Senate Restricts Funds for DHS Personnel System

By: fedweek

The Senate has passed an appropriations measure for DHS (S-1644) that contains only $5 million of the $15 million the department requested for its personnel system reforms; earlier the House passed a version providing no funding for the program, formerly called MaxHR but now dubbed the human capital operational plan. The measure like the House-passed version would impose restrictions on competitive sourcing for work performed by the Immigration Information Officers at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center instructor staff. The Bush administration said it is “strongly opposed to any effort to reduce, limit, or delay funding for DHS human resources initiatives” and that “management decisions about public-private competition and accountability for results should be vested with the department.”