DHS Options to Be Sorted

A review group of agency and union officials is holding a series of hearings this week on personnel policy changes at the Department of Homeland Security, the latest step in what remains a long process before any policies are carried out. The group hopes to whittle down a comprehensive set of options produced by a working group while building consensus among the various interests inside and outside the agency, which has a legislative charter to create a “flexible and contemporary” personnel system for itself outside of many standard civil service rules. Much of the attention has been focusing on pay-setting practices and the related issues of job classification and pay-for-performance. Unions also are focusing on scope of bargaining and other labor relations issues, as well as potential changes in employees’ rights to appeal disciplinary actions. The working group produced a variety of options in each of those areas, many of them drawn from “demonstration” projects and other forays into alternative personnel practices, many of them in the Defense Department. The review committee’s recommendations will go to the heads of DHS and the Office of Personnel Management, who would then make final choices and issue implementing rules.