Gabe Menchaca is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Niskanen Center and, among many other things, served in the Office of Personnel and Performance Management at the White House Office of Management and Budget where he led a variety of management initiatives, including on federal hiring reform, the President’s Management Agenda, and several of the Biden Administration’s signature digital service delivery projects.
In a year when management issues like human capital, IT modernization, and improper payments have received greater attention from the public, examining this PMA tells us a lot about where the Administration’s policy is going to be focused through its last three years.
There is a lot to like in OPM’s new memos on federal hiring and senior executives, much of which reformers have been after for years, but there’s also a troubling focus on politicizing the federal workforce.