Democracy Forward official warns mass departures, policy changes threaten federal civil service

An official from Democracy Forward, identifying herself as the managing director of Civil Service Strong, told a hearing that more than 350,000 federal employees left the civil service last year and that recent policy changes risk further losses and erosion of job protections.

The speaker said the exodus occurred through deferred resignation, early retirement, reductions in force and other separations and described the departures as removing roughly 4 million years of combined institutional experience. "Over the course of last year, more than 350,000 individuals exited the civil service program," she said, adding that the departures had harmed the delivery of essential government functions.

She told the panel that the total cost to taxpayers of these workforce changes was about $20,900,000,000 and that the deferred resignation program alone "cost taxpayers almost $15,000,000,000" by paying some federal workers to remain off the job for as long as eight months. The speaker described the deferred resignation program as one that "Congress never authorized." She also cited an Office of Personnel Management estimate that an initial 50,000 jobs could be converted under a new appointment category, with more conversions possible depending on how broadly the administration applies the change.

The testimony highlighted particular concern for veterans. The speaker said the policies had led to the loss of an estimated 100,000 veterans from the civil service and called their work "critical to people across the country." She argued that the scale of departures and conversions threatens institutional knowledge and taxpayer value and that litigation alone was not sufficient to rebuild a resilient civil service.

To address the problem, the speaker described a new initiative intended to reimagine government with a people-centered approach and said Democracy Forward has recruited more than 25 civil service fellows — former senior officials — to advise the effort. "We are building a people-centered approach to government by listening to people about what they want from their government," she said.

The speaker urged updating policies that, she said, had not been meaningfully revised in decades and stressed the need to rebuild talent pipelines and protections for career civil servants. The testimony concluded with a call to reimagine and innovate to restore the federal workforce before more institutional capacity is lost.

The hearing record does not show a vote or formal action on the proposals discussed during this testimony.