DoD Seeks More Personnel Authorities

The Defense Department has sent Congress its annual wish list of new civilian personnel authorities, a list that is considerably narrower this year when the Pentagon sought, and ultimately received most of, wide new authorities for which it is still drafting implementing rules. This year’s request seeks permission to: contract-out for security guard services at military installations, which under current law must be performed in-house; allow access to records in the National Driver Register for conducting security clearance background investigations; revise the priority placement program for employees displaced by downsizing; provide employment preference to spouses of DoD employees who have been reassigned under mandatory mobility programs, giving them rights comparable to those applying to spouses of military members in similar situations; allow the DoD intelligence agencies to set their senior executive pay rates at levels comparable to those now applying to federal senior executives in general, with a similar pay-for-performance requirement; and ban the wearing by civilian employees of insignia or awards that the Secretary of Defense has not authorized, in order to “maintain the integrity of these various decorations.”