The buzz of the week: DHS personnel rules

A federal judge recently put a turn in the road that the Bush administration has been constructing in its effort to make the most significant changes to government personnel rules in years.Earlier this month, Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia blocked the Homeland Security Department from implementing its new personnel management system. She said the changes would eliminate rights and protections that Congress expressly wanted DHS employees to have.The DHS personnel rules, similar to ones set out by the Defense Department, give managers more authority and seek to link pay to performance.The ruling focuses specifically on DHS' proposed changes. Defense officials, however, said they were moving forward with their personnel rules.Meanwhile, DHS and union officials, including Colleen Kelley, left, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, met late last week to discuss the next steps.The Government Accountability Office has already chided DOD officials for not being fully communicative about their proposed rule changes. It appears that the same can be said of DHS.Read the rest of what happened last week, including links to the stories, .