US SS knives SA on HR for HS.Night of the long knives.

[Matthew X]

Remember when the SS took over from the SA Lili Marlene?
The Bush administration did not go far enough when it recommended giving 
the proposed Homeland Security Department extra flexibility in hiring, 
retaining and firing department staff, according to President Bush's 
Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Despite already heated opposition to Bush's proposal in the Senate, the 
council, which draws its members from the public and private sectors, 
suggested several ideas in a meeting last week, including that senior 
executives and managers slated to join the proposed department be required 
to apply for the new positions they would hold.
Using this tactic, the administration, employees and the public can be sure 
that the department's leaders are really the best people for the job, not 
just the people who held certain titles before, said council member Ruth 
David, president and chief executive officer of Analytical Services Inc.
Measuring the performance of people, as well as systems and programs, is 
important throughout the department, council members agreed.
The council was especially concerned with the role of middle managers. For 
example, they proposed evaluating managers on their ability to make their 
staff members work as a team — and replacing managers if they fail.
"Culture is an asset, but it can never be an excuse," said Norm Augustine, 
former chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corp., whom the council 
called in to share ideas on integration. Augustine also served as a member 
of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, a bipartisan 
group established by Congress that called for a homeland security 
department in its final February 2001 report. Members acknowledged that 
many of the flexibilities the council suggested do not easily fit within 
the government structure. "We're having to invent an entirely new process 
of integration," said Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt, a council member.
But all agreed that past experience merging agencies shows that working by 
old management rules will cost critical years while trying to bring 
together all the pieces of the proposed department.
"We do not have the time to repeat those patterns," said council member 
Lydia Thomas, president and CEO of Mitretek Systems Inc.
Council members said management flexibility was critical to the success of 
the department. But the concept still faces a fierce debate in Congress.
Although the House passed its version of the Homeland Security Department 
bill July 26 with the management flexibilities intact, the battle in the 
Senate, which is still deliberating the bill, is heating up.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs 
Committee, sent a letter last week to members of Congress highlighting the 
differences between the president's bill to create the proposed department 
and the Senate version. Lieberman's committee leads the Senate's work on 
the bill.
In the letter, he said that the Senate is already giving the administration 
"all the power it needs to create and run an effective, performance-driven 
department."
"In my view," Lieberman wrote, "the administration has blurred the focus of 
its bill and risked dragging this common cause into a quicksand of 
unnecessary controversy by taking on significant but vague new executive 
powers that are uncalled for and in some cases unprecedented."
Meanwhile, in a report last week, Bobby Harnage, national president of the 
American Federation of Government Employees, maintained that "pretty much 
what the administration is pleading for already exists." Flexibility, 
Harnage said, is another word for "gutting the civil service merit system 
and busting employee unions."
A push for more power
President Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Council highlighted several 
management flexibilities that its members consider essential to the 
proposed Homeland Security Department, including the ability to:
* Pick managers based on the new department's structure rather than on 
employees' old titles and positions.
* Give the department's chief information officer control of every portion 
of the information technology budget.
* Identify an independent group or person who can observe the management 
practices of the agency and highlight where and when problems occur.
* Make quick personnel changes when managers are not successful in bringing 
their groups together into one culture and promote managers who support the 
department's goals.
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0902/news-mgt-09-02-02.asp
Check survey on front page.47% to 53% when I looked today.