House panel probes latest DHS personnel overhaul

Members of a House subcommittee on Thursday questioned why the Homeland Security Department has continued to move forward with its controversial personnel system in the face of charges that it has caused employee morale to plummet.

At a hearing of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on management, lawmakers sought to discover whether DHS' shift from developing a controversial system known as MaxHR to a new approach called the Human Capital Operational Plan was more than simply a name change. Marta Perez, the DHS chief human capital officer, assured lawmakers that the new plan will implement many important initiatives that MaxHR did not address, including hiring, retention, training and vocational efforts. "What we have done in the operational plan is define new priorities to make sure we have the right talent in place," she said.

But lawmakers expressed concern over portions of MaxHR that are continued in the new system. Last spring, an appeals court ruled the labor relations portions of MaxHR illegal, and while the court did not rule against the regulations on appeals, adverse actions and performance management, it did label them as unfair, lawmakers said. The Human Capital Operational Plan seeks to implement the portions of MaxHR not struck down by the court.

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