Donald J. Devine

Revolution In Defense Personnel
May 21, 2003

Already the most popular Secretary of Defense ever, Donald H. Rumsfeld, will very soon become America's most important military reformer, surpassing the legendary James Forrestal who created the department more than a half-century ago. Rumsfeld had already imposed sufficient modernization of force doctrine to revolutionize rapid strike warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, and had embarked upon a reorganization that would guarantee efficient control of the military organizations. Now he has proposed to reform defense civilian operations, including taking on the politically powerful unions and in a dramatic vote this week was backed by a normally obstructive House civil service subcommittee.

The civilian side of defense is even larger than the military one and it is the one that sets much of the policy that drives both sectors. Not only are there 750,000 non-uniformed defense personnel on the payroll and another 320,000 jobs planned to be shifted from military to the civilian personnel but, when one counts the private contractors, there are scores of them supporting every person in uniform. It makes an enormous difference to military effectiveness how these civilian personnel do their jobs.

Under the leadership of personnel undersecretary David. S. C. Chu, the core of the new plan would replace the current civilian General Schedule, with its standardized and detailed pay rates awarded automatically for time served, with a flexible broad-banded pay for performance system. It would also make it easier to hire workers, relax restrictions on hiring retirees and limit the ability of unions to bargain over work assignment and work condition rules. It is an updated version of a plan offered by Ronald Reagan in the 1980's that was blocked by federal union political intrigue in Congress.

The time could not be more auspicious for reform--with two military victories in a matter of months and a continuing need to combat terrorism. As the ultimate success of labor and personnel reform at the Department of Homeland Security proved, government management reform finally has a political constituency. Indeed, the federal union's allies paid dearly in the 2002 election for their delaying tactics by helping Republicans gain additional seats The House civil service subcommittee hearing even resulted in only minimal griping from Members normally oversensitive to federal employee constituency concerns. Even better, the House Armed Services Committee, under chairman Duncan Hunter, is now threatening to put the plan on the new defense authorization bill, where the unions do not have a veto and the merits might even prevail through the Senate.

The only point of general contention that deserves some consideration is the proposal to cut the Office of Personnel Management out of the approval process. While I might be faulted for institutional loyalty to my old agency, in government it is always wise to have some institutional checks. The secret is to not let them get oppressive and block needed alterations. Most of the time OPM has been a leader in management reforms and has been resisted by the agencies, including career DOD personnel. Certainly, the present OPM director, Kay Coles James would not be a hindrance to this type of reform and, indeed, is saluting by supporting the plan, including freezing herself out of the process. The problem is that Mr. Rumsfeld will not always be the secretary and future secretaries should not be able to change a system that affects policy and people so profoundly on mere whim.

In the even more important area of security and suitability background investigations, resistance at DOD in the past has reached near dereliction of duty. Many years ago, OPM was given general supervision over DOD on suitability policy but the investigations themselves were to be performed by DOD. An OPM audit under my watch found that DOD had diluted the quality of the investigations and, in many cases, was simply not performing the required re-investigations at all, allowing spies to remain comfortably in place. It took months and a personal appeal to Secretary Caspar Weinberger-who clearly had more important things on his mind but recognized the danger to security-for him to overrule the DOD bureaucrats and fix the investigations.

If Secretary Runsfeld is as smart as I think he is, he will back down on the question of OPM review, a decision that would not frustrate his plans in the slightest. The prognosis for reform has never been brighter. War is simply too important to be left to union micromanaging or in the hands of an incompetent executive who has been inappropriately promoted simply because he had seniority. And if it works at DOD-which it will with sufficient commitment--it might even spread to the domestic side and promote good management there also. But, perhaps, that is asking for too much.