{"id":1533745,"date":"2025-05-02T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1533745"},"modified":"2025-05-02T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T20:00:00","slug":"no-participation-trophies-trump-revamps-performance-reviews-for-top-bureaucrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/no-participation-trophies-trump-revamps-performance-reviews-for-top-bureaucrats\/1533745\/","title":{"rendered":"‘No Participation Trophies’: Trump Revamps Performance Reviews For Top Bureaucrats"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘No Participation Trophies’: Trump Revamps Performance Reviews For Top Bureaucrats<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

Performance reviews are about to become much more difficult for the upper echelon of federal government employees.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Trump administration will soon introduce rules to end what the Office of Personnel Management describes as an \u201ceveryone gets a trophy\u201d culture permeating the federal workforce, <\/strong>RealClearPolitics is first to report.<\/p>\n

The ranks of the Senior Executive Service, top bureaucrats serving throughout the government and across administrations, swelled to around 8,000<\/a> under President Biden<\/strong>. Most live in Washington, D.C. They typically earn an annual salary between $183,000 and $250,000. An overwhelming majority, 96%, according to an OPM memo, receive above-average performance ratings even as public trust in government continues to crater.<\/a><\/p>\n

But standards will soon tighten. It is called \u201cforced distribution.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The new OPM rule limits the number of bureaucrats who can earn top ratings, a metric tied to promotions and end-of-the-year bonuses. It also eliminates Biden-era requirements that evaluated executives based on their promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion.<\/p>\n

The stated goal is instead an evaluation of job performance, not political ideology<\/strong>. Now only top performers, acting OPM director Chuck Ezell told RCP, will earn top performance rankings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American people deserve a federal government led by executives who are held to the highest standards<\/strong>,\u201d Ezell said. \u201cThis proposed rule restores accountability, rewards true excellence, and ensures senior leaders deliver real results. OPM is proud to take this important step to strengthen performance among the highest levels of the federal workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The elite of career civil servants, these senior employees are normally little noticed and non-controversial. Permanent bureaucracy has come under attack during the Trump administration, however, and the White House sees the top ranks of federal employees as the face of the so-called \u201cdeep state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no participation trophies,<\/strong>\u201d a White House official said of the new standards, telling RCP that from now on, trophies, in this case top-tier performance rankings, \u201care for winners.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new standards come as Trump continues his long march through the administrative state.<\/strong> His administration has already implemented rules to gut civil service protections for government employees perceived as undermining the White House agenda. Thousands of federal workers have been fired. Entire government agencies, in some cases, shuttered.<\/p>\n

Critics accuse the White House of trying to politicize the federal workforce and of trying to remake the executive agencies in Trump\u2019s image. The Senior Executives Association, a trade group for federal employees with an office in downtown D.C., previously balked at proposed reforms. The head of that organization, Marcus Hill, insisted that top bureaucrats<\/a> had earned their jobs through merit \u201cbased on demonstrated competence, character and capability in their fields of expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the administration argues that change is needed because a sclerotic establishment is undermining self-government. This is the mission of Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?<\/strong>\u201d Musk asked earlier this year<\/a> while fielding questions from reporters in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives,\u201d he said while standing behind the Resolute Desk next to the seated president, \u201cthen we don\u2019t live in a democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 05\/02\/2025 – 12:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/no-participation-trophies-trump-revamps-performance-reviews-top-bureaucrats<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘No Participation Trophies’: Trump Revamps Performance Reviews For Top Bureaucrats Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics, Performance reviews are about to become much more difficult…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1533746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1533745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1533745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1533746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1533745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1533745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1533745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}