A series of hearings will be held starting October 20 to sort through an extensive set of options prepared by a group that has been working this year on designing a new personnel system for the Department of Homeland Security. The options paper prepared by a working group that involved employee and union representatives, contains numerous possible revisions to the virtual gamut of personnel rules, including hiring, job classification, transfers, promotions, pay for performance and disciplinary rules. The upcoming hearings will be conducted in front of a higher-level review committee, which then will pass on recommendations to DHS and the Office of Personnel Management leadership. Those two agencies hope to publish proposed rules early in 2004, with the new policies beginning as soon as several months after that. In general, employees of agencies and sub-agencies that were merged into DHS on that department’s creation earlier this year have been working under the policies applying to them before the merger. With around 160,000 employees, DHS is the third-largest executive branch agency after Defense and Veterans Affairs. Its new personnel rules will set precedent for other agencies also seeking to get out from under standard civil service policies.