OPM Just Took Your Appeal Away From MSPB
Updated: 6 days ago
Ninety-nine percent of the comments said don’t. They did.
August 04, 2026
Four final rules published 03–04 August 2026 move RIF appeals, suitability actions, and probationary appeals out of the Merit Systems Protection Board and into OPM — with review by the OPM Director and no appeal to the Federal Circuit.
Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): the agency that writes the personnel rules now judges the appeals from them.
OPM finalized four regulations published in the Federal Register on 03–04 August 2026. Adjudication of RIF appeals (doc. 2026-15666), suitability actions (2026-15650), and probationary period appeals (2026-15654) moves from the Merit Systems Protection Board to OPM’s Office of Merit System Accountability and Compliance, with review by the OPM Director and no appeal to the Federal Circuit. A fourth rule (2026-15665) reweights RIF retention toward recent performance over tenure.
Roughly 1,250 comments were filed on the RIF appeals transfer. Ninety-nine percent opposed it. Director Scott Kupor cited MSPB backlogs running months and, in some cases, years — a real problem, addressed by removing the forum rather than staffing it.
Former MSPB member Raymond Limon called it "an existential threat to due process," and contrary to the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act’s whole design, which was to separate the writing of personnel policy from the judging of it.
Every accommodation denial, every suitability re-review, every convenient probationary termination we have fought since 2021 ran through some version of that separation.
It is gone. Plan accordingly.
SOURCE LINKS
● Government Executive (Erich Wagner, 31 Jul 2026) — https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2026/07/opm-finalizes-rules-expanding-its-power-over-rifs-employee-appeals/415157/
● Federal Register, Reduction in Force Appeals — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/03/2026-15666/reduction-in-force-appeals
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