| Welcome back to FOIA Files! On Jan. 29, a couple of weeks before Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (better known by its acronym, DOGE) began gutting the federal workforce, I tried to figure out who’d been hired to help execute the plans. I filed a FOIA request with the Office of Personnel Management, the government's human resources agency, asking for a list of all individuals hired since Jan. 20, along with their title and job description. I just received that document—keep reading to see what I was able to glean from it. If you’re not already getting FOIA Files in your inbox, sign up here. Heads up, I’ll be discussing the state of FOIA in a Bloomberg Live Q&A with Edward Ludlow on Friday, May 9 at 1pm EDT. Send me any FOIA-related questions in advance at liveqa@bloomberg.net. Since I filed my request, most of the identities of the DOGE staffers have publicly surfaced in court documents, ethics disclosure forms and internal agency documents. Reporting has centered on their previous employment, their ages and the agencies they’ve been assigned to. The list I got provides a little more color about the DOGE coterie. For example, it reveals their salary ranges, job titles and official government employee categorization.  Click on image to enlarge. Photographer: Apache POI The spreadsheet contains a list of 35 people hired by OPM between Jan. 20 and Feb. 20. A dozen were hired for typical government jobs having nothing to do with DOGE. Twenty-three have worked for DOGE in some capacity, including those who helped dismantle the US Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and others who were detailed to government agencies. (See here and here for a detailed explanation of what they’ve been up to since Jan. 20.)  Click on image to enlarge. Photographer: Apache POI One column is labeled NOA, which means Nature of Action. That’s a code used by OPM to track personnel actions, such as an employee’s type of appointment to government service. Most of the positions in the list are categorized as either Senior Executive Service, Excepted Service or Provisional Appointments. Each category has certain requirements or characteristics. For example, Senior Executive Service employees are described by OPM this way: “These leaders possess well-honed executive skills and share a broad perspective on government and a public service commitment that is grounded in the Constitution.” Some are marked NTE, or “not to exceed,” which means the jobs are limited, in some cases, to a year or less.  Click on image to enlarge. Photographer: Apache POI Another column lists different appointment classifications. Some appointments make hires eligible to receive government benefits, such as healthcare and retirement packages.  Click on image to enlarge. Photographer: Apache POI The spreadsheet shows that 12 of the OPM hires who worked with DOGE received the title of “Expert.” That’s a specific designation by OPM that determines an employee’s rate of pay. Based on OPM’s formula, experts can earn as much as $190,000 a year. The Senior Executive Service hires are paid between $150,000 and $225,000. Employees who are designated as GS-15 on the government’s general services pay scale and work in Washington, DC earn between $167,000 and $195,000. Gavin Kliger, the well-known DOGE leader, falls into that latter category. (Kliger is one of the few DOGE-related hires who has a supervisory or managerial position.)  Click on image to enlarge. Photographer: Apache POI Of course, there’ve been dozens of additional hires since I filed my initial request. I’ve already requested another set of records, so watch this space for updates! As part of my request, I also asked for OPM’s organizational chart to get a sense of how the agency has been restructured. In general, org charts like these are a great way to get a quick read on an institution’s hierarchies, key values and priorities. In this case, when comparing OPM’s most recent chart to one in 2024, you can see that the offices of Communications, Equal Employment Opportunity and Chief Information Officer are no longer listed.  Top: OPM’s 2025 organizational chart reveals three offices have disappeared. Bottom: OPM’s 2024 organizational chart. Lastly, I was curious how OPM employees reacted to the barrage of Trump’s executive actions. So I requested copies of resignation letters, if any existed, from the agency. OPM sent me 22 pages. The majority are heavily redacted. But here’s one, from an employee at the agency’s Retirement Information Office, that stands out. Got a tip for a document you think I should request via FOIA? Do you have details to share about the state of FOIA under the Trump administration? Send me an email: jleopold15@bloomberg.net or jasonleopold@protonmail.com. Or send me a secure message on Signal: @JasonLeopold.666. | 
