According to a syndicated NYT story run in the Houston Chronicle, only 3 percent of employees at the Department of Homeland Security said they are confident that personnel decisions are “based on merit.” … “Only 12 percent of the more than 10,000 employees who returned a government questionnaire said they felt strongly that they are “encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things.”
“In each instance and many others, the responses of the Homeland Security employees were less favorable than those of all the other departments and agencies surveyed by the federal Office of Personnel Management, a new study by an outside research organization shows.”
The article didn’t cite the survey. The results look ominous for terrorism prevention and disaster readiness.