Law Enforcement Issues Particularly Thorny

Another especially troublesome aspect of creating the DHS personnel system will be deciding what to do about the special pay authorities for law enforcement employees of agencies that were folded into DHS. Various allowances and other provisions have built up over the years, both at the urging of the individual agencies and certain members of Congress, that have resulted in a mish-mash of compensation practices. Crafters of the new system are faced with the question of whether to leave those authorities in place, at the risk of creating disparities within the department depending on which subcomponent an employee works for, or standardizing them, at the risk of high costs if the best benefits of each are given to all, or of alienating some employees by taking away benefits they already have by crafting a middle-of-the road approach. In addition, the project might become the vehicle for addressing differences in standards for which positions qualify for the special retirement provisions for law enforcement officers. The National Treasury Employees Union has been pushing for years to win that status for Customs Service inspectors and canine officers, among others and repeated that pitch at a recent House civil service subcommittee hearing focusing on the differences in law enforcement personnel practices.