Senate Democrats seek to restore, strengthen PMF program with new legislation
Two Senate Democrats hope to reinstate the recently eliminated Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program and permanently secure the nearly 50-year-old effort for recruiting and retaining federal talent.
The Training Aspiring Leaders Emerging Now to Serve, or TALENTS Act, which Sens. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced Thursday, would reestablish the PMF program. The bill comes in response to President Donald Trump eliminating the PMF program by executive order in February.
Under the TALENTS Act, the PMF program would not only be restored, but also codified in federal regulations, effectively preventing an executive order or presidential directive from changing or removing it in the future.
Kim and Merkley, both former PMFs themselves, view the PMF program — which was established in 1977 during the Carter administration — as an effort that has ushered significant and critical talent into the federal workforce over the course of decades.
“I saw it as one of the best tools that we had to be able to bring in young talent into the U.S. government,” Kim told The Federal Drive in March. “It wasn’t just about me individually getting a chance to serve, but being part of a class and a community that was able to support each other, to encourage each other to take on different jobs, and to try to continue on in public service.”
The PMF program is highly selective and competitive. For the 2024 class of PMFs, the program selected 825 finalists out of a total of 7,193 applications. The finalists represent a range of more than 100 academic degree programs, across 264 institutions around the globe, according to the PMF program’s website. About 14% of the 2024 finalists were veterans.
Program finalists take on two-year paid positions at agencies, which are generally focused on federal leadership development. The positions are reserved for those with graduate degrees or other similar types of advanced degrees.
But as part of sweeping changes to the federal workforce over the last few months, Trump called for the elimination of the PMF program, saying it was “unnecessary” and that its termination would support his administration’s effort to “dramatically reduce” the federal government.
Sara Mogulescu, president of the Volcker Alliance, said Trump’s elimination of the PMF program “chokes off a key source of high-achieving, talented graduates that agencies need to meet mission.”
“The TALENTS Act is an important step to restoring the PMF program and investing in the next generation of government leaders,” Mogulescu said in a press statement Thursday.
Since employees in the PMF program are early in their federal careers, many were swept up in the mass firings of probationary federal employees several months ago, in many cases even before the overall program was canceled. Some have been temporarily reinstated, but their future federal careers are still unclear as the PMF program itself remains shuttered.
Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, said the newly introduced legislation to restore the PMF program “recognizes that our government’s ability to develop the next generation of federal leaders is essential for its capacity to deliver for the American people.”
The new legislation from Kim and Merkley would also reinstate and codify the government’s 28 Federal Executive Boards, which Trump also eliminated as part of the same executive order from February. Trump similarly touted the removal of FEBs as a step toward “efficiency” and reducing the size of the federal government.
However, advocates argued that FEBs improve, rather than take away from, federal government efficiencies. Some expressed concerns that without the executive leadership boards, agencies would revert to a more siloed approach to issues such as emergency preparedness and federal employee training, while facing limited opportunities for cross-agency management.
If enacted, the TALENTS Act would additionally require the Office of Personnel Management to report to Congress every three years on the impacts and challenges of both the PMF and FEB programs, as well as detail recommendations for continued improvements in the programs.
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