Where’s WALDO Act
Analysis under review: This bill has generated analysis that may be too generic or incomplete. Clause-level evidence remains available below.
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Where'"'"'s WALDO Act (Where'"'"'s the Workforce At Listed by Duties and Office) requires the Director of the Office of Personnel Management to build and maintain a searchable, publicly accessible website within 18 months that lists every individual in the federal civil service. For each employee, the site must display their job title, duty description, employing agency, primary duty station, annual pay including bonuses, and appointment date. The bill also requires annual public reports on the total number of federal contract employees and the total cost of those contracts, broken down by agency.
Who Benefits and How
The general public and government transparency advocates benefit by gaining unprecedented access to detailed information about the federal workforce, enabling oversight of government staffing, pay, and operations. Journalists, researchers, and watchdog organizations gain a structured data source for accountability reporting. Members of Congress benefit from clearer visibility into the federal workforce they fund.
Who Bears the Burden and How
The Office of Personnel Management bears the primary implementation burden of building the website within 18 months, collecting data from all federal agencies, and maintaining it. Federal agencies must provide employee data and contractor information to OPM. Federal employees may have concerns about the public disclosure of their duty station, pay, and personal employment details, though the bill does not address privacy carveouts.
Key Provisions
- OPM must create a searchable public website within 18 months listing all civil service employees with title, duties, agency, duty station, pay (including bonuses), and appointment date
- Annual public reports must detail the total number of federal contract employees and total contract costs, disaggregated by agency
- Uses existing legal definitions for civil service (5 U.S.C. 2101), contractor (41 U.S.C. 7101), and contract employee
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Directs the Office of Personnel Management to create a searchable public website listing every federal civil service employee with their title, duties, agency, duty station, pay, and appointment date, and to publish annual reports on federal contract employees and costs.
Key Policy Areas
Government Operations, Government Transparency
Primary Purpose
Directs the Office of Personnel Management to create a searchable public website listing every federal civil service employee with their title, duties, agency, duty station, pay, and appointment date, and to publish annual reports on federal contract employees and costs.
Policy Domains
Whole Bill
Identified Gains
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation- General public and taxpayers
- Government transparency and watchdog organizations
- Journalists and researchers
- Members of Congress
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
Identified Costs
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation- Office of Personnel Management
- Federal agencies (data providers)
- Federal employees (personal data disclosed)
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeMs. Ernst introduced the following bill; which was read twice …
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security …
Introduced in Senate
Impact analysis is available but no clear stakeholder effects identified. View clause-level analysis →
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "the_director"
- → Director of the Office of Personnel Management
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology