A spending bill for DHS that could come to a House vote this week addresses several management-related challenges for the department, although the main focus of the debate over the bill involves potential impacts on immigration policy.
The bill is needed because DHS funding extends only through February, even though other agencies have funding through the remainder of the current fiscal year.
It orders submission of a spending plan and quarterly briefings on the long-running effort to consolidate DHS headquarters functions into one site; a strategy for reducing the time required for hiring personnel, and quarterly data on hiring timelines by component; a review of professional standards of conduct in the Secret Service and new guidance for behavior; and deployment of new cyber intrusion prevention security systems and continuous diagnostics capabilities for federal agencies.
The bill also requires DHS to: develop a plan with the goal of reducing international operations costs by up to 10 percent in fiscal year 2015; submit a justification if it designates as classified any information it presents to Congress; report on the results of a pilot program of having border patrol officers wear body cameras;
An explanation of the bill is here: http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20150112/114-HR240-ES.pdf
