OFCCP May 2026 Quick Hits: Enforcement, Leadership, and Beyond

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Lauren Hicks: Hello, I’m Lauren Hicks, a shareholder in Ogletree’s Indianapolis office, and I’m here today with my colleague Chris Near, a shareholder in our Columbia office. We are going to cover a few quick updates regarding the status of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, more affectionately known as OFCCP, and these are status updates as of May 2026. So first, let’s talk about what’s happening with OFCCP’s data collection and rulemaking. I want to cover a couple of things. Number one, what do contractors need to think about doing now, and number two, what might change in the future.

So, regarding what contractors may want to think about doing, quick reminder that even after the rollback of Executive Order 11246 via Executive Order 14173, OFCCP still has authority under two statutes. We have 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, which covers individuals with disabilities, and we have the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act, or VEVRAA, which covers protected veterans. So, the question everyone is trying to get a handle on right now is how active are those requirements and are they still alive? Of course, the answer is yes, but trying to get an understanding of what is still in play at the moment.

On April 23, 2026, OFCCP submitted a request to extend its information collection authority for both Section 503, which is disabilities, and VEVRA, which is veterans. What that kind of means is contractors, if they hadn’t done this, technically would’ve lost the legal obligation to keep certain records and collect certain data. OFCCP, however, did request of the Office of Management or Budget, also known as OMB, to extend those requests without changing them. If you read between the lines here, I think what this means is in the landscape of their proposed regulatory adjustments, they’re kind of saying, “We’re not ready to overhaul this yet, so don’t stop doing what you’re doing.”

So, one important takeaway is this disability form, the CC305, that self-ID form, it’s under OMB review under sort of an extension, and contractors therefore have not had a change in obligation regarding the usage of that existing form. Practical takeaway, of course, this may change at some point in the future, but for now the form is extended in its current format. Plaints are another area where OFCCP has proposed updates to the form. So logically speaking, they have requested removal of categories tied to Executive Order 11246. That means they want to remove as an option on the complaint form the selection of things like race or sex. That’s sort of logical and expected, and of course they’re going to retain the categories tied to disability and veteran status. This of course means that it will align better to the new kind of narrower jurisdiction. Not a massive deal for contractors, right? This really more impacts complainants, but it’s another area we’re waiting to see final closure on what will happen with those documents.

And as a reminder, there is a very significant pending proposed rule that would significantly scale back the disability or Section 503 obligations. Again, this is not in place today, this is not impact as of today contractor requirements, but it proposed eliminating the requirement that contractors would invite applicants or employees to self-ID as having a disability. Therefore, because it’s taking away that identification, it also kind of proposed targets or changing those targets that measure numbers related to self-ID, meaning the utilization goal and the data collection requirements. So, this would be a significant move, in my opinion, from Section 503 being kind of an important data and record collection and data-heavy compliance model to something significantly lighter. Public comments closed on that back in 2025, and no final rule has been issued. We don’t have a clear timeline unfortunately for finalization, so it’s just another thing to stay tuned.

Regarding VEVRAA, it’s much quieter, kind of extending proposals on existing requirements, keeping generally speaking, the same framework intact with some very minor adjustments related to things like hiring benchmark or things like that. So bottom line is no material changes have been implemented yet for disability or veterans. There was potentially a logistical hiccup related to the potential expiration of the disability ID form. However, OFCCP did file for an extension. So as of now, there’s no change to the obligations or what we know will be coming in the immediate future. So, this is an area to watch. We do anticipate changes. We don’t know how material they will be and we do not know when they will come. So that’s kind of the background on information collections and notice of proposed rulemaking pending regulations. Chris, I believe we have some updates regarding the OFCCP director and where things stand from a leadership point of view.

Chris Near: Yeah. So, you mentioned that there’s a handful of things that are outstanding right now and when might we see some finalizing of things and when might we have some changes to whether it’s Section 503 or VEVRAA or other topics. And one of the things that could possibly, I’m not saying it is, but could possibly be part of the hangup is at the top of OFCCP and really throughout OFCCP, there has been a lot of changes to the agency and the headcount and the workforce since January of last year, January of 2025. And one of the things that we saw just this week and were in the first week of May 2026 is we’re not even 18 months out from President Trump’s second term here and we are seeing our fifth person who is basically leading the agency.
And so, when Trump took office in January of 2025, there was an acting director there who had been there for a little while under President Biden. By the end of January, she was gone and there was a new acting director, so that was number two. And then by March of last year, the acting directors were gone and we had an official full director and that was Catherine Eschbach. She stayed on until about October of 2025 when Ashley Romanias took over. And then she, just this past, within the first week of May 2026 here, she has now left to go to another agency and Kenneth Wolfe has taken over.

So, there has been some changes at the top, which certainly could have some effect in other areas of the agency as well, we would assume. But the new director who is starting now, Mr. Wolfe, he has been a director of the U.S. Department of Labor Center for Faith since June of 2025. It appears that he has been kind of in and around Washington, D.C. and government service since the mid to late 90s. So, he would probably be no stranger to D.C. So again, we’ll continue to see if the changes at the top of OFCCP mean there’ll be other changes elsewhere for contractors and for compliance purposes and things of that nature, what types of policies might get pushed out. But Lauren, you had mentioned when you were talking about the information collection requests, you mentioned the complaint form. Any changes to the complaint form? Is that stopping complaints from being filed at OFCCP?

Lauren Hicks: That’s a good question. We get this question a lot, is OFCCP having active enforcement of complaints? So, I think the short answer is yes, but it’s a very different experience than what we’re used to, at least so far. And they may not have really established new protocols, so it’s possible that changes in the future. But even after the rollback of Executive Order 11246, OFCCP, of course, still enforces Section 503, which reminder is disability and VEVRAA of course for protected veterans. Complaints tied to disability and veteran status are still squarely within scope, although we don’t know potentially how deferential the agency might be on issues of disability to EEOC. That, I think, remains to be seen.

What are we seeing in practice? Complaints are still being filed. They’re still being processed. We do get reach outs from OFCCP. The pace is definitely noticeably slower. They seem to be sitting for quite a long time, and the investigations don’t seem to have the same kind of front-end urgency, if you will. So, you might recall in the old times that OFCCP would send the notification of the complaint and then would often come in right away with a very burdensome request for, “We want a lot of documentation, almost audit scope documentation. We might want a lot of data for the entire workforce or for a large subset of the workforce and data workbooks. And by the way, we want to do an onsite.” So pretty aggressive, pretty quickly.

We’re not seeing that kind of front-end urgency in the really broad data requests. Things feel a little quieter, a little more targeted to the nature of the complaint. Now, again, all of this is subject to sort of change over time, but right now that just seems to be what we’re seeing from the agency. Not so much the sort of boil the ocean type of demand, but the narrow-targeted jurisdiction based on the individual facts of the complainant. So yes, you can still get complaints. Yes, they will still investigate them. Yes, you ought to be prepared with your AAPs that are compliant and to show positive good faith efforts, outreach, other things that might sound favorable to the agency related to disability or veteran status.

But as a reminder, no, you will not get any questions related to Executive Order 11246, such as race or sex. Instead, you’re going to see the more limited enforcement related to disability and veteran status only, and potentially, as it seems today, less burdensome complaints, probably more aligned with what we traditionally see from the EEOC than what we used to see from OFCCP. Finally, Chris, I think we want to share information about kind of White House funding, what’s going on with the budget, and the future of OFCCP from that standpoint.

Chris Near: Yeah. If we can pull out our crystal ball and see maybe where things might go for the rest of 2020…Well, I should say the end of 2026 into 2027, because really this is kind of a note about fiscal year 2027, which wouldn’t start until October the 1st of 2026. Some may remember that for fiscal year 2026, The White House and the US House of Representatives initially tried to defund OFCCP and move enforcement of Section 503 and VEVRAA enforcement to EEOC and to the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, VETS. That ultimately did not happen for fiscal year ’26, and instead OFCCP almost got full funding. It wasn’t quite as much as the past year, but they did almost get full funding and the oversight of Section 503 and VEVRAA did stay with the agency.

That has come up again for fiscal year 2027. Beginning of April of this year, OMB published President Trump’s proposed fiscal year budget for the federal government for next year, and in that it proposed to defund OFCCP again and move the agency’s functions to an expanded Office of Civil Rights. Again, that would have to be approved through appropriations with the House and the Senate. So, we’re still a long way off. But again, wanted to at least mention the fact that that challenge and that proposal is still there.

And keep in mind, Section 503 and VEVRAA obligations still exist as they have in years past. They are statutory in nature, so for them to move to another federal agency, there would have to be changes that would actually have to come to those statutes. Now, that wouldn’t happen under the Office of Civil Rights, so a little bit easier to move things there if that were to happen. But just be aware that that proposed elimination is there and kind of just keep an eye out as the year continues, even through the midterms, as we get closer to that, and we’ll see what happens with these proposals and ultimately if we have OFCCP as it is today next year, or if maybe it’s in another fashion in some respect.

So really, we really thank you for joining us today. We wanted to give you a couple of real quick updates on OFCCP. Lauren and I will continue to keep an eye out for more updates to bring you. If you’d like more information on any of these topics that Lauren and I have talked about or others that may be of interest, please check out the many blog articles, podcasts, webinars, and other resources that can be found on Ogletree’s website. Thank you so much again, and hope you have a great day.

Announcer: Thank you for joining us on the Ogletree Deakins podcast. You can subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts or through your favorite podcast service. Please consider rating and reviewing so that we may continue to provide the content that covers your needs. And remember, the information in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as legal advice.