How a GS-13/14 questionnaire signals Schedule Policy/Career's next phase—and what it means for your career.
The federal civil service is undergoing a structural shift that goes well beyond a single executive order. In June 2026, President Trump moved 8,000 federal employees into Schedule Policy/Career, the rebranded successor to Schedule F. The State Department is now expanding that effort with a GS-13 and GS-14 questionnaire designed to identify mid-level foreign affairs positions for at-will reclassification.
An internal employee described the reclassification effort as "moving relatively fast," and the department has already shifted supervisory foreign affairs officers and specialists. Public administrators seeking careers in public administration & policy now face a live test of how agency discretion can redefine due process before the Merit Systems Protection Board.
Schedule Policy/Career, the rebranded successor to Schedule F, changes how some career federal positions are treated. In June 2026, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reclassifying 8,000 federal employees into this new category, a civil service reform. The Office of Personnel Management previously estimated that up to 50,000 federal employees could eventually fall under the new category, but a spokesperson said the administration was focused on "the most senior-level career policy officials." That distinction is central: Schedule Policy/Career does not sweep in political appointees or all high-grade positions. It targets career civil servants whose duties are judged to involve public policy making.
Schedule Policy/Career is the operational successor to Schedule F, which sought to remove policy-influencing career positions from standard competitive service protections. The June 2026 order applied the idea to an initial group of 8,000 employees. The earlier 50,000 estimate signals that agencies could expand the category over time, but the first tranche concentrated on senior-level career policy officials rather than rank-and-file specialists.
At-will federal employment does not mean unilateral firing for any personal reason, as in some private workplaces. It means the position loses the cause-based removal standards and multi-step procedural safeguards that Title 5 normally attaches to competitive service employment. An employee in Schedule Policy/Career can be reassigned or removed more quickly, without the same evidence hearing, notice sequence, and burden-shifting process. Job security shifts from legally protected due process to managerial discretion.
The category applies to a subset of career civil servants, not to Schedule C political appointees. The decisive test is whether a role involves formulating, developing, or determining policy. GS-13 or GS-14 grade alone is not sufficient; a clerical or purely administrative position at the same grade would not automatically qualify, while a GS-13 analyst who helps formulate policy might. This is a functional classification based on duties, not a blanket reclassification by series or pay level.
Senior foreign affairs officers have long understood that top policy roles can be politically sensitive. What is different is the reach: mid-level GS-13 and GS-14 employees are now being screened through a short, HR-administered questionnaire that could quietly move their civil service positions into at-will territory. That shift marks a meaningful expansion beyond the senior executives first reclassified under Schedule Policy/Career.
The questionnaire is described as short, with seven questions total, and is administered by HR. 1 According to an employee account, it asks whether a position "formulates, develops and/or determines foreign policy," whether it "develops or reviews non-public Executive Orders, regulations, directives, policy memoranda," and whether it provides "substantive advocacy of foreign policy." These questions target the duties of the position, not the person holding it. Routine reclassifications at the GS-13 and GS-14 grades are frozen while the review is underway. 1 The number of "yes" answers that triggers a conversion is not publicly disclosed, and no official scoring rubric has been released. 1
Before this expanded search, the State Department had already shifted supervisory foreign affairs officers and specialists, along with other senior-level positions, to Schedule Policy/Career. Now the department is using the questionnaire to look down the org chart. GS-13 and GS-14 roles sit below the senior executive level but often involve policy analysis, drafting, and internal advocacy. Unlike the initial focus on the most senior-level career policy officials, this questionnaire reaches professionals on MPA or MPP career paths who may not see themselves as political. A questionnaire answer indicating policy influence can lead to a position description change, which may then move the role into at-will status. For public administration and policy students, this is a clear case of classification criteria being applied far beyond the political appointee layer.
Internal staff accounts describe the effort as "moving relatively fast," although a second State staffer said the department is still in the early stages of the expanded search. The State Department spokesperson declined to comment on "internal deliberative personnel matters." No counts of affected GS-13 or GS-14 positions have been released, and the scoring threshold remains unknown. That opacity means employees are being asked to answer questions that could change their job protections, without knowing exactly how the answers will be used.
For career federal employees, the practical consequences of Schedule Policy/Career become clear when placed side by side with traditional Title 5 protections. The table below summarizes the key differences that shape due process, whistleblower access, and performance management.
| Feature | Traditional Civil Service (Title 5) | Schedule Policy/Career |
|---|---|---|
| MSPB appeal rights | Employees generally have Merit Systems Protection Board appeal rights for covered adverse actions and performance-based actions under chapters 75 and 43, including direct appeals in some cases. | Employees are excepted from chapters 43 and 75 procedures. MSPB appeals of adverse actions do not apply. |
| Whistleblower complaint routing | Whistleblowers generally must seek corrective action from the Office of Special Counsel before appealing to MSPB, unless the matter is otherwise directly appealable and the individual elects direct appeal. | Whistleblower protections are handled through internal agency procedures required by the rule, rather than the ordinary Office of Special Counsel corrective-action route. |
| Removal-for-cause standards | Removals and similar adverse actions follow the chapter 75 adverse-action framework, including required statutory procedures. | Employees may be removed, suspended, or demoted without the chapter 75 procedures that apply to most Title 5 employees. |
| Performance improvement plan requirements | Chapter 43 performance actions use formal performance-based procedures that include an opportunity to improve before removal. | Employees are excepted from chapter 43 procedures, so the formal Title 5 performance-improvement-process requirement does not apply. |
| Union bargaining eligibility | Traditional Title 5 status does not by itself bar collective bargaining-unit coverage. Bargaining status depends on the position and labor-relations rules. | Schedule Policy/Career status does not automatically remove an employee from a union or bargaining unit. |
What due process protections actually disappear when a federal position moves into Schedule Policy/Career? The short answer: most of the formal appeal rights that career civil servants rely on to contest an adverse action.
Employees placed in Schedule Policy/Career can no longer challenge removals, suspensions, or reductions in grade before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). Under the traditional competitive service, an agency typically must show cause and follow progressive discipline procedures, and an employee can appeal to an independent board. In the new schedule, that independent backstop is gone. If the State Department decides a GS-14 foreign policy officer no longer fits its policy direction, the employee may be reassigned, demoted, or removed without the same MSPB hearing. The practical effect is not automatic termination, but a lower threshold for agency action. Reassignment to a less desirable post, a directed geographic move, or a demotion can happen more quickly because the employee cannot demand the same evidentiary hearing.
The oversight path also changes. In a normal civil service case, whistleblower retaliation complaints can be investigated by the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency. For Schedule Policy/Career employees, whistleblower complaints are instead investigated by the employee's own agency. That means the same department that initiated the personnel action may also investigate whether that action was retaliatory. Government Executive reported that the State Department has already shifted supervisory foreign affairs officers and specialists into this category, and an internal employee said the expansion is moving relatively fast. That speed can catch employees by surprise before they understand which protections they have lost.
For a foreign affairs officer facing termination, this limits options to contest reassignment, demotion, or removal. Internal agency review can still exist, but it is not an independent check. The accountability concern is straightforward: an agency investigating its own conduct may struggle to appear impartial, and employees may hesitate to report waste, fraud, or abuse if the complaint will be handled by the very federal executive leadership they are accusing. Public administration students should see this as a shift from external due process toward internal administrative discretion. That tension between political responsiveness and merit system protections is exactly what makes Schedule Policy/Career controversial.
A single executive order reclassifying 8,000 employees would look like a contained event. The State Department's decision to survey GS-13 and GS-14 employees tells a different story: this is an agency-led expansion, not a one-time change.
The State questionnaire is not happening in isolation. NOTUS reported in July 2026 that the Trump administration has instructed agencies to find more employees to convert to Schedule Policy/Career.1 The underlying directive is government-wide, applying to each agency head, and covers positions in the competitive service as well as excepted service schedules A, B, and D.2 That scope means agencies with different missions will apply different screening tools. State's focus on whether jobs formulate foreign policy or review non-public executive orders is one expression of a broader administrative push.
The June 2026 order converted roughly 8,000 employees in more than 4,800 positions, concentrated at GS-15 and above.3 That number sits well below the Office of Personnel Management's earlier estimate of about 50,000 positions.4 The 8,000 figure is an initial floor, not a ceiling. As of mid-2026, no higher realized total has been published. NOTUS notes that the size of the new wave has not yet been determined.1 Even within the administration, signals conflict: a senior official was quoted saying there are no plans to add positions at this time, while OPM's director anticipated future expansion.5
State's push is moving quickly, according to one internal employee, but another staffer says the expanded search is still in early stages.1 That mixed picture reflects the decentralized nature of the rollout, a theme covered in Federal Administration Best Practices. No agency-by-agency tally or public list of tailored targets exists. For public administration students, this is the key lesson: a broad executive order becomes operational only through agency-level discretion, and that discretion determines how fast, how broadly, and under what criteria career employees move into at-will status.
The civil service career ladder is being redrawn in real time, and policy-adjacent careers now sit closest to the line. In June 2026, the administration reclassified 8,000 federal employees into Schedule Policy/Career, and the State Department has since expanded its search to GS-13 and GS-14 positions whose work involves foreign policy formulation, executive order review, or substantive advocacy.
Under this framework, foreign affairs officers, policy advisors, and regulatory analysts face a new risk calculation. Because the questionnaire asks whether a position formulates, develops and/or determines foreign policy or provides substantive advocacy, many MPA and MPP graduates who choose federal policy tracks could find their jobs reclassified as at-will. That means losing Merit Systems Protection Board appeal rights and facing agency-led whistleblower investigations rather than independent review.
The shift changes the calculus for public service motivation. Talented graduates weighing federal service against state, local, or nonprofit roles now must price in reduced job security. A career built on policy influence may no longer carry the same stability as a non-policy role, such as grants management, budget execution, or program compliance. That could push some people toward positions explicitly defined as non-policy-influencing or toward state and local agencies that retain stronger civil service protections.
Agencies that convert senior policy roles to at-will status risk losing mid-career expertise during political transitions. When a new administration arrives, experienced foreign affairs specialists and policy analysts may be removed not for performance but for perceived loyalty. The institutional memory that sustains diplomacy and regulatory consistency erodes, leaving agencies staffed by short-tenure appointees and early-career staff who have not yet built deep policy judgment.
With 8,000 federal employees already moved into Schedule Policy/Career in June 2026, the State Department's GS-13 and GS-14 questionnaire is no longer a hypothetical exercise. Current and aspiring public servants should treat reclassification as an active workforce decision, not a future policy debate.
Start with your current position description. Compare daily duties against the questionnaire's policymaking criteria, including whether you formulate, develop, or determine foreign policy; review non-public executive orders, regulations, directives, or policy memoranda; or provide substantive advocacy of foreign policy. Be precise about your actual work, not the aspirational language from a past vacancy announcement. If your duties are more administrative, operational, or advisory, document those differences now.
Do not answer a reclassification questionnaire without first understanding how your agency handles responses and appeals. Ask your HR office or employee relations point of contact what the State Department is collecting, how the information will be used, and whether you can attach documentation. Keep copies of your submitted responses and any position description updates. If you are in a bargaining unit, consult your union before you finalize answers.
Anyone considering a policy-track federal offer, especially those exploring a mid-career MPA, should research the agency's reclassification posture. Look at whether the agency has already identified Schedule Policy/Career positions or is expanding its search, as the State Department is doing. A role labeled policy adviser may now carry at-will status and reduced MSPB or whistleblower protections. Ask hiring officials directly whether the position is or could become Schedule Policy/Career.
Professional associations, unions, agency ombudspersons, and legal assistance offices are updating guidance as agencies implement reclassification. They can translate executive orders and agency memos into practical checklists and timelines. Rely on those channels rather than informal office chatter.
