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Washington, D.C. — The leader of the union representing thousands of front-line border security workers today called on a key House appropriations subcommittee not to waste $53 million in limited resources to fund a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel system.

Instead, said President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the money should be directed towards increased staffing among Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, import specialists and other CBP staff.

In addition to the obvious need for more border security personnel, Kelley said it is vital that the number of import specialists be increased to ensure that goods entering the country are checked for compliance with laws and treaties, and that “contraband that could endanger our citizens does not make it across the borders.”

The NTEU leader made her comments in a letter to every member of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee which is beginning work on the fiscal 2006 DHS funding bill.

Of the $53 million increase over last year requested by the administration, $18 million would be used to pay contractors to help design the new DHS performance management system. “DHS has a large cadre of human resources personnel on the payroll,” Kelley wrote. “Aren’t any of them experts?

Do they really need $18 million worth of contractors to design a new performance management system…when our ports and borders are understaffed?”

Kelley was sharply critical, as well, of the proposed use of another $6 million to set up internal labor relations boards to decide labor-management disputes. “These types of disputes are currently handled by the independent Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), which could continue to review these issues with no additional funding from this appropriations bill,” she said.

NTEU has been leading the fight against implementation of new DHS personnel regulations, announced in February. These regulations, Kelley said, will not only eviscerate employees’ collective bargaining and due process rights—and allow them to lose pay even if they are performing well—they will make it difficult for the department to recruit and retain the high-quality workforce it needs.

“Protecting our homeland is the highest priority of the men and women who work on the front lines of the war against terrorism,” the NTEU president told members of the subcommittee. “Please support their efforts by targeting limited resources to critical mission needs.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including more than 15,000 in CBP, a major component of DHS.