New Transparency Act Caps Temporary Gov't Employee Status at 130 Days, Mandates Public Database

If you’ve ever wondered who those high-level, temporary “special Government employees” (SGEs) are—the consultants, experts, and advisors brought in for short stints—this new bill is about to pull back the curtain. The Special Government Employees Transparency Act of 2025 makes two big changes: it puts a hard expiration date on the SGE status and requires the government to publish a detailed public list of who these people are and what they’re paid.

The 130-Day Clock Starts Now

Right now, SGEs are defined by federal law (18 U.S.C. § 202(a)) as temporary workers in the executive branch. This bill essentially says: temporary means temporary. Under Section 2, once an SGE hits 130 days of service within any 365-day period, their special status automatically ends. This is a hard stop. It doesn't matter if those 130 days were consecutive or spread out; once the meter runs out, the clock resets.

Why does this matter? SGE status often comes with different ethics and conflict-of-interest rules than standard civil servants. By capping the time, the bill forces agencies to either use these experts very briefly or commit to bringing them on full-time. The law is specific about how they count those days, too: if you spend more than an hour on administrative tasks, or any time on official non-administrative work, it counts as a full day toward the 130-day limit. This prevents agencies from trying to game the system by tracking time in minute increments.

From Consultant to Civil Servant: The Mandatory Reclassification

When that 130-day limit is reached, the employee’s agency must act fast. Within 30 days, they have to formally reclassify that person into a standard civil service position, following all the regular federal personnel rules. For the employee, this is a major shift: they move from a temporary, specialized status to a formal, permanent job classification, complete with the right to appeal or review that new classification. This means less uncertainty for the worker and more accountability for the agency, which can no longer rely on indefinite temporary appointments.

Building the Public Roster

Section 3 is where the transparency kicks in. It mandates that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), working with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), must create a public, searchable database—the “SGE Database”—within 210 days of the law passing. This database will list every “covered special Government employee,” which generally means high-level SGEs (GS-11 equivalent or higher) not serving on advisory committees.

What’s going into this database? Their name, job title, basic pay, the specific agency they work for, and their start and termination dates. This database must be free, accessible, and easy to use. For the average person, this means if a high-profile expert is suddenly advising a federal agency, you can quickly look up who they are, where they work, and if they’re being paid for it. To keep the data fresh, agencies must report any personnel changes to OPM within 30 days.

Financial Disclosures Go Public

Perhaps the most significant transparency measure is the requirement to publicly release the financial disclosure reports filed by these covered SGEs. While there are existing rules for releasing these reports, this bill makes it mandatory for executive agencies to release them to the public. This is huge for accountability, as it allows the public and watchdog groups to see potential conflicts of interest that temporary, high-level advisors might bring to the table.

There are a few narrow exceptions, like if the report contains information related to “national defense information.” Interestingly, the bill also specifically excludes certain advisory committees—those related to the U.S. DOGE Service or any “DOGE Team”—from these new transparency rules. This means that high-level temporary staff working in those specific areas will not be subject to the public database or the mandatory financial disclosure release, creating a clear carve-out in the new transparency framework.