The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee this week could approve legislation (S-1166) that would give the Defense Department most of the new personnel flexibilities it is seeking while putting on the brakes in several important areas. Backers of the plan hope its bipartisan nature will make it an acceptable compromise position in an upcoming conference between the House and Senate over the fiscal 2004 Defense Department budget. The House version of the DoD budget bill largely gives the Pentagon the powers it requested, but a sharp division arose there along party lines during committee consideration and during House voting when Democrats attempted to get the bill sent back to committee with instructions to add greater employee protections.
The Senate committee bill would create a pay banding and pay-for-performance system to replace the general schedule at DoD but would limit it to 120,000 employees in the first year and 240,000 in the second, with the limits ended in the third year and beyond. The bill also would grant DoD’s request to bargain certain issues at the national level rather than the local level while protecting other union rights. It further would allow DoD to create an internal appeals process for employees while letting affected employees appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board and then into federal court.
