§1762 Demonstration project relating to certain acquisition personnel management policies and procedures

Summary

Allows the Secretary of Defense to run a time-limited trial to test new ways of managing people who work on defense acquisitions and the staff who work with them. The trial must follow most rules that apply to other federal demonstration projects, but the Secretary can use certain faster timelines (120 days instead of 180, 30 days instead of 90, and one specific rule ignored) when each participating team has at least one-third acquisition workers and at least two-thirds acquisition workers plus direct support staff, and the trial started before October 1, 2007. The Secretary will act in place of the Office of Personnel Management for this project. No more than 130,000 people may take part at any one time. If an organization later changes in ways like reorganizing, it won’t lose the special timing just because it no longer meets the original participation mix. An independent group must do two reviews of the project. Each review must describe who was in the project and how hiring, performance reviews, fairness, training, career effects, diversity safeguards, employee input, mission benefit, and any problems were handled. The first review was due by September 30, 2012, and the second by September 30, 2016; each review must be given to the listed congressional committees within 30 days after the Secretary gets it. The authority to run the trial ends on December 31, 2031, and within six months after that, project employees must move into the civilian personnel system created under title 5, section 9902. The listed congressional committees are the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.