§4121 Science and technology reinvention laboratories: authority and designation

Summary

The Secretary of Defense can run special personnel demonstration projects at certain Department of Defense labs called science and technology reinvention laboratories. These projects must be generally like the China Lake demonstration project. The rules in section 4703 of title 5 apply, except subsection (d) of that section does not. The authority for these projects comes from this law, and the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering will use the powers usually given to the Office of Personnel Management, with a focus on making the labs run efficiently and with the option to get help from reinvention labs. Employees at these labs are not subject to limits on supervisor-to-worker ratios or caps on numbers in job categories. Lab directors will manage staff under the Under Secretary’s supervision. The limits in section 5373 of title 5 do not stop the Secretary from setting pay schedules and related benefits. The following labs are designated as science and technology reinvention laboratories: the Air Force Research Laboratory; the Joint Warfare Analysis Center; the Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences; the Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center; the Army Research Laboratory; the Aviation and Missile Center; the Chemical Biological Center; the Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Center; the Ground Vehicle Systems Center; the Soldier Center; the Engineer Research and Development Center; the Medical Research and Development Command; the Technical Center, US Army Space and Missile Defense Command; the Naval Air Systems Command Warfare Centers; the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center; the Naval Information Warfare Centers, Atlantic and Pacific; the Naval Medical Research Center; the Naval Research Laboratory; the Naval Sea Systems Command Warfare Centers; and the Office of Naval Research. The Secretary must put in place procedures to convert civilian employees at these labs to the demonstration project personnel system. The conversion must not hurt an employee’s pay or other job terms, must follow section 4703(f) of title 5, must be finished within 18 months after designation, and must not include prevailing rate employees (section 5342(a)(2) of title 5) or senior executives (section 3132(a)(3) of title 5). These labs may not use any other personnel system without Congress’s approval.