UPDATED: DHS' Janet Hale resigns

“DHS meets with unions about blocked HR system”

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 5:45 p.m. March 22, 2006, with additional information.

Janet Hale, head of the Homeland Security Department’s management directorate, is resigning effective the end of April, DHS officials said today.

Hale has served as DHS’ undersecretary for management since the department’s inception in March 2003. Her office oversees the departmental office of the chief information officer and its acquisition operations.

Hale submitted her resignation letter to President Bush March 21 and said her last day would be May 1.

“In the first three years of the department, we have made remarkable progress in establishing, integrating and further refining this department and its mission,” she wrote.

In an e-mail message to her office employees, she wrote, “I am continuously astonished by the employees in this directorate and how dedicated you are to our mission.”

Hale has “led the way for a 21st-century human resource system, fully integrated information technology architecture, a financial management structure with accountability and a successful strategic procurement program,” DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a statement.

Hale has been a pioneer for the department and oversaw the equivalent of a corporate merger of 22 agencies, DHS spokesman Larry Orluskie said.

She has not indicated what she will do after she leaves and the department has not yet determined who might replace her, he said.

Before joining DHS in one of its first confirmed top positions, Hale served at the Health and Human Services Department as CIO, chief financial officer and assistant secretary for budget, technology and finance.