Giving the Department this direct authority to circumvent OPM may or may not be a good idea. Appropriate action by the committees of jurisdiction would have allowed us to determine whether or not this independent authority is needed. In short. we should not view this bill as a magic bullet to cure the ills of the Border Patrol. The Director of the OPM already has the authority to authorize the head of an agency to pay these bonuses. So the only real effect of this measure will be to cut the Federal agency with the most expertise in Federal personnel issues out of the decisionmaking process with regard to the Border Patrol.
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Border Patrol