The decision by the Defense Department to slow down its
process of carrying out personnel reforms for its own
employees has refocused attention on the other major agency
preparing for a personnel rules overhaul, the Department of
Homeland Security.
DHS currently is reviewing the thousands of comments that
it received–many of them from individual employees–after
publishing proposed rules in February. The rules would shift
most DHS employees into a new pay system featuring pay
banding with annual raises tailored by performance,
occupation and location. The draft rules also proposed
substantial changes in employee appeal rights and union
representation rights.
In theory, DHS could move ahead to the final rule-making
stage–which would kick off a required consultation period
with unions–at just about any time. However, the department
has not indicated its expected schedule. Those involved in
civil service issues, both among outside groups and on
Capitol Hill, believe that it could be a number of months
before DHS moves to that stage, however.
Some officials note that one effect of the DoD slowdown
was to push issuance of rules carrying out its new system
to beyond this fall’s elections.
Far more employees would be directly affected by the DoD
policy than by the DHS policy, both at first and ultimately.
DHS’s new policies ultimately will affect some 110,000 of
the agency’s roughly 180,000 employees, but only about
8,000 in the initial stage. DoD also will phase in its
system in several stages but the initial phases likely will
affect tens of thousands of employees and nearly all of
the department’s more than 700,000 employees ultimately
could be affected by at least parts of the new DoD
personnel system.
