Some Phased in, Some Left Out

The paper also notes that under the law, the initial implementation “may include up to 300K (300,000) employees in any organizational or functional unit” but that full implementation is authorized only once the Secretary of Defense makes a determination that the performance management system complies with certain requirements-including that it is “fair, credible, and transparent,” in the words of the law. In addition, certain Defense laboratories that have separate personnel systems in operation under a prior “demonstration project” authority are excluded from the new agency-wide system until fiscal 2009. Even then, the new system will apply to those labs only to the extent that the flexibilities under the national security personnel system are greater than the flexibilities the labs currently have.