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Washington, D.C.—While a delay of up to a year in implementing a proposed and badly flawed new pay system is a step in the right direction by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the leader of the union representing some 14,000 DHS employees said today “that alone is not enough.”

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) once again called on DHS to work with NTEU to develop systems that will really improve DHS’s ability to accomplish its missions.

DHS today told its employees it would delay for as much as a year, until possibly January 2007, the planned implementation of the first phase of employee pay-banding as part of a pay-for-performance system—a system NTEU has sharply criticized since it was first proposed.

Last Friday, Kelley called on DHS to delay implementation. “I’m pleased to see that DHS agrees that it is nowhere near ready to begin moving on this unwise proposal,” the NTEU leader said. “As we said from the beginning, any personnel system, including a pay system, has to be fair, credible and transparent to have any chance to succeed. The system DHS is proposing is none of that.”

NTEU has learned that DHS has dropped from its FY 2006 budget request $10 million in funding for implementation of the new pay system but is still seeking funds for its proposed labor relations program. DHS is maintaining this request despite the fact that the labor relations regulations have been enjoined by a federal judge as a result of NTEU’s suit challenging major portions of the new personnel system.

NTEU issued its call for the delay in the wake of meetings with DHS last week during which agency contractors presented proposed performance standards for various work competencies—proposals that were roundly criticized by front-line NTEU chapter leaders as being totally out-of-touch with the realities of the workplace.

“Let’s stop making consultants rich and work together to better achieve the goals of the agency,” Kelley said. DHS has been criticized for awarding a $175 million contract to design a new pay system while frontline needs go unfunded.

“All of these recent developments are indicative of the huge problems DHS is facing in trying to implement a personnel system that does not reflect the work done by front-line employees,” Kelley said.

The new performance management system was slated to be in effect no later than Oct. 1, 2005. Meanwhile, the pay system originally was scheduled to be implemented in phases, starting in January 2006.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including about 14,000 in DHS.