Federal Protective Service: Would Federalization of Guards Improve Security at Critical Facilities?

4/14/2010

House Committee on Homeland Security

Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member King, and distinguished members of the Committee, I would like to thank you for allowing me to provide comments on whether federalization of contract security guards at the Federal Protective Service (FPS) would increase protection at federal facilities. As President of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), I have the honor of representing over 150,000 federal workers in 31 federal agencies and departments.

Mr. Chairman, recent events including the February 18 attack on IRS offices in Austin, Texas, and shootings at a Las Vegas federal courthouse and the Pentagon have once again raised concerns about the vulnerability of federal buildings and the safety and security of federal employees who work in them around the country.

These attacks, in which two federal employees were killed and several others were seriously injured, serves as a grim reminder of the great risk that federal employees face each and every day in service to this country. They also have further heightened ongoing concerns by many federal employees that current safety and security standards at many federal facilities are insufficient.

Federal Protective Service

Mr. Chairman, as you know, the responsibility for ensuring the physical safety of federal employees who work in roughly 9,000 federally owned and leased facilities is given to the Federal Protective Service (FPS), within the Department of Homeland Security. Part of that responsibility also includes ensuring the security of U.S. citizens who visit many of the federal workplaces. On any given day, there can be well over one million people who are tenants of, and visitors to, federal worksites nationwide.

Unfortunately, recent reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and numerous conversations with federal employees represented by NTEU raise concerns that government employees and members of the public are not receiving the proper level of protection from the FPS. In particular, NTEU believes that inadequate funding, staffing and training at the FPS, as well as an over-reliance on outside contractors, have severely hampered its ability to carry out its core missions to protect facilities, to complete building security assessments in a timely and professional manner, and to monitor and oversee contract guards.

Inadequate Staffing

According to the GAO, while the FPS workforce has decreased by roughly 15 percent from 1,400 employees in FY 2004 to about 1,200 employees at the end of FY 2009, the contract guard force has tripled from 5,000 to 15,000 over this same period. NTEU believes these drastic cuts to the FPS workforce and explosion in the number of contract security guards have led directly to shortfalls in contract guard management, performance and has seriously impeded FPS’ ability to ensure a safe environment in which federal agencies can conduct their business.

While we understand that FPS has met a congressionally-mandated staffing level of 1,200 employees, 900 of whom are required to be full-time law enforcement professionals, NTEU remains concerned that this number falls far short of the number of federal law enforcement officers necessary to secure roughly 9,000 federal buildings and maintain proper oversight of the large contract guard workforce.

That is why we were disappointed to see that the Administration’s budget request for FY 2011 includes no additional funding for the FPS above the FY 2010 level and proposes eliminating the minimum staffing standards previously established by Congress.

Overreliance on Use of Contract Security Guards

In addition to inadequate staffing and funding, NTEU is greatly concerned that FPS’ overreliance on the use of contract security guards has severely hampered its ability to adequately protect federal facilities. Of particular concern is a 2009 GAO investigation of the FPS which identified numerous concerns with FPS’ use of contract security guards, including that

• FPS does not fully ensure that its contract security guards have the training and certifications required to secure federal facilities;

• FPS does not have a completely reliable system for monitoring and verifying contract guard training and certification requirements;

• FPS does not have specific national guidance on when and how contract guard inspections should be performed; and

• FPS inspections of contract security guard posts at federal facilities are inconsistent, and the quality of the inspections vary across FPS regions.

Additionally, GAO’s investigation identified substantial security vulnerabilities related to FPS’s guard program, including instances where explosive materials were able to successfully pass undetected through FPS monitored security checkpoints.

FPS officials have admitted there are serious problems with the use of contract security guards and that with limited law enforcement personnel, the agency is reduced to serving a reactive role, rather than a proactive force patrolling federal buildings and preventing criminal acts. Currently, the majority of contract guards are stationed at fixed posts, which they are not permitted to leave, and they do not have arrest authority. FPS has also reduced the hours of operation for providing law enforcement services at many federal buildings, resulting in a lack of coverage when employees are coming and going, and during weekend hours.

Mr. Chairman, it is clear that FPS’ excessive reliance on the use of outside contractors, part of a larger government-wide trend under the previous administration, has eroded their ability to carry out its core mission of protecting federal facilities and effectively monitoring its contract security guard workforce.

In-Sourcing Contract Guard Positions

Mr. Chairman, in light of the many problems associated with FPS’ continuing use and overreliance on its more than 15,000 contract security workforce, NTEU strongly believes that Congress should consider in-sourcing contract guard positions at the roughly 1,500 Security Level III and IV high risk facilities located around the country. Replacing contract guards who lack law enforcement authority at these facilities with Federal Police Officers that possess the full authority and training to perform traditional police functions, and restricting contract guards to solely providing monitoring functions at lower risk facilities, will ensure FPS is better able to protect federal facilities and the employees within them.

Mr. Chairman, the importance of providing adequate security at federal buildings is of great concern to NTEU and our members who have repeatedly voiced their concerns about the safety of their workplaces, their own personal safety and that of the visiting public. NTEU strongly believes that by providing FPS with increased staffing and funding and addressing their overreliance on contract security workers we can ensure that they are able to carry out their mission of securing federal buildings and ensuring the safety of the thousands of federal employees they house daily.

Federalization of the Transportation Security Administration

Mr. Chairman, as stated previously, NTEU believes FPS’ excessive use of contract security guards has jeopardized its ability to protect federal facilities and serves as a warning to other agencies as to the danger of an overreliance on the use of private contractors. Indeed, one look no further than the problems associated with the federalization of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to see how a reliance on private contractors can hamper an agency’s ability to carry out its mission.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government sought to assure its citizens by changing the security screening programs at the nation’s airports. Legislation was passed to create a new agency, the Transportation Security Administration, and to “federalize” the screeners at the airports. That legislation also allowed TSA to utilize the FAA’s acquisition system as its own. It was exempt from complying with the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations). Contracts were let with little or no data on what would be required or what the cost would be. For instance, in February of 2002, TSA awarded a contract to NCS Pearson Inc. to test, interview, fingerprint, medically evaluate and pre-certify candidates for the federal screening jobs. The original contract was for $104 million. In less than a year, the contract was costing $741 million. The contract let for airport bomb-detection machines ballooned from $508 million to $1.2 billion. In a series of Washington Post articles in 2005, the TSA employee managing the contract for a state-of-the-art computer network for TSA said he picked the ceiling amount for that contract “out of the air”. People within TSA said they knew the system would cost closer to $3 billion, but didn’t want to say so. In a 2004 report, GAO reviewed TSA’s acquisition procedures and found them lacking. In another report in 2006, GAO found that TSA had signed contracts with Boeing for explosive detection systems without any sound estimates of maintenance costs for the machines. In addition, TSA had paid Boeing $44 million in provisional award fees without any evaluation of Boeing’s performance. A DHS Inspector General report from November 2009 found that problems persist today in TSA’s management of its assets. The IG found that in some instances, new equipment is stored for years before TSA figures out where to send it. In 2007, the TSA Logistics Center received eight explosive detection systems units at a cost of about $7 million. The report states, “As of January 2009, all eight explosive detection systems units remained in storage at the Logistics Center.” They continued, “As of January 2009, TSA also had 345 explosive trace detection systems units, which cost about $10.6 million, in storage for at least a year; some of these units had been in storage for more than 2 years.” Congress reacted to the perceived shortcomings in the TSA procurement process and included a provision in P.L. 110-161, revoking TSA’s exemption from the FAR.

Unfortunately, the contracts and equipment mistakes are not the only problems created by forming an agency on an emergency basis. While both the Bush administration and Congress seemed to say they were “federalizing” the passenger screening system, a footnote placed in the Aviation Security Transportation Act provided carte blanche power to the head of TSA to create his or her own personnel system for these workers. TSA employees are only “kind of” federal employees. They have no civil service protections. They are not on the General Schedule. They are prohibited by directive from collective bargaining. As a result of that footnote, we have a government agency that is managed by fear and favoritism. TSA has one of the highest attrition rates in the government. Transportation Security Officers are the lowest paid professional staff in the federal government. TSA consistently ranks as the lowest in morale of all of government. NTEU believes that it is time for these valuable employees to become part of the rest of the civil service, with the rights and benefits due them. We stand ready to work with this committee to see HR 1881 become a reality.

If the committee decides to federalize the contractors now working for FPS, please do it right way. Bring those employees into the civil service. Don’t try to create something out of whole cloth. The General Schedule adhered to by almost all of the federal government provides a fair, transparent and credible system for federal employees. That’s where these employees should be placed, and that’s where TSOs should be placed.