DoD Reforms Clear Congress

Congress has given final approval to a Defense Department budget bill (HR-1588) containing what is being described as the most sweeping overhaul of federal employment policies since the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, authorizing DoD to create a separate “national security personnel system” for itself. President Bush’s expected signature will cap a year of at-times testy debate over exempting DoD from many standard federal personnel rules and will set the stage for a series of policy decisions regarding how the new authority will be carried out. While DoD must collaborate with the Office of Personnel Management and federal employees-including their union representatives–during that process, the measure does not create a formal structure of fact-finding and deliberations as did a law enacted last year giving many of the same freedoms to the Department of Homeland Security. DoD officials have said they do not need to go through such a process because the department has extensive experience with alternative personnel programs through demonstration projects. However, the measure anticipates that most changes will be carried out through formal regulations, which will invoke standard notice-and-comment periods.