Senate legislators are looking to equip the Defense Department with fresh tools in fiscal 2027 for recruiting and keeping cyber professionals, limit the department’s power to execute staff cuts, and create a program aimed at retaining top-performing supervisors and managers throughout the department.
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s draft of the fiscal 2027 defense policy bill incorporates multiple Pentagon-supported civilian workforce measures while adding safeguards for civilian staff at certain DoD entities and heightening congressional oversight of workforce downsizing.
Drawing in cyber professionals
Among the proposals is a measure that would simplify the process for staff transitioning between the cyber excepted service (CES) and the competitive service.
Although the cyber interagency transfer authority allows staff to move between the excepted service and the competitive service, certain cyber employees holding CES roles on permanent excepted service appointments still cannot be placed into competitive service roles without needing to apply as outside, non-federal candidates. The proposal would broaden the transfer agreement authority across the entire department.
Lawmakers are also aiming to reduce the probationary period for CES staff from three years down to two years, bringing it more in line with other personnel frameworks.
The Defense Department stated that an inconsistent probationary period “damages morale and can discourage highly qualified candidates from applying.”
Both proposals were included in the Defense Department’s fiscal 2027 legislative proposal package delivered to Congress in April.
Safeguards against workforce cuts
The committee’s bill features multiple provisions designed to prevent future layoffs of DoD civilian personnel.
One measure would prohibit the Defense Department from using fiscal 2027 funds to enforce hiring freezes, reductions in force, or hiring slowdowns at public shipyards.
A comparable provision would extend those same protections to organizations financed through a working capital fund.
The Defense Department shed nearly 10% of its civilian staff in 2025, but DoD’s workforce trimming didn’t start last year — the Government Accountability Office found that many components had scheduled reductions in their civilian workforces between fiscal 2023 and 2025.
“If you examine the three fiscal years collectively, overall, roughly 22 of the 40 components did schedule some reductions, so we were seeing cuts across the board. Starting in 2025, the department carried out several workforce reduction measures outside of the standard budgeting cycle,” Kristy Williams, director of defense capabilities and management at GAO, told Federal News Network.
“Overall, the DoD civilian workforce shrank by just under 10% from January 1, 2025, to January 1, 2026. That was a significant downsizing of the civilian staff, and I think this is especially critical because if you step back and look at the total number of civilians the department employs, these individuals are performing some essential missions for the department — whether it’s caring for active duty service members and their families, overseeing weapon systems and facilities, delivering logistics support — there’s a broad spectrum of activities,” she continued.
Lawmakers are also requiring the Defense Department to inform Congress at least 45 days before approving any civilian workforce changes that would lead to a reduction in force of 50 or more full-time employees.
Telework and remote work transparency
The legislation would further mandate that the Defense Department reveal whether open positions at the Defense Department qualify for telework or remote work, and whether exceptions to returning in-person are accessible to applicants.
The measure also urges the Defense Department to “consider, in line with merit system principles and mission needs, the use of telework and remote work flexibilities to support the hiring of military spouses.”
While the Office of Personnel Management “categorically” excluded federally employed military spouses from the Trump administration’s return-to-office order last year, military spouses have encountered difficulties when seeking telework or remote work accommodations.
Pilot program to keep top performers
To help retain leading civilian managers, Senate legislators want the defense secretary to initiate a five-year pilot program that would empower the defense secretary to grant bonuses and other rewards to high-performing supervisors and managers. Performance benchmarks would be set by the defense secretary, per the bill.
The pilot would be capped at no more than 250 positions at any given time.
Broader pay authority for the defense industrial base workforce
The defense industrial base is confronting serious labor shortages. One avenue Senate lawmakers are pursuing to tackle the problem is granting the defense secretary wide-ranging authority to set pay in line with private sector salaries.
“The committee recommends a provision that would set the pay for wage-grade workers stationed at any defense industrial base facility, in order to make pay rates comparable to the private sector and surrounding localities,” the fiscal 2027 reporting language states.
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