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05/24/2026

☀️ Good morning Fam!! May 24, 2026. 129 days until end of fiscal year.

Check your phones 📲📵

📍 The White House is directing agencies to install its official app on all government-issued devices. The rollout is expected to begin at the FAA next week and expand from there.

📍 Cybersecurity experts are raising concerns. A former government IT official told Government Executive that any app installed on government devices can potentially create backdoor access to government networks behind the firewall. Security researchers previously found the app shares users’ IP addresses and time zone data with third-party services.

📍 The White House says the app gives Americans direct access to White House news and updates, and that government devices typically include pre-installed apps that provide value to employees’ day-to-day work.

📍 Federal employment attorneys note the mandatory installation raises questions worth monitoring, particularly around data privacy, cybersecurity exposure, and workplace neutrality standards that govern federal employees under existing law.

If you receive this app on your government device, know what it is and how it works.

05/23/2026

☀️ Good morning Fam!! May 23, 2026. 130 days until end of fiscal year. Weekend roundup.

A lot happened this week. Here is what you need to know.

📍 The VA union contract covering 300,000 employees is staying in place. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit refused to block a lower court injunction requiring the VA to honor its collective bargaining agreement with AFGE. The VA had twice tried to terminate the contract, with a federal judge calling the second attempt “blatant disrespect” for the court’s order. This ruling now conflicts with a February Ninth Circuit decision on the same executive order, setting up a likely Supreme Court showdown.
🔗 FedSmith / Federal News Network — May 20, 2026

📍 The IRS cut 25% of its workforce and is now paying 12% more in overtime to make up for it. A new inspector general report found overtime costs jumped $27 million in a single year, with some employees logging more than 20 hours in a single day. Digitization efforts have “fallen short,” and unprocessed inventory is now more than twice pre-pandemic levels.
🔗 Federal News Network / TIGTA — May 19, 2026

📍 Federal employee burnout is rising sharply. A new Gallup report found widespread declines in engagement and job satisfaction, with retirees and near-retirees significantly more concerned about their wellbeing than at the start of 2025. A separate Partnership for Public Service survey found overall federal employee engagement at just 32 out of 100, with 60% saying they were less engaged than the year before.
🔗 FEDweek / Gallup — May 19, 2026

📍 If OPM’s proposed RIF rules are finalized, your layoff standing could change with every performance review. Federal employment experts are advising employees to act now: document your performance record, request copies of your personnel file, understand your current retention standing, and consult legal counsel before a RIF notice arrives.
🔗 FEDweek — May 19, 2026

📍 The State Department directed supervisors to retroactively lower performance scores they had already submitted for Foreign Service officers, telling them to “recalibrate” ratings downward before the new performance cap takes effect. The American Foreign Service Association called it a corruption of the merit system.
🔗 Federal News Network — May 16, 2026

📍 Canada’s Bill C-3 grants automatic citizenship to millions of Americans with Canadian-born parents or grandparents. For federal employees with security clearances, attorneys warn that dual citizenship, even acquired automatically, can trigger additional clearance scrutiny. If you think this may apply to you, consult a security clearance attorney before taking any action.
🔗 FedSmith — May 19, 2026

📍 The Army Corps of Engineers is losing employees rather than see them comply with a relocation order for its New York City district office. The same pattern we have seen at USDA’s Forest Service and Economic Research Service. Relocation mandates are producing departures, not compliance.
🔗 Federal News Network — May 16, 2026

A lot is happening to this workforce all at once. We are watching all of it.

05/22/2026

Hey Fam, have a great weekend. We love that you are with us in this group and that you are along for the ride. Have a wonderful and thoughtful Memorial Day. ❤️❤️❤️ -Admin

05/22/2026

☀ Good morning Fam!! May 22, 2026. 131 days until end of fiscal year.

Gas prices are surging. Federal employees are still required to commute five days a week. And NTEU is calling it out directly.

📍 The National Treasury Employees Union sent a letter to OPM Director Scott Kupor today demanding the immediate reinstatement of telework and remote work programs. The argument is straightforward: federal employees are absorbing rising commute costs on top of a proposed pay freeze, inadequate raises, and years of below-inflation increases.

📍 NTEU President Doreen Greenwald made the case on the merits too. Telework saves the government money through reduced leasing costs, lower energy expenses, and increased productivity. It reduces traffic congestion. It helps everyone, including employees who cannot work remotely, by easing fuel demand and commute times.

📍 At minimum, NTEU is asking OPM to direct agencies to immediately implement the telework exceptions already authorized under the president’s own return-to-office memo, which allows agency heads to approve exceptions for disabilities, qualifying medical conditions, or other compelling reasons until gas prices drop below $3 per gallon.

📍 This comes as the one-year anniversary of the return-to-office mandate approaches and surveys continue to show federal employees struggling with commute costs, morale, and productivity.

How much are you spending on gas a week!? ⛽️

05/21/2026

☀️ Good morning Fam!! May 21, 2026. 132 days until end of fiscal year.

A court ruling that could make a real difference for federal employees seeking disability retirement.

📍 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled last month that federal employees cannot have their disability retirement applications denied solely because they lack “objective” medical evidence like lab tests or prescription lists. Subjective evidence, such as a psychiatrist’s diagnosis based on self-described symptoms, must also be considered.

📍 The ruling is especially significant for employees with psychological disabilities, where objective documentation is often impossible to produce. Attorney Christopher Bonk put it plainly: “In most situations where a disability is less physically obvious, there’s a reliance on subjective medical evidence. Pure objective evidence is not always going to be the full story.”

📍 The case involved Tracey Garland, a former OPM employee removed from her position in 2016 due to a disability diagnosed as major depression, anxiety and insomnia. OPM rejected her disability retirement application because it lacked objective documentation. The appeals court disagreed and overturned the denial.

📍 The ruling is precedential, meaning it sets the standard for how all future disability retirement applications must be evaluated. If you or someone you know has had a disability retirement claim denied on these grounds, this decision may be relevant to your case.

Know your rights. Share this with anyone who needs it. 💙

05/20/2026

☀️ Good morning Fam!! May 20, 2026. 133 days until end of fiscal year.

The pay system that governs your career was designed in 1923. Government Executive published a commentary this morning arguing it is now disintegrating. They are not wrong.

📍 The General Schedule pay system has not been fundamentally changed since it was created over 100 years ago. The Pay Agent’s own annual report called it a “legacy framework from the 1950s” that “is disintegrating,” with locality pay boundaries that “do not align with geographic realities or labor market conditions” and a methodology that “produces implausible results while ignoring occupational realities, mission needs, and performance considerations.”

📍 Both parties agree the GS system is broken. But they disagree on why and how to fix it so completely that reform has been impossible for decades. Republicans want to dismantle it in favor of at-will employment and pay for performance. Democrats want to modernize it while preserving worker protections. The result is a compliance culture that serves neither employees nor the public.

📍 Add AI to the mix and the problem accelerates. Jobs are changing faster than the GS classification system can keep up with. The commentary argues that within a year or two the system may be entirely unsupportable.

📍 Federal employees already trail private sector counterparts by more than 24%. A pay freeze is proposed for 2027. And the foundation of the pay system itself is crumbling.

This is the conversation nobody in Washington wants to have. It is long overdue.

05/19/2026

☀️Good morning Fam. May 19, 2026.
Shifting to HHS News.

📍 HHS is sending RIF notices to 78 employees who survived last year’s mass layoffs — not because of anything they did wrong, but because the department says they were “inadvertently” missed the first time. Some of these employees continued working for months while their entire branches were eliminated around them, were quietly transferred to other divisions, and are now being told they should have been laid off all along.

📍 The breakdown: 43 at NIH. 14 in the Office of the Secretary. 6 at CDC. 5 at HRSA. 4 at FDA. 3 at ACF. 2 at AHRQ. 1 at SAMHSA.

📍 Meanwhile HHS is simultaneously planning to reclassify hundreds of GS-15 positions to Schedule Policy/Career, the rebranded version of Schedule F, stripping those employees of civil service protections and making them easier to fire. HHS says the conversions are “not punitive” and “not intended to signal concerns about an employee’s work.” The positions were selected based on job descriptions, not performance.

📍 HHS Secretary RFK Jr. told Congress last month that morale is better than it was a year ago and that the department plans to hire 12,000 new employees. The 78 people receiving RIF notices today may feel differently.

05/18/2026

☀️ Good morning Fam!! May 18, 2026.

Four bills in Congress right now that could directly affect your benefits. Here is what to watch.

📍 Short-term disability insurance. The Federal Employee Short-Term Disability Insurance Act would give federal employees access to optional short-term disability coverage for injuries, caretaking, or the birth or adoption of a child. Employees would pay 100% of the premiums and could receive benefits for up to one year. Insurance companies could not exclude employees or charge higher premiums based on preexisting conditions. The bill has been referred to the House Oversight Committee.

📍 Credit protection during shutdowns. The Federal Worker Credit Protection Act would shield federal employees’ credit scores from negative consequences of missed payments during a funding lapse, with protection continuing for 30 days after a shutdown ends. Impacted employees could also retroactively correct existing penalties on their credit reports. AFGE President Everett Kelley was direct: “Simply giving people backpay does nothing to undo the undeserved damage to their credit ratings, their good name and their dignity.”

📍 Pension fix for NOAA and USPHS retirees. The bipartisan Pensions for Retired Uniformed Servicemembers Act would close a loophole that left close to 8,000 retired NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps and U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps members without pension payments during the shutdown last fall, a gap that other uniformed service retirees do not face.

📍 PACT Act expansion for civilian employees. The bipartisan Renewing Our PACT Act would extend PACT Act benefits to civilian federal employees, including law enforcement and national security personnel, who faced exposure to toxic burn pits overseas but currently must prove a direct link between their illness and exposure, a burden veterans no longer face. In many cases that exposure has been linked to cancer.

None of these have passed yet. All of them matter. We will keep watching.

05/17/2026

Happy Sunday Fam! Tell us something positive you did this weekend?!

05/16/2026

☀️ Good morning Fam!! May 16, 2026. Here’s your weekend roundup.

A lot happened this week beyond the headlines. Here is what you need to know.

📍 The federal employee appeals system is in crisis. The Merit Systems Protection Board received 20,335 appeals last fiscal year, four times its normal volume, driven almost entirely by mass firings and RIF actions. Nearly half of employees who filed waited more than four months for even an initial decision. At the full board level, nearly 40% of cases are blocked entirely because of board member recusals tied to the ongoing vacancy left by President Trump’s firing of former Chair Cathy Harris. Fired federal workers are waiting months for due process that may never come.

📍 Your 2027 COLA count is at 3% at the halfway point. April inflation came in at 3.8%, driven in part by energy costs tied to the Iran conflict. If the count holds, CSRS retirees and Social Security recipients would receive a full 3% next year. FERS retirees would receive 2% under the statutory formula. The final number comes in October.

📍 USDA employees and their union sued Secretary Brooke Rollins this week over an Easter email sent to the entire department workforce that declared, “Today we celebrate the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith.” Plaintiffs argue the message violates the Establishment Clause by favoring one religion over others and describe it as part of an escalating pattern rather than a one-time communication.

📍 Three quarters of USDA researchers ordered to relocate say they are not going. The National Federation of Federal Employees is calling the Forest Service reorganization plan a deliberate dismantling of the agency, not a restructuring. The union is asking Congress to intervene, warning the plan creates a pathway to transfer federal lands to state and private control without congressional consent.

📍 One year after return-to-office mandates, federal employees are still struggling. A new survey found widespread reports of increased commute costs, declining morale, overcrowded facilities, and IT infrastructure not built for a fully in-office workforce. This comes as OPM prepares to relaunch the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, which it canceled in 2025, with a new focus on manager-level accountability metrics rather than broader engagement measures. In the absence of the FEVS, a Partnership for Public Service survey of 11,000 current federal workers found overall engagement at just 32 out of 100, with 60% saying they were less engaged than the year prior.

📍 Finally, a number worth knowing: more than 571,000 federal employees and retirees now owe a combined $6.3 billion in delinquent federal taxes, up from 4.9% to 6.9% of the workforce in recent years. Analysts attribute the rise in part to slowed IRS enforcement and the agency’s loss of roughly 27% of its workforce since 2025, raising questions about whether the IRS has the capacity to address the backlog even among its own peer agencies.

A lot is happening to this workforce all at once. We are watching all of it.

05/15/2026

☀️ Good morning Fam!! May 15, 2026.

Happy Friday!! Y’all doing anything interesting this weekend?? Anyways, We read this and thought this Bloomberg Opinion piece hit the nail on the head.

📍 OPM has proposed extending stack rankings to virtually the entire federal workforce by capping the share of employees who can receive a top performance rating at 30%, no matter how well they actually perform. The rule applies to career civil servants but not to political appointees.

📍 Stack rankings have a long and toxic history in the private sector. Jack Welch pioneered the practice at GE, sorting employees into top, middle, and bottom tiers and firing the bottom 10% every year. He was named Manager of the Century in 1999. By 2022 he was being called the man who broke capitalism. The practice has been largely abandoned in the corporate world.

📍 Having been largely abandoned in the private sector, stack rankings are now being resurrected in the federal government to continue wreaking havoc in an even more critical place.

The corporate world tried this. It failed. Now it is coming for your performance review.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-05-14/stack-rankings-will-be-a-disaster-for-federal-employees

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