What does the Office of Personnel Management do? 

A lawsuit by the American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO alleges that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) allowed DOGE agents to access prohibited data of current and former federal employees. OPM filed a motion to dismiss the suit, which a federal judge denied last month.  

It’s also the agency from which DOGE sent the mass “Fork in the Road” email on January 28, offering thousands of federal employees deferred resignation.
  

Here’s a peek into the agency, one not previously known for making headlines.
 

OPM is the government’s chief human resources agency and personnel policy manager. It coordinates recruiting new employees and manages health insurance and retirement benefits programs. Established in 1979, OPM is an independent agency that operates within the executive branch but outside the president's cabinet, giving it some level of autonomy.

In fiscal year 2024, OPM accounted for 1.7% (or $118 billion) of the $6.8 trillion in federal spending. It ranked eighth among federal agencies in total expenditures.   

  

OPM administers trust funds worth $1.2 trillion to fund the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System, which cover 2.8 million federal employees and nearly 2.7 million survivors and family members. It also manages insurance benefits for 8.2 million federal employees and retirees, their families, and employees of tribes. 

The agency’s spending has increased from an inflation-adjusted $58.4 billion in 1980 to $118 billion in 2024. OPM’s share of the federal budget has shrunk: in 1980, it accounted for 2.5% of the budget. It was 2.4% in 2014 but 1.7% last year.  

OPM has estimated that its 2025 operating budget will be $1.35 billion. 

From 2005 to 2018, the agency typically staffed between 5,000 and 6,200 people. However, in 2019, one of the agency's major divisions, the National Background Investigations Bureau, moved to the Defense Department, taking approximately 3,000 workers with it.  

On April 17, a presidential memorandum extended the hiring freeze across the federal government. However, to underscore the OPM’s role as the federal human resources department, the memorandum states that the OPM director may grant exemptions as necessary. 

OPM and the Office of Management and Budget issued joint guidance on January 27 for the federal return-to-office mandate. Agencies had to email their plans for returning to full-time in-person work to both offices.  

We’ll see you next Friday. In the meantime, learn more about the OPM.