The short version: On July 2, the Office of Personnel Management and the Merit Systems Protection Board jointly proposed a rule called “Promoting Employee Accountability,” 91 Fed. Reg. 40444. It rewrites nearly every procedure federal employees use to defend their careers. It is not final — and the public comment period closes Monday, August 3, 2026. Our firm filed a 52-page opposition today. You can read it here: 20260723_Southworth_PC_Opposition_Comment_Docket_2025-OPM-0012_FINALFS. And you can file your own comment, in about ten minutes, here: regulations.gov comment page.
What this rule would actually do
We read all 81 pages — more than once. In plain English, the proposal would:
- Give you as little as one business day to answer a proposed short suspension. Proposed Friday afternoon, due Monday.
- Cut the answer window for proposed removals to 7–10 calendar days — and if a medical condition affected your performance, failing to raise it in that answer “would be considered a waiver.”
- Cap performance improvement periods at 30 days, with extensions left to the agency’s “sole and exclusive discretion” — a phrase that appears twenty-one times in the proposed regulatory text.
- Treat 10 consecutive calendar days of absence without approved leave as “voluntary” job abandonment — separation without a proposal notice, without a reply, and without the procedures Congress wrote into the law.
- Ban clean-record settlements, the tool both sides use to resolve disputes. OPM’s own analysis concedes this will make cases harder to resolve.
- Retire required review of the Douglas factors — the twelve considerations (your years of service, your record, how others were treated for the same conduct) that have disciplined penalty decisions for 45 years — replacing them with a standard under which “no particular set of factors must be considered in every case.”
One more number worth knowing: the government’s own cost analysis projects roughly 599 more removals a year, 366 more MSPB appeals, and about $21 million a year in new agency litigation-defense costs. That is the rule’s math, not ours.
What we did about it
Today our firm filed a 52-page formal opposition — a section-by-section legal analysis covering the reply deadlines, the medical-issue waiver, the abandonment rule, the settlement ban, and a factor-by-factor defense of all twelve Douglas factors, which the Board specifically invited the public to address. We wrote it the way we would write a brief: verified citations, the rule’s own text quoted back to it, and thirteen specific requested changes, beginning with withdrawal of the rule.
Read the full letter here: 20260723_Southworth_PC_Opposition_Comment_Docket_2025-OPM-0012_FINALFS. Share it, quote it, borrow from it. That is what it is for.
Why your comment matters — really
Some federal employees assume public comments disappear into a void. They do not, and the reason is legal, not sentimental.
Under the Administrative Procedure Act, an agency that issues a final rule must consider and respond to the significant comments it receives. Comments that raise specific problems — a statutory conflict, a factual error, a real-world consequence the agency never analyzed — become part of the official record. If the agency ignores them, that failure itself can become a basis for a court to set the final rule aside. In other words: every specific, substantive comment either improves the rule or builds the record for challenging it. Either outcome serves you.
And in this rulemaking, the Board did something unusual — it asked. The proposal specifically requests public comment on whether to keep “all or some” of the Douglas factors, factor by factor. When the adjudicator that will decide federal employees’ appeals asks the public which protections to keep, silence is an answer too. As of late July, the docket had drawn only a few hundred comments — from a workforce of more than two million people.
How to comment (about ten minutes)
- Go to the official comment page
- Write your comment in the box or attach a document. You do not need to be a lawyer, and you do not need to address the whole rule — one provision, addressed concretely, is a real comment.
- Submit before Monday, August 3, 2026. Comments must be received by that date. Do not wait for the weekend.
A few practical notes. Comment in your personal capacity — on your own time, on your own device, speaking for yourself and not your agency. You are not required to identify your agency or position, and the form does not require you to prove your identity; many federal employees comment without full identifying details. Remember that comments are public: do not include sensitive agency information, details of pending cases, or anything you would not want published. And specific beats angry — a concrete account of how a provision would work in a real office outweighs a page of adjectives.
What the most effective comments say
The comments agencies must grapple with are the ones that add something to the record. Ideas, keyed to the rule’s provisions:
- The one-business-day answer. Describe what gathering medical documentation, finding a representative, and writing a defense actually requires where you work. Could anyone in your office do it in one business day?
- The medical-issue waiver. How long does it take to get a specialist appointment where you live? What happens to an employee whose diagnosis is real but whose paperwork takes three weeks?
- The 10-day abandonment rule. If you have ever seen a leave request sit unanswered in an inbox, or a hospitalization outrun the paperwork, describe it. Ten calendar days includes weekends.
- The 30-day improvement period. If you have ever been on either side of a PIP, say what 30 days is — and is not — enough time to demonstrate.
- The Douglas factors — answer the Board’s own question. Tell the Board which factors should stay and why: years of service, a clean record, consistency with how others were treated. This is the single most direct invitation in the rule.
- The settlement ban. If you have ever resolved a dispute rather than litigated one, explain what happens when that exit no longer exists.
- Veterans. The federal government recruits veterans, including those with service-connected conditions, and federal law promises them robust protection. Explain how compressed medical deadlines and automatic abandonment separations land on that population.
Sample language you can adapt
Use these as starting points — then make them yours. A personalized paragraph is worth more than a pasted one.
I am a federal employee with ___ years of service. I oppose the proposed rule. A one-business-day deadline to answer a proposed suspension is not a real opportunity to respond. In my experience, obtaining medical records alone takes weeks, and finding a representative takes days. I ask that employees receive no fewer than seven calendar days to answer any proposed action.
I oppose proposed § 715.203. Leave requests where I work are not always processed quickly, and a hospitalized employee cannot always reach the right office. Treating ten calendar days of absence as a “voluntary” resignation — with no notice and no chance to respond — will separate employees who never intended to resign. Any absence rule should require written notice and an opportunity to explain before separation.
The Board asked which Douglas factors should be retained. I ask the Board to retain all twelve. An employee’s years of service, prior record, and the penalties given to others for the same conduct are what make a penalty fair rather than arbitrary. A standard under which “no particular set of factors must be considered in every case” tells employees that nothing about their record is guaranteed to count.
I oppose the prohibition on clean-record settlements. Settlement is how most workplace disputes end without years of litigation. OPM’s own analysis admits the ban will make resolution harder. Removing the main reason employees and agencies settle will produce more litigation, not more accountability.
As a veteran with a service-connected condition, I am concerned that the rule’s compressed medical deadlines and its waiver provision will fall hardest on veterans the federal government recruited because of our service. The government cannot be the “model employer” federal regulations require while making medical conditions a procedural trap.
What happens after Monday
The agencies must review the comments and decide whether to withdraw, revise, or finalize the rule; a final rule must respond to the significant objections raised. We will read whatever they publish — every page — and we will report back. If the final rule keeps its worst provisions, expect legal challenges, and expect this firm to be paying close attention.
This post is general information about a pending rulemaking, not legal advice about any individual situation.