The Modern Employment Reform, Improvement, and Transformation (MERIT) Act of 2025 significantly restructures federal employee discipline, grievance, and employment procedures. The bill streamlines the process for disciplining or removing federal employees by lowering the evidence standard from "clear and convincing" to "preponderance of the evidence," eliminating mandatory performance improvement plans, compressing decision timelines to as little as 7 business days for employee response and 15 business days for final agency action, and removing the right to grieve adverse actions through union processes or appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board. The legislation also creates expedited removal procedures for supervisors, expands agency authority to conduct emergency furloughs with minimal notice, allows agencies to reduce retirement benefits for employees convicted of felonies, prevents bonuses for employees found to have engaged in serious misconduct, and extends probationary periods from one to two years for certain federal employees. Most provisions take effect one year after enactment, with the Office of Personnel Management required to issue implementing regulations within 180 days.
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