News and Special Reports

Statement of Senator Susan M. Collins

Federal Protective Service:  Time for Reform

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
July 8, 2009

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The Federal Protective Service is a key component of our nation’s security.  Every day, FPS officers and the agency’s contract security guards protect nearly 9,000 federal facilities, the people who work in them, and the visitors who come to them to access vital government services.
Unfortunately, the GAO’s investigation and a report by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General reveal alarming deficiencies in the Service’s protective operations.  
Indeed, GAO’s investigation exposed major security failings at every one of the 10 federal office buildings it tested.  At each one of these facilities, GAO investigators were able to enter the building with concealed components for a bomb, pass undetected through checkpoints monitored by FPS guards, and proceed to assemble the explosive device.  In this post-9/11 world that we live in, I cannot fathom how security breaches of this magnitude were allowed to occur.
GAO also indicates that FPS has failed to maintain effective oversight of its contract security guards.  For example, GAO states that 62 percent of the contract guards in one region had expired certifications, including certifications for weapons.  
We know from previous GAO reports that FPS no longer proactively or routinely patrols federal facilities to detect and prevent criminal incidents and terrorist activities.  FPS has also reduced hours of operation in many locations and has experienced difficulties maintaining security equipment such as cameras, X-ray machines, and magnetometers.  As a result, government buildings, the federal employees who work in them, and the public who visit them are at risk.  American taxpayers are simply not receiving the security we pay for and should expect FPS to provide.
Symptomatic of these challenges, in the state of Maine, there are only two inspectors to cover security at the federal courts and to conduct the necessary inspections at the 24 ports of entry along the border.  It is more than 300 miles from the federal courthouse in Portland to the port of entry in Fort Kent, nearly six hours in driving time. 
With so few inspectors, FPS lacks the capacity to effectively respond to incidents at the thousands of facilities they are responsible for securing nationwide.
To address these staffing concerns, I joined then-Senator Clinton and Chairman Lieberman in successfully sponsoring an amendment to the fiscal year 2008 DHS appropriations bill mandating that the number of FPS employees not be reduced below 1,200.   
The need for these trained staff has never been more apparent.  GAO’s testimony reinforces the findings of the IG in an April 2009 report.  From solicitation and award to contract management, the Inspector General found critical failings in the FPS contract guard program.  A contract guard sleeping at his post illustrates the problems and the danger.
These findings raise a basic question: should private security contractors be responsible for protecting our federal facilities?  Has the government become overly dependent on contractors to guard federal buildings?
As we look to improve the Federal Protective Service, we should strike a better balance between the number of government employees and contractors performing this protective mission.  When we do rely on private security contractors, we must ensure that FPS has a sufficient number of well-trained staff to manage these contracts effectively.
The recommendations of the Inspector General include many concrete steps to improve the award of guard contracts and to increase the training and inspections necessary to strengthen contract guard performance.
The FPS must take immediate action to adopt these recommendations and to remedy these serious security failures.  Congress also should move forward with additional measures to help protect these facilities, our federal employees, and the American public. 

The Federal Protective Service: In Need of Reform
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Chairman Joe Lieberman
July 8, 2009

Good morning. The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is the agency responsible for safeguarding 9,000 federal buildings, hundreds of thousands of federal employees, and millions of people who come in and out of those buildings every year, in cities all across the country.  Two years ago Senator Collins, Akaka, Voinovich, and I asked the Government Accountability Office to tell us how FPS is doing its job.  The answer GAO gives us today is that FPS is just not doing its job.

Most disturbing, we will hear how GAO investigators were able to smuggle liquid bomb-making materials into all of the federal buildings they tested, past unsuspecting guards who do not possess the equipment to detect it;   how they were able to actually build real bombs, and move throughout the buildings unbeknown to the guards who are there for the sole purpose of protecting the employees and visitors.  

GAO produced its first response to our request last June - a broad analysis that concluded FPS lacked adequate financial and management practices, severely hampering its overall mission to keep federal buildings, and the employees working within them, safe.

GAO’s second report – this time specifically on the management of the FPS’s private contractor guard staff - is due later this summer.  GAO’s preliminary conclusions, which are being released today, were so disturbing that we decided to air them immediately to accelerate the critical work of turning the FPS around.

In short, GAO has found that FPS is not doing anywhere near enough to make sure that its 13,000 private contract guards – the first line of defense at federal buildings -- are qualified and trained for their jobs, or are actually doing what they were hired to do.
        
FPS contract guards are required to have more than 60 hours of training, including training on how to operate metal detectors and x-ray equipment.  GAO found that in many cases, guards received no x-ray or metal detector training at all.

FPS also requires guards to maintain certain certifications, for example in CPR, First Aid, firearms, and to provide proof that they have not been convicted of domestic violence.  But GAO found that 73 percent of FPS contract guards lacked valid certifications in one or more of these areas.

The GAO report describes how, after new guards were hired, FPS did little to ensure they complied with relevant rules and regulations.   For example, the Service did not conduct inspections of guard posts after regular business hours.  GAO did, and discovered guards taking prescription medication while on duty and sleeping on an overnight shift.  In another unbelievable case, an inattentive guard allowed a baby to pass through an x-ray machine conveyor belt. That guard was fired, but he ultimately won a lawsuit against the FPS because the agency couldn’t document that he had received the required training. 

In its most shocking affirmation of these findings, GAO investigators were able to smuggle liquid bomb-making materials into 10 high-security federal buildings, construct improvised explosive devices in public restrooms, and move throughout the buildings – all without detection.  As we approach the eighth anniversary of 9/11, and some fourteen years after the bombing at the federal building in Oklahoma City, it is outrageously unacceptable that the federal employees working within these buildings, and the citizens who pass through them, are still so utterly exposed to potential attack by terrorists or other violent people.

FPS suffered serious budget shortfalls in previous years, forcing it to limit hiring, training and overtime, and to delay equipment purchases, all of which, no doubt, contributed to GAO’s findings. The agency has begun making initial adjustments to close the vulnerabilities GAO has documented.  But it has a long way to go and its leadership and the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security, in which FPS is appropriately located, must get there quickly.

Senator Collins?

HOMELAND SECURITY
Federal Protective Service Should Improve Human Capital Planning and Better Communicate with Tenants

What GAO Found

FPS did not meet its fiscal year 2008 mandated deadline of increasing its staffing level to no fewer than 1,200 full-time employees by July 31, 2008. This same mandate relating to FPS’s staffing was included in DHS’s fiscal year 2009 appropriations act. Although FPS currently has over 1,200 employees on board, it did not meet this mandate until April 2009, because of challenges in shifting its priorities from downsizing its workforce to increasing it, inexperience working with DHS’s hiring processes, and delays in the candidate screening process. Also, not all of FPS’s new law enforcement security officers have completed all required training. According to FPS officials, it expects to have all new hires fully trained by September 2009.
FPS does not have a strategic human capital plan to guide its current and future workforce planning efforts, including effective processes for training, retention, and staff development. Instead, FPS has developed a short-term hiring plan that does not include key human capital principles, such as determining an agency’s optimum staffing needs. The lack of a human capital plan has contributed to inconsistent approaches in how FPS regions and headquarters are managing human capital activities. For example, FPS officials in some of the regions GAO visited said they implement their own procedures for managing their workforce, including processes for performance feedback, training, and mentoring. Additionally, FPS does not collect data on its workforce’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. These elements are necessary for successful workforce planning activities, such as identifying and filling skill gaps and succession planning. FPS is working on developing and implementing a data management system that will provide it with these data, but this system has experienced significant delays and will not be available for use until 2011 at the earliest.
On the basis of GAO’s generalizable survey of FPS customers, customers had mixed views about some of the services they pay FPS to provide. Survey results showed that 58 percent were satisfied, 7 percent were dissatisfied, 18 percent were neutral, and 17 percent were not able to comment on FPS’s overall services. The survey also showed that many of FPS’s customers did not rely on FPS for services. For example, in emergency situations, about 82 percent of FPS’s customers primarily rely on other agencies such as local law enforcement, while 18 percent rely on FPS. The survey also suggests that the roles and responsibilities of FPS and its customers are unclear, primarily because on average about one-third of FPS’s customers, i.e., tenant agencies, could not comment on how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with FPS’s level of communication on its services, partly because they had little to no interaction with FPS officers. Although FPS plans to implement education and outreach initiatives to improve customer service, it will face challenges because of its lack of complete and accurate contact data. Complete and accurate contact information for its customers is critical for information sharing and an essential component of any customer service initiative.

IHOMELAND SECURITY
Federal Protective Service Has Taken Some Initial Steps to Address Its Challenges, but Vulnerabilities Still Exist

FPS faces challenges that hamper its ability to protect government employees and members of the public who work in and visit federal facilities. First, as we reported in our June 2008 report, FPS does not have a risk management framework that links threats and vulnerabilities to resource requirements. Without such a framework, FPS has little assurance that its programs will be prioritized and resources will be allocated to address changing conditions. Second, as discussed in our July 2009 report, FPS lacks a strategic human capital plan to guide its current and future workforce planning efforts. FPS does not collect data on its workforce’s knowledge, skills, and abilities and therefore cannot determine its optimal staffing levels or identify gaps in its workforce and determine how to fill these gaps. Third, as we testified at a July 2009 congressional hearing, FPS’s ability to protect federal facilities is hampered by weaknesses in its contract security guard program. GAO found that many FPS guards do not have the training and certifications required to stand post at federal facilities in some regions. For example, in one region, FPS has not provided the required 8 hours of X-ray or magnetometer training to its 1,500 guards since 2004. GAO also found that FPS does not have a fully reliable system for monitoring and verifying whether guards have the training and certifications required to stand post at federal facilities. In addition, FPS has limited assurance that guards perform assigned responsibilities (post orders). Because guards were not properly trained and did not comply with post orders, GAO investigators with the components for an improvised explosive device concealed on their persons, passed undetected through access points controlled by FPS guards at 10 of 10 level IV facilities in four major cities where GAO conducted covert tests.

FPS has taken some actions to better protect federal facilities, but it is difficult to determine the extent to which these actions address these challenges because many of the actions are recent and have not been fully implemented. Furthermore, FPS has not fully implemented several recommendations that GAO has made over the last couple of years to address FPS’s operational and funding challenges, despite the Department of Homeland Security’s concurrence with the recommendations. In addition,
most of FPS’s actions focus on improving oversight of the contract guard program and do not address the need to develop a risk management framework or a human capital plan. To enhance oversight of its contract guard program FPS is requiring its regions to conduct more guard inspections at level IV facilities and provide more x-ray and magnetometer training to inspectors and guards. However, several factors make these actions difficult to implement and sustain. For example, FPS does not have a reliable system to track whether its 11 regions are completing these new requirements. Thus, FPS cannot say with certainty that the requirements are being implemented. FPS is also developing a new information system to help it better protect federal facilities. However, FPS plans to transfer data from several of its legacy systems, which GAO found were not fully reliable or accurate, into the new system.

HOMELAND SECURITY
Preliminary Observations on the Federal Protective Service’s Efforts to Protect Federal Property

Due to staffing and operational issues, FPS is experiencing difficulties in fully meeting its facility protection mission. According to many FPS officials at regions we visited, these difficulties may expose federal facilities to a greater risk of crime or terrorist attack. FPS’ workforce has decreased by nearly 20 percent from almost 1,400 in fiscal year 2004 to about 1,100 at the end of fiscal year 2007. In fiscal year 2007, FPS had about 756 inspectors and police officers, and about 15,000 contract guards who are used primarily to monitor facilities through fixed post assignments and access control. FPS is also implementing a policy to change the composition of its workforce whereby it will essentially eliminate the police officer position and mainly utilize inspectors. One consequence of this change is that, with the exception of a few locations, FPS is not providing proactive patrols in and around federal facilities in order to detect and prevent criminal incidents and terrorism related activities before they occur. FPS has also reduced its hours of operation in many locations and has not always maintained security countermeasures and equipment such as security cameras, magnetometers, x-ray machines, radios, building security assessment equipment, and access control systems at some facilities we visited. For example, at one location we visited, a deceased individual had been found, after three months, in a vacant GSA facility that was not regularly patrolled by FPS.
FPS continues to face several management challenges that, according to many FPS officials at regions we visited, have hampered its ability to accomplish its facility protection mission. These include budgetary challenges, a lack of adequate contract guard oversight, and the absence of agreements with local police departments regarding response capabilities or jurisdictional issues at federal facilities. Historically and recently, FPS’ revenues have not been sufficient to cover its operational costs. To address its recent revenue shortfall FPS has restricted hiring and travel, limited training and overtime, and eliminated employee performance awards. These measures have had a negative effect on staff morale, contributed to FPS’ high attrition rates, and may affect the performance and safety of FPS personnel. Moreover, many FPS officials expressed concern about the lack of oversight of the 15,000 contract guards and poor performance by some guards when responding to crime and incidents at federal facilities. FPS has indicated that they are covering facility protection gaps through increased reliance on local law enforcement but it has not signed any agreements with local law enforcement agencies to ensure local assistance or resolved jurisdictional issues, which could authorize local police to respond to some incidents at federal facilities. Multiple local police departments said they were not aware of FPS’ expected reliance on their services.