§1762 Demonstration Project Relating to Certain Acquisition Personnel Management Policies and Procedures

Summary

The Secretary of Defense may run a demonstration project to try out changes in how the Department hires and manages the acquisition workforce and the people who work directly with them. The project follows the normal federal demo-project rules in Title 5, but some deadlines are shortened: one 180-day review is cut to 120 days and one 90-day review is cut to 30 days, and one specific rule is not applied. Those shorter rules only apply if each participating team has at least one-third acquisition workers and at least two-thirds acquisition workers plus supporting staff, and the project started before October 1, 2007. The Secretary will use the powers usually held by the Office of Personnel Management to run the project. No more than 130,000 people may be in the project at the same time. If a team met the start-up workforce rules but later changes because of a reorganization, it keeps the project’s rules. An independent organization must do two formal assessments of the project. Each review must describe who was in the project and explain how hiring flexibilities and performance appraisal flexibilities were used, whether hiring was competitive and honored veterans’ preference, how feedback and appraisal scheduling worked, effects on mission and careers, training and fairness, diversity protections, employee involvement, and any barriers found. The first review is due by September 30, 2012, and the second by September 30, 2016. The Secretary must send each review to these congressional committees within 30 days of receiving it: the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The authority to run the project ends on December 31, 2031, and within 6 months after that, employees in the project must move into the civilian personnel system created under section 9902 of Title 5.