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Washington, D.C.—An assertive and successful lobbying effort by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) resulted in action today by the House Appropriations Committee to reject a request by the administration for an additional $41.7 million in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fiscal 2007 funding for a discredited personnel system that has twice been found illegal by a federal court.

Instead, in its markup of the DHS appropriations bill and in line with action by the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee last week, the full committee funded the so-called MaxHR personnel system at the same level as the last fiscal year, $29.7 million.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley called the committee’s decision “the much wiser course, both for DHS and the nation.”

The NTEU leader led the fight against the funding requested, arguing persuasively from the time the administration made public its fiscal 2007 budget proposal earlier this year that misguided DHS priorities—including the MaxHR personnel system—threaten to weaken the nation’s security.

In late February and early March, NTEU chapter leaders and members from around the country, in Washington for the union’s annual legislative conference, lobbied strongly against the new personnel system. In April, Kelley submitted congressional testimony to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on the issue. And only a week ago, in a letter to all members of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee, the NTEU leader urged that appropriations body to reject the $41.7 million in the administration’s fiscal 2007 budget request for DHS away from implementation of the personnel system in favor of using additional funding for manpower needs at ports of entry.

She noted that the proposed White House boost for the MaxHR personnel system would have represented an increase of 133 percent over fiscal 2006 funding for that purpose.

Kelley said a proposed increase of this magnitude stands in sharp contrast to the administration proposal of enough additional CBP resources for fiscal 2007 to fund only 21 employees for border security, inspection and trade facilitation at the nation’s 317 ports of entry.

There is no question, she said, that “there are many other pressing priorities for this money within DHS.”

And the NTEU leader added pointedly: “It is becoming more and more obvious that DHS’s personnel system is fundamentally flawed from a legal as well as practical perspective.”

NTEU is lead counsel in a federal court suit against a regressive personnel system DHS is trying to impose on its workforce; the new system, which has been enjoined by a federal district court,

would severely curtail employees’ collective bargaining, due process and appeal rights.

That legal proceeding is awaiting a further decision, expected later this summer, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. DHS appealed the district court’s ruling, and NTEU filed a cross-appeal on matters about which the lower court did not fully adopt NTEU’s position.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 federal workers in 30 agencies and departments, including nearly 16,000 in DHS’s Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).