Proposed Appropriations Bill Tackles DoD Personnel Management

The 2022 Department of Defense (DoD) appropriations bill from the House Committee on Appropriations addresses a number of concerns  surrounding DoD’s recruitment and retention efforts. According to appropriators, the Department of Defense needs help filling employment vacancies surrounding career and technical education (CTE) and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in order to remain competitive with its counterparts in China and Russia.

The appropriations legislation would require DoD to conduct research into hiring shortages, why they occur, and how to fix them and to report the results to Congress. In the bill, lawmakers explained, “The report should clearly identify any programs and funding that promotes advancement for females, minorities, individuals with disabilities, military students, or veterans. For each program, the report should include the award recipients’ funding amount, use, and the effectiveness of the program to recruit students into CTE or STEM programs or careers in the Department, Services, or defense industry.”

The bill also includes provisions for the establishment of a Defense CTE and STEM Education and Workforce Pipeline Strategy to bolster the DoD workforce. Furthermore, Congress expects DoD to coordinate with the Education and Labor Departments and the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Office of Science and Technology Policy on building a workforce strategy and wants to watch how DoD is actually keeping up with the need to fill its positions.

Congress also wants a report on manpower requirements, retention incentives, and education and workforce development programs by DoD.

An issue highlighted in a DOD Inspector General report released in July 2021 was that DoD was not properly coding filled and unfilled cyber positions.

According to the DoD IG report, “The DoD components we reviewed did not always comply with work role coding requirements because the DoD components did not have a quality assurance process that ensured compliance with the DoD coding guide. The DoD may be unable to properly target its recruitment and retention efforts without completely and accurately coding all of its civilian cyber positions.”