Heritage Foundation's
Project 2025

Chapter 3 - Central Personnel Agencies

• Reinstate IQ tests and other knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) tests for federal hiring.
• Reform the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures to allow for more rigorous hiring exams.
• Implement a more stringent performance appraisal system for federal employees.
• Tie pay and bonuses more directly to performance ratings.
• Simplify the employee appeals process by consolidating functions of various agencies (MSPB, EEOC, FLRA, OSC).
• Move closer to a market model for federal pay and benefits.
• Establish a neutral agency to oversee pay hiring decisions.
• Reform federal retirement benefits to be more in line with private sector offerings.
• Reduce the cost of federal employee retirement disbursements.
• Increase coordination between the General Services Administration (GSA) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on matters of common interest.
• Prioritize performance over seniority in retention decisions during reductions-in-force.
• Reinstate Trump-era Executive Orders 13836, 13837, and 13839, which limit union activities and streamline disciplinary procedures.
• Reinstate Trump's Executive Order 13957 creating Schedule F for easier dismissal of employees in policy-related positions.
• Fully staff political appointee positions quickly in new administrations.
• Give the President direct supervision of the bureaucracy with the OPM Director in the Cabinet.
• Enforce management rights in collective bargaining as outlined in the Civil Service Reform Act.
• Consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate at all.
• Decentralize and privatize government functions where possible.
• Reduce the overall size of the federal workforce.
• Implement a hiring freeze on top career positions at the start of new administrations.
• Reform the buyout process for federal employees to avoid increased costs.
• Eliminate duplicative functions across agencies.
• Reduce the number of bureaucratic levels between top leadership and front-line employees.