February 05, 2025

OPM pushes to reclassify chief information officers, opening up position to politics; Treasury sued by union groups over systems access given to Elon Musk and DOGE

4 minutes

A new memo from the Office of Personnel Management has recommended that federal agencies reclassify the position of chief information officer, in what appears to be an attempt to make the technical position far more political than it’s previously been. Specifically, the new designation would have the chief information officer serve as a “general” employee rather than a “career reserved” employee. General employees, according to OPM, can be filled by a range of people, including “career, noncareer, limited term or limited emergency” senior executive branch appointees. Career reserved positions, meanwhile, are supposed to be impartial and can only be filled by career appointees. The memo argues that CIOs have served increasingly policy-based positions, given their focus on issues including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and machine learning. The document argues that reclassifying the position could also help increase the potential talent pool for CIOs.

A coalition of labor unions is suing the Treasury Department and Secretary Scott Bessent over the disclosure of Americans’ personal and financial information to Elon Musk and the tech billionaire’s Department of Government Efficiency surrogates. In a lawsuit filed Monday to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union allege that the Treasury Department under Bessent allowed Musk and his DOGE associates to access the personal information of millions of individuals who have transacted with the federal government. That personal information includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, birth places, home addresses and telephone numbers, email addresses, and bank account information, according to the lawsuit. A Treasury employee initially prevented DOGE workers from accessing those records, the department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. But according to the lawsuit, once Bessent was confirmed, he placed that employee on leave and provided the DOGE crew with “full access to the Bureau’s data and the computer systems that house them.”

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