol.

Not sure that will apply here. We do implement policy goals, sort of. I have supervised attorneys on a team. I did comment on a policy guide a few times.

I think it is written broadly enough to get them whatever they want, basically

when they tried it during Trump 1.0, something like 80% of OMB was deemed eligible for Schedule F. That was down to administrative assistants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Non-supervisory attorneys (excepted, career
/permanent) could be under schedule F???

yes

I think it’ll depend on whether your agency head wants that role to be fireable. If this was a sane administration, I’d say absolutely not, a line attorney isn’t implementing policy when they take a deposition or negotiate a subpoena. “I’ll have to take that back to my management” is my most frequent phrase lol.

Not sure that will apply here. We do implement policy goals, sort of. I have supervised attorneys on a team. I did comment on a policy guide a few times.

I think it is written broadly enough to get them whatever they want, basically

when they tried it during Trump 1.0, something like 80% of OMB was deemed eligible for Schedule F. That was down to administrative assistants.

Omb sucks though. The other agencies slow rolled it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Non-supervisory attorneys (excepted, career
/permanent) could be under schedule F???

yes

I think it’ll depend on whether your agency head wants that role to be fireable. If this was a sane administration, I’d say absolutely not, a line attorney isn’t implementing policy when they take a deposition or negotiate a subpoena. “I’ll have to take that back to my management” is my most frequent phrase lol.

Not sure that will apply here. We do implement policy goals, sort of. I have supervised attorneys on a team. I did comment on a policy guide a few times.

I think it is written broadly enough to get them whatever they want, basically

when they tried it during Trump 1.0, something like 80% of OMB was deemed eligible for Schedule F. That was down to administrative assistants.

Omb sucks though. The other agencies slow rolled it

Have you seen the post from the anon OPMer about the mass email etc.?

[Anonymous]

Will they roll in administering policy as "policy advocating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Being held accountable for the success of one or more specific programs or projects" - wow. That's incredibly broad. Great!

Incredibly broad. I’d bet a ton of gs 13-15s who would never ever consider their jobs political or policy would fall under this bullet

[Anonymous]

The first time around, our mid-size agency determined more than half of its positions met the criteria for placement into Schedule F.

[Anonymous]

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-105504.pdf

[Anonymous]

there were estimates (I want to say in WaPo) that up to 200,000 positions could be changed to schedule F. That's significantly up from the current 4,000.

I wonder if everyone in that 200,000 would have to be senate-confirmed, like the schedule F people are now.

[Anonymous]

I'm a GS14 non-sup SME attorney advisor. I don't think folks like me are included since we don't supervise but it's a close one. I give legal advice which could lead to a nonconcur on a policy, reg, etc (but has to be cleared by my chain) but at the end of the day the client office is making the policy calls and they can ignore my legal advice.

[Anonymous]

One of the two excerpts below (especially the bolded) could easily be applied to most GS-11s, -12s, and -13s in our large, grant-making agency.

"substantive participation and discretionary authority in agency grantmaking, such as the substantive exercise of discretion in the drafting of funding opportunity announcements, evaluation of grant applications, or recommending or selecting grant recipients"

"substantive participation in the development or drafting of regulations and guidance"

[Anonymous]

Sorry for dumb question, but what does it mean that this applies to “excepted service”? Does that mean political appointees, not positions awarded competitively?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for dumb question, but what does it mean that this applies to “excepted service”? Does that mean political appointees, not positions awarded competitively?

It means attorneys

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry for dumb question, but what does it mean that this applies to “excepted service”? Does that mean political appointees, not positions awarded competitively?

No, I’ve been excepted service my whole career, even as a gs 11 newbie attorney. It’s just how my positions have always been classified by the nature of the work. I think it meant I had two years to tenure instead of one when I started. I was not a political appointee. I applied through USA jobs for every position I’ve held, just the classification was excepted service, so I’ve never been eligible for the same types of protections as competitive service employees, and I’m not reinstatement eligible when they ask those types of questions on the application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like it shouldn't apply to line attorneys

But does apply to the GS-14s who manage them. Yet another reason I’m thanking my lucky stars I pushed back against my managers suggestions that I apply for one of these jobs. No BU + Schedule F? HARD PASS.

How are you sure this won’t apply to attorneys. Look at the 905 series job description about rendering legal advice and services regarding federal regulations. This is for your basic attorney adviser position. Why would they not just decide to make all attorneys schedule F rather than try to figure out what each one does. The memo is so broad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Non-supervisory attorneys (excepted, career
/permanent) could be under schedule F???

yes

I think it’ll depend on whether your agency head wants that role to be fireable. If this was a sane administration, I’d say absolutely not, a line attorney isn’t implementing policy when they take a deposition or negotiate a subpoena. “I’ll have to take that back to my management” is my most frequent phrase lol.

Not sure that will apply here. We do implement policy goals, sort of. I have supervised attorneys on a team. I did comment on a policy guide a few times.

I think it is written broadly enough to get them whatever they want, basically

when they tried it during Trump 1.0, something like 80% of OMB was deemed eligible for Schedule F. That was down to administrative assistants.

Omb sucks though. The other agencies slow rolled it

Have you seen the post from the anon OPMer about the mass email etc.?

No. Explain.