The White House is pushing back on criticism of its merit-based federal hiring plan, asserting that it's not a "loyalty test," Axios reported Monday.
Days after the U.S. Office of Personnel Management released a 30-page memo outlining the standards, critics are bristling at what they call philosophical questions instead of knowledge, skills, and aptitude, according to the report.
One question from the Office of Management and Budget in particular asks, "How would you help advance the President's Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role?"
"When you're doing hiring, traditionally by law, you have to focus on the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for the position," Jeri Buchholz, former human resources chief at NASA, told Axios, adding that OMB's questions "are philosophical. They're not even aptitude related. And I'm very unclear how you score that."
Said Max Stier, president of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, "They're emptying the shelves of the existing nonpartisan expert civil servants, and they're restocking with the loyalists."
An OPM official defended the memo and asserted President Donald Trump's purview over the executive branch.
"The president has the power of superintendence over the executive branch and clear statutory authority to ask these questions of prospective employees. He is not imposing a loyalty test by doing so," the official told Axios.
Further, each agency will decide how or whether to use the questions.
The White House has slashed about 100,000 jobs in federal agencies.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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