Many agencies are already juggling significant numbers of vacancies at the top, Anne Joseph O’Connell, a political scientist and professor at Stanford University’s Law School, said Wednesday afternoon during a Brookings webinar.

Agencies often have acting secretaries for at least a short period during presidential transitions, O’Connell said. But acting secretaries have served for 10% of the time during the first three years of the Trump administration, compared with 2.7% of the time during the Obama administration’s eight years, she said.

It’s unlikely the Trump administration will fill those vacant positions before the November election, making the potential handoff to the new administration or new term less smooth. O’Connell suggested the presidential transition during the 2008 financial crisis could, however, serve as a model for today’s planners

Career federal employees, as they have in prior presidential transitions, will serve an important role in these preparations, O’Connell said. But both she and Tenpas both feared the culmination of a presidential transition and the current health crisis could push more senior federal employees to retire in the coming year.

“It’s [about] building capacity back at the career level [and] getting young people interested, instead of going into the private sector or to consulting, to going in and making their careers in the federal government and [emphasizing] the difference they can make not just in times of crisis like we’re in now but in times of normalcy as well,” O’Connell said. “That’s critical to do.”