Deadline expires for Homeland Security Department pay and benefits plan

The deadline for creating a plan to consolidate pay and benefits at the new Homeland Security Department expired Monday.

The legislation that created the new department required Homeland Security Department officials to submit a plan to Congress by Feb. 24 that would detail options for simplifying the various pay and benefits plans available to employees of the 22 agencies folded into the new department. The plan was to be created through consulatation with the Office of Personnel Management who referred questions about the status of the plan to the Homeland Security Department. Calls to both the department and the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency Organization were not returned.

According to the Brookings Institution, the 22 agencies that make up the Homeland Security Department contain at least 80 different personnel systems and are host to 18 employee unions. Moreover, OPM was required to tackle the different rules governing basic pay, premium pay, retirement and other personnel matters for federal law officers at such agencies as the Secret Service, the Customs Service, the Transportation Security Administration, the Border Patrol and the Federal Protective Service.

Though several lawmakers fought against it, the final version of the law creating the department gave the new department unprecedented latitude to design new rules for hiring, pay, promotions, job classification, collective bargaining, performance appraisals, discipline and firing, exempting the 170,000 employees of the new department from governmentwide civil service laws in those areas. However, the law also stipulates that changes must be made through consultation with employee organizations, labor unions and managers associations.

Department officials met another deadline stipulated by the law when a handful of employees settled into temporary offices at the U.S. Naval Security Station in Washington on Jan. 24. On March 1, the Homeland Security Department will assume authority over most of the agencies transferred to the department.