What is The Office of Personal Management?

- From Wikipedia. 

The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is an independent agency of the United States government that manages the United States federal civil service. The agency provides federal human resources policy, oversight, and support, and tends to healthcare (FEHB), life insurance (FEGLI), and retirement benefits (CSRS and FERS, but not TSP) for federal government employees, retirees, and their dependents.

- What is the Office of Personnel Management? Trump is relying on this agency to reshape government.

Created in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter, the OPM is the equivalent of the government’s human resources department. It helps manage the civil service, including pay schedules, health insurance and pension programs. The U.S. Office of Government Ethics was spun off from OPM in 1989.

As the OPM website notes, the agency’s roots go back to 1883 with the Civil Service Act. That law established merit-based hiring for many government workers, replacing a system that was previously prone to political patronage. Trump has argued that the bureaucracy in its current formation is not responsive enough to his agenda, leading him to want to install federal officials who will implement his plans as instructed.

. . . Trump is using all kinds of federal agencies to rework the bureaucracy, not just OPM.

The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memo on Monday requiring federal agencies to pause loans and grants, creating turmoil and lawsuits as to the directive’s legality and scope. That order was rescinded Wednesday after it sparked widespread confusion.

Trump has ordered the General Services Administration to make sure it promotes “beautiful federal civic architecture” as the president dislikes styles that are less traditional.

He also gave an order changing the name of the U.S. Digital Service — which handles tech issues — to the Department of Government Efficiency, Trump’s cost-cutting initiative known as DOGE.