[Senate Hearing 111-686]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-686
THE FEDERAL PROTECTIVE SERVICE: TIME FOR REFORM
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
of the
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 8, 2009
__________
Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JON TESTER, Montana
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Jason M. Yanussi, Professional Staff Member
Elyse F. Greenwald, Professional Staff Member
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Amanda Wood, Minority Director for Governmental Affairs
Devin F. O'Brien, Minority Professional Staff Member
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
Patricia R. Hogan, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
Laura W. Kilbride, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Lieberman............................................ 1
Senator Collins.............................................. 2
Senator Voinovich............................................ 4
Senator Burris............................................... 15
Senator McCaskill............................................ 26
Senator Akaka................................................ 28
Prepared statements:
Senator Lieberman............................................ 33
Senator Akaka................................................ 35
Senator Burris............................................... 36
Senator Collins.............................................. 37
WITNESSES
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Mark L. Goldstein, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S.
Government Accountability Office............................... 4
Gary W. Schenkel, Director, Federal Protective Service, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of
Homeland Security.............................................. 18
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Goldstein, Mark L.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Schenkel, Gary W.:
Testimony.................................................... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 58
APPENDIX
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from:
Mr. Goldstein................................................ 67
Mr. Schenkel................................................. 72
THE FEDERAL PROTECTIVE SERVICE: TIME FOR REFORM
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room
SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I.
Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Lieberman, Akaka, McCaskill, Burris,
Collins, and Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN
Chairman Lieberman. Good morning. The hearing will come to
order. Thanks to everyone for being here.
The Federal Protective Service is the agency responsible
for safeguarding 9,000 Federal buildings, the hundreds of
thousands of Federal employees who work in them, and millions
of people who come in and out of those buildings every year in
cities all across America.
Two years ago, Senator Collins, Senator Akaka, Senator
Voinovich, and I asked the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) to tell us how the Federal Protective Service (FPS) is
doing its job. The answer GAO gives us today is simply that FPS
is not doing its job. Most jarring, we will hear today that GAO
investigators were able to smuggle liquid bomb-making materials
into all of the Federal buildings they tested--that was 10--all
of them--past apparently unsuspecting guards who did not
possess the equipment to detect it, how they were then able to
build real bombs in those 10 cases in restrooms, and then move
throughout the buildings unbeknownst to the guards.
GAO produced its first response to our request for an
investigation of FPS last June, a broad analysis that concluded
FPS lacked adequate financial and management practices,
severely hampering its overall mission to keep Federal
buildings and employees working within them safe.
GAO's second report, this time specifically on the
management of FPS's private contractor guard staff, is actually
due later this summer. But preliminary conclusions which the
Committee received and which are being released today were so
disturbing to us that we decided to air them immediately to
accelerate and intensify the work of turning the Federal
Protective Service agency around.
In short, GAO has found that the Federal Protective Service
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,
pretty basic stuff for a guard. GAO found that in many cases,
guards received no X-ray or metal detector training at all.
The Federal Protective Service also requires guards to
maintain certain certifications, for example, in
cardiopulmonary resuscitation (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 critical
areas.
The GAO report describes how, after new guards were hired,
the Federal Protective Service did little to ensure that they
complied with relevant rules and regulations. For example, FPS
did not conduct inspections of guard posts after regular hours,
but GAO did and discovered guards taking prescription
medication while on duty and sleeping on an overnight shift.
In one truly 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 Federal Protective Service agency because the agency
couldn't document that he had received the required training.
The most shocking affirmation of these troubling findings
was when GAO investigators were able to smuggle that liquid
bomb-making material into 10 high-security Federal buildings
around the country--10 of 10 tested--all without detection.
As we approach the eighth anniversary of September 11,
2001, and 14 years after the bombing of the Federal Building in
Oklahoma City, it really is outrageously unacceptable that the
Federal employees working within our Federal buildings and the
citizens who pass through them are still apparently so utterly
exposed to potential attack by terrorists or other violent
people.
The fact is that the Federal Protective Service agency has
suffered serious budget shortfalls in recent years which forced
it to limit hiring, training, and overtime and to delay
equipment purchases, all of which no doubt contributed to GAO's
findings, but frankly don't explain them or excuse them.
I know 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 located must
get there quickly.
Senator Collins.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you mentioned,
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, as well as the recent
report by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector
General, reveal alarming deficiencies in the Service's
protective operations.
Indeed, the GAO's investigation exposed major security
failings at every single one of the 10 Federal office buildings
that 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 these
explosive devices. I share the Chairman's concern that in each
case, the GAO was able to carry this penetration out. In this
post-September 11, 2001, world that we are now living in, I
cannot fathom how security breaches of this magnitude were
allowed to occur.
The GAO also indicates that the FPS has failed to maintain
effective oversight of its contract security guards. The GAO
has indicated that in various regions, the contract guards had
expired certifications, including very basic certifications for
weapons, baton training, and CPR. We know from previous GAO
reports that the FPS no longer proactively or routinely patrols
Federal facilities to detect and prevent criminal and terrorism
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. We
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, a
large State, there are only two FPS 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,
Maine, to the port of entry in Fort Kent, nearly 6 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, last year, I joined
then-Senator Hillary Clinton and our Chairman, Senator
Lieberman, in sponsoring an amendment to increase the number of
FPS employees. The need for these trained staff has never been
more apparent.
GAO's testimony reinforces the findings of an April report
by the Inspector General (IG). From solicitation and award to
contract management, the IG found critical failings in the FPS
contract guard program. The contract guard sleeping at his post
that GAO found illustrates the problems and the dangers. These
findings raise a basic question that this Committee has
wrestled with before: 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 try to strike a better balance between the number of
government employees and contractors performing this vital
protective mission. When we do rely on private security
contractors, it is imperative that the FPS have 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
their performance. As the Chairman indicated, there are so many
examples of insufficient training. There are examples where
there was no training for 5 years in the use of magnetometers
and the X-ray machines, although, Mr. Chairman, I must say that
I don't think it is a matter of training for a guard to realize
that a baby should not be allowed to go through an X-ray
machine. That, to me, shows that there are fundamental problems
with the system.
The FPS must take immediate action to adopt the
recommendations to pay more attention to GAO's findings and to
remedy these serious and startling security failures. Congress,
too, should move forward with additional measures to help
protect these facilities, our Federal employees, and the
American public, and I look forward to working with the
Chairman to accomplish that goal.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Collins.
Senator Voinovich, because you participated with us in
requesting this investigation, would you like to make an
opening statement at this time?
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. I think the two of you have covered the
waterfront. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. Thanks for
your partnership in this.
The Senate will begin voting on two amendments around 11
a.m., so we thought we would ask Mr. Goldstein to testify and
then we will go through questions. Hopefully, we will get that
done before then and then we will go to Mr. Schenkel.
Mr. Goldstein is Director of Physical Infrastructure Issues
for the Government Accountability Office. Thank you for your
work and we welcome your testimony at this time.
TESTIMONY OF MARK L. GOLDSTEIN,\1\ DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Goldstein. Thank you very much. Good morning, Mr.
Chairman, Senator Collins, and Senator Voinovich. We are
pleased to be here today to discuss the preliminary findings of
our review of the Federal Protective Service's contract
security guard program.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Goldstein appears in the Appendix
on page 39.
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There has not been a large-scale attack on a domestic
Federal facility since the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, and the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City. Nevertheless, the recent shooting death of the
guard at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, though not a Federal
facility, demonstrates the continued vulnerability of public
buildings to domestic terrorist attack.
Thus, one of the Federal Protective Service's most critical
responsibilities is to effectively manage its guard program so
that the over one million government employees as well as
members of the public who work in and visit the 9,000 Federal
facilities each year are protected.
To accomplish its mission of protecting Federal facilities,
FPS currently has a budget of about $1 billion, about 1,200
full-time employees, and about 13,000 guards deployed at
approximately 2,300 of the 9,000 Federal facilities across the
country. While FPS does not use guards at the remaining 6,700
facilities under its protection, it frequently uses other
security countermeasures, such as cameras and perimeter
lighting, to help protect these facilities.
In our June 2008 report, we found that FPS faced
significant challenges in ensuring the quality and timeliness
of its building security assessments and in maintaining
complete crime statistics. We also reported that its risk
assessment process was partially flawed. FPS uses these tools
to determine how to protect Federal facilities.
As of June 2009, FPS's guard program has cost about $613
million and represents the single largest item in its budget.
It is the most visible component of FPS's operations as well as
the first public contact when entering a Federal facility.
In June 2008, we reported that FPS faced several funding
and operational challenges, including oversight of its guard
program, that hamper its ability to accomplish its mission of
protecting Federal facilities and ensuring the safety of the
occupants. We recommended, among other things, that FPS develop
and implement a strategic approach to better manage its
staffing resources, evaluate current and alternative funding
mechanisms, and develop appropriate measures to assess
performance. To date, FPS has not fully implemented these
recommendations.
My testimony today is based on preliminary findings of our
ongoing work and addresses. One, the extent to which FPS
ensures that its guards have the required training and
certifications before being deployed to a Federal facility;
two, the extent to which FPS ensures that its guards comply
with post orders once they are deployed at Federal facilities;
and three, security vulnerabilities we identified related to
the FPS guard program.
The summary of my findings are as follows: One, FPS does
not fully ensure that its guards have the training and
certifications required to stand post at Federal facilities.
While FPS requires that all prospective guards complete about
128 hours of training, including 8 hours of X-ray and
magnetometer training, FPS was not providing some of its guards
with all of the required training in the six regions we
visited. For example, in one region, FPS has not provided the
required X-ray or magnetometer training to its 1,500 guards
since 2004.
X-ray training is critical because guards are primarily
responsible for using this equipment to monitor and control
access points at Federal facilities. Insufficient X-ray and
magnetometer training may have contributed to several incidents
in Federal facilities where the guards were negligent in
carrying out their responsibilities. For example, at a Level IV
facility in a major city, an infant in a carrier was sent
through an X-ray machine when a guard had disabled the
machine's safety features and was not paying attention to post
duties. FPS fired the guard, who then sued FPS for not
providing him with the required training. The guard won the
suit because FPS could not produce any documentation to show
that the guard had received the training. In recent
discussions, FPS officials from that region could not even tell
us whether the X-ray machine's safety features had been
repaired.
We also found that FPS's primary system, Contract Guard
Employment Requirements Tracking System (CERTS), for monitoring
and verifying whether guards have the training and
certification required to stand post is not fully reliable. We
reviewed training and certification data for 663 randomly
selected guards in six of FPS's regions and found that because
it was not reliable, that we also had to use databases
maintained by the regions or information provided by
contractors. We found that 62 percent, or 411 of the 663 guards
who were deployed at a Federal facility had at least one
expired firearm qualification, background investigation,
domestic violence declaration, or CPR or first aid training
certification that was missing.
More specifically, according to the most recent information
from one contractor, we found that over 75 percent of the 354
guards at a Level IV facility had expired certifications. Based
on the contractor information for a third contract, we also
found that almost 40 percent of the 191 guards at that Level IV
facility had expired domestic violence declarations. Without a
domestic violence declaration in place, guards are not
permitted to carry a firearm, and FPS, of course, does require
guards to carry firearms.
In addition, one of FPS's contractors allegedly falsified
training records for its guards, an incident that is currently
being litigated. FPS became aware of this alleged violation
from an employee of the contractor, not from its own internal
control procedures.
Our second major finding is that FPS has limited assurance
that its guards are complying with post orders once they are
deployed to a Federal facility. FPS does not have specific
national guidance on when and how guard inspections should be
performed. The frequency with which FPS inspects these posts
also varied across the regions. For example, one region we
visited required inspectors to complete five guard inspections
each month while another region did not have any inspection
requirements at all.
We also found that the inspections are typically completed
during routine business hours and in metropolitan cities where
FPS has a field office, seldom at night or on weekends. On
occasions when FPS has conducted post inspections at night, it
has often found instances of guards not complying with post
orders. For example, at a Level IV facility, an armed guard was
found asleep at his post after taking the pain killer Percocet.
Similarly, FPS has also found other incidents at Level IV
facilities where guards were not in compliance. While a guard
should have been standing post, he was caught using government
computers to manage a private for-profit adult website. At
another facility, a guard had either failed to recognize or did
not properly X-ray a box containing semi-automatic handguns at
the loading dock.
Our third principal finding is that we identified
substantial security violations related to FPS's guard program.
With components for an improvised explosive device (IED)
concealed on their persons, GAO investigators passed undetected
through access points controlled by FPS guards at 10 Level IV
facilities in four major cities where we conducted covert
tests. Our investigators used publicly available information to
identify a type of device that a terrorist could use to cause
damage to a Federal facility and threaten the safety of Federal
workers and the general public. This IED was made with two
parts, a liquid explosive and a low-yield detonator, and
included a variety of materials not typically brought into a
Federal facility by employees or the public.
Of the 10 Level IV facilities we penetrated, eight were
government-owned, two were leased, and they included offices of
a U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative as well as agencies such
as the Departments of Homeland Security, State, and Justice.
Once our investigators passed the access control point, they
assembled the IED and walked freely around several floors of
the facilities and to various Executive and Legislative Branch
offices with the device in a briefcase.
In response to the security vulnerabilities we identified
during our covert testing, FPS has recently taken steps to
improve oversight of the guard program. Specifically, it has
authorized overtime to conduct guard post inspections during
non-routine business hours and is conducting its own
penetration tests to identify weaknesses at access control
points.
FPS has conducted limited intrusion testing in the past and
has experienced difficulties in executing such tests. For
example, in 2008, one FPS region conducted intrusion tests of a
Level IV facility and successfully brought a fake bomb into the
building through a loading area. During the test, however, FPS
agents misplaced the box containing the fake bomb. It was
picked up by a guard who took it to the mailroom for
processing.
In March 2009, FPS also issued a policy directive intended
to standardize inspection requirements across the regions.
Implementing these new requirements may be challenging,
according to FPS management and some of the regional staff to
whom we talked. We will be reporting more fully on our findings
with potential recommendations in September 2009.
This concludes my oral statement, Mr. Chairman. I will be
happy to answer any questions.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Mr. Goldstein. I must
say that in all the years I have been hearing GAO reports, that
is about the broadest indictment of an agency of the Federal
Government that I have heard and it is not pleasant to hear it.
Obviously, we are going to try to work together with the
agency--as will you, I am sure--to improve its performance.
Senator Collins and I, along with Senator Voinovich and
Senator Akaka, will be introducing legislation to reauthorize
the Federal Protective Service, but also to respond to some of
the findings of your investigation to try to obviously change
what exists now, because it is simply unacceptable.
The indictment is a series of findings. To the extent that
you are able today, what would you say the problem is here? How
could this have been allowed to happen at an agency with such
critical homeland security responsibilities? Is it a failure of
management at the top level? Is it a failure of supervision at
the regional or building level? Is it simply that we are not
demanding enough from the private security firms that we are
hiring to protect Federal buildings?
Mr. Goldstein. I think, Mr. Chairman, that it is all of the
things you have just mentioned. Through the work that we have
done last year and this year for this Committee, I think we
would be able to say that FPS is essentially an agency in
crisis. Over the last 5 years, since its transfer from General
Services Administration (GSA) to Homeland Security, they have
not received the resources and the staffing that would be
required. In fact, they were on a downward path until the
amendment that Congress passed last year.
There has been inattention at the highest levels of the
Department of Homeland Security to the requirements for
protecting Federal facilities. Actions by management over the
last couple years to try to change and improve things have had
some success, but in large measure have been difficult to
achieve. A lack of resources has hampered them in not only
having enough staff, but in having enough ability to improve
the technology components of risk mitigation, as well.
That, combined with what is a relatively antiquated
approach to securing Federal buildings through our Federal
Building Security Committee Management System, where all
Federal buildings have their own committee and help determine
what the security levels for those buildings ought to be, has
not helped create a structured and uniform process.
Chairman Lieberman. Why don't you say a little more? That
gives us a lot to work on, let us put it that way. Talk a
little more about the last point you made. Why do the local
building committees get in the way of efficient and effective
security?
Mr. Goldstein. There are three tiers to how Federal
buildings are protected. There is an Interagency Security
Committee that promulgates standards that Federal buildings are
supposed to abide by, but they are not mandatory. You also then
have the Federal Protective Service, which uses some of its own
funds as well as funds provided by tenant agencies to adopt
various countermeasures. But the countermeasures need to be
approved by Building Security Committees. Every single Federal
building, particularly at the Level IV, which is the highest
level of security outside of the White House and the Capitol,
has a Building Security Committee made up of tenants, and
usually the largest tenant of that building is the chair of
that committee.
The people who are on that committee, frankly, may be good
at the jobs they have at the Social Security Administrtion or
the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or whatever else, but they
are lay people and do not have security backgrounds. So many of
the decisions being made about access control and other kinds
of security decisions, like the kind of countermeasures that
could be adopted or the funding that would be provided to adopt
them, are being made by people who, frankly, ought not be
making those kinds of decisions.
Chairman Lieberman. So you would say that those standards
should be set nationally and uniformly applied to all the
Federal buildings?
Mr. Goldstein. We certainly think it is appropriate for the
Federal Protective Service and GSA to sit down and figure out
whether the approach that has been adopted over the years is
still applicable.
Chairman Lieberman. Let me go to another part of your
testimony and your findings. I take it you do feel that the
cuts in funding for the Federal Protective Service are part of
the problem here, but by no means the whole problem, that this
is an agency in crisis.
Mr. Goldstein. That is correct, Senator. A lot of the
management issues have nothing to do with level of resources
per se. Not having national guidance and standards for when and
how to inspect guards, not having better standards for knowing
when guards` certifications have expired, things like that are
not resource-based, in our opinion. I think there has been a
lack of attention to this part of the protective requirements
of Federal buildings.
One of the reasons over the years is the Federal Protective
Service has also been pulled away from what many perceive as
its principal duty, to protect Federal property, to do other
kinds of things within the Department of Homeland Security----
Chairman Lieberman. Such as?
Mr. Goldstein. To work on National Infrastructure
Protection Plans and that kind of thing. Resource constraints
clearly do affect the agency. In our last report, we showed
that when there were major trials in one region that 75 percent
of the Federal Protective Service workforce was shifted to
cover a courthouse and essentially left the rest of the region
without any protection.
Chairman Lieberman. I will say to you that it was our
judgment in terms of funding--you are right. Last year, we were
able to hold the Federal Protective Service basically harmless
on its funding. Our judgment was, based on your ongoing
investigation, that though resources may be part of the
problem, they are not the whole problem, and therefore in this
budget currently on the floor of the Senate, we didn't push for
an increase in funding for the Federal Protective Service
agency until we solve the management problem here. We didn't
want to just throw more money at the problem until we had
hopefully fixed the agency.
Let me ask you to talk a little bit more about the failure
to police the certifications that are required of the guards. I
find that very troubling, beyond troubling, particularly when
you think about expired firearms qualifications and domestic
violence problems.
Mr. Goldstein. It is very troubling, Mr. Chairman. We found
in examining the system that it is simply a faulty system that
FPS doesn't use itself for the most part. And so they end up
having to try to follow the certification process, because it
is FPS at the end of the day that is responsible for ensuring
that the guards on post are qualified to stand there, not the
contractors. And so obviously those certifications are required
for them to do so.
But the process they use is very paper intensive. You have
essentially one person in each region who is responsible for
putting information into a system and they are typically very
far behind. So the system isn't used and they use their own
back-of-the-envelope approaches.
So when we went to check on the system and found that it
wasn't used and isn't reliable, we then went and pulled files
ourselves and then talked to contractors to get the most up-to-
date information on individuals, which might not have been--to
avoid the issue of whether the actual certifications were in
place but simply hadn't been recorded, and it turns out that 62
percent of the files we looked at had at least one expired
certification.
The problem is, because the system doesn't work, that in
almost all cases, FPS relies on the contractor to self-certify
at this point in time and to simply say that their guards have
the certifications, when in point of fact they often don't.
Chairman Lieberman. A final question. I am over my time. Do
the private security companies have a contractual obligation to
certify their employees?
Mr. Goldstein. They are required by the State. The States
require these certifications to be in place.
Chairman Lieberman. So right now, effectively, no one is
really doing it as comprehensively as it should be done?
Mr. Goldstein. That is correct. It is far less than
comprehensively, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. OK. Thank you, Mr. Goldstein. Senator
Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goldstein, I would like to ask you more questions to
understand the penetration tests that GAO carried out. First of
all, did GAO use actual bomb components?
Mr. Goldstein. Yes, ma'am, we did. We did use actual bomb
components, but they were at a level that would not actually
set the bomb off. The concentration was below the trigger
point.
Senator Collins. But this isn't a case where you were
smuggling in fake bombs. These were actual components for an
explosive device?
Mr. Goldstein. We brought in all the components that we
needed to make a real bomb.
Senator Collins. And are these components readily
available?
Mr. Goldstein. Yes, ma'am. They are all available through
the Internet or through stores. It was under $150 to procure
the various components required.
Senator Collins. You see, that information is so
disturbing, because it shows how easily a terrorist or a
criminal could obtain these materials and smuggle them into a
building. Is that a fair conclusion to reach?
Mr. Goldstein. That is absolutely correct, Senator.
Senator Collins. Are these materials, that are easily
mistaken for legitimate materials, being brought in by a
typical Federal employee?
Mr. Goldstein. One of the concerns we had, Senator, was
that in a number of the locations, three or four of them, the
guards were not even looking at the screens that would show the
materials passing through. So if a guard had been looking, they
would have seen materials that are ordinarily not brought into
a Federal building and should have stopped our investigators
and asked, why are you bringing these kinds of things into a
Federal building? What is your purpose? But in really no case
did that occur. In only one instance did a guard ask about
something that our investigator was carrying. A brief
explanation. That guard let it go through.
Senator Collins. I bring that information out because it is
in contrast to the tests that are done by Transportation
Security Administration (TSA) periodically at the airport where
they will try to smuggle through very sophisticated devices
that are cleverly concealed. In this case, it sounds to me like
GAO did everything but put the word ``bomb making materials''
on the packages that you were putting through the X-ray
machine. But if no one is looking at the screen, it is going to
be pretty easy to get materials that are clearly suspect
through. Is that a fair conclusion?
Mr. Goldstein. Yes, Senator, it is. I think if people had
been paying more attention to the X-ray machines, or if
somebody had decided to give someone a secondary wanding, or if
they had decided to do a random search of someone, they would
have found these materials.
Senator Collins. How did you choose the facilities?
Mr. Goldstein. They were randomly chosen. They were just
chosen--our only requirements were that they be a Level IV
facility, because we wanted to go to the biggest facilities----
Senator Collins. So that we fully understand this, explain
what a Level IV facility is.
Mr. Goldstein. Sure. There are standards that are just now
changing. The old Department of Justice standards, which since
1995, shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing, the Department
of Justice put out standards that categorized buildings into
five levels of security, Level I being the lowest, which is a
storefront property, Level V being buildings like the White
House, the Capitol, and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
headquarters. A Level IV building is a building that houses
more than 450 Federal employees, has major agencies in it that
have probably national security or law enforcement
responsibilities, and that, might be a likely target. And so
the security requirements for those buildings are higher than
they would be for Levels I, II, and III. So we purposely chose
Level IV buildings.
Senator Collins. For every test?
Mr. Goldstein. For every test, and we purposely chose
buildings which had agencies like Social Security or IRS in it
so that you could just go in and didn't need an appointment.
All our investigators did was to show a State driver's license.
They did not show government I.D., just regular old
identification that any member of the public would have to
show.
Senator Collins. So you chose facilities that are both
bigger facilities, busier facilities where there is going to be
a lot of traffic in and out. The public will have occasion to
visit these facilities. There are hundreds of Federal employees
working there every day. And they are the facilities that have
the next to the highest level of security, is that accurate?
Mr. Goldstein. That is correct, Senator.
Senator Collins. And that, too, is disturbing because some
Federal offices might be located in a commercial building where
the Federal office may be the only Federal office there and
thus the security may be at a significantly lower level because
the building is unlikely to be the target of an attack. But
that is not what you chose. You chose busy Federal facilities,
eight of them Federal buildings, two of them leased for Federal
space, and with the level of security that is second only to
the White House and the Capitol, the very highest level. And
yet in each case, you were able to smuggle in actual bomb
components and then proceed to assemble them, as well?
Mr. Goldstein. Yes, Senator. We were able to bring the
materials into the building, go to bathrooms--in some cases,
bathrooms were locked, but Federal employees let us into those
bathrooms, and then we assembled the materials, usually in
under 4 minutes. It is a very quick thing to put together. And
then we would place it in a briefcase and walked around a
variety of Federal offices, both Legislative and Executive
Branch offices in the four cities we went to.
Senator Collins. Let me just switch very quickly to the
issue of the contracts. My reaction was the same as Senator
Lieberman's and that is I was wondering why the company that
wins the contract isn't required by the terms of the contract
to ensure that all of its employees meet all of the
certification and training requirements. To your knowledge, is
that a contractual requirement?
Mr. Goldstein. I am not certain of the answer. I do know
that FPS has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that people
who are standing post in a Federal facility have met all the
training and the certifications required to handle that duty.
Senator Collins. When our staffs looked at these contracts,
we found that for the most part, they were awarded based on the
lowest bid price as opposed to the best value. Best value can
help ensure the quality as well as a fair price for the
contract. Do you think it is a mistake that FPS is using the
lowest bidder approach as opposed to a best value criteria?
Mr. Goldstein. We haven't looked specifically at that,
Senator. I think what is more important is for FPS to ensure
that in its dealings with contractors, they understand that FPS
is going to take them seriously and has systems in place to be
able to ensure that these contracts are working as well as they
need to be.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Collins.
Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. Yes. I am going to ask you a series of
questions, and if you could keep your answers short, I would
appreciate it.
Mr. Goldstein. Certainly, Senator.
Senator Voinovich. First of all, does FPS today have the
capacity to evaluate a building in terms of the location of the
building and protecting the peripheral area, the technology and
the bollards type of thing? And then beyond that, do they have
the capacity to look at a building and ascertain just how much
human capital they are going to need to secure the place?
Mr. Goldstein. With respect to the building security
assessments, we have reported a number of times that there are
some concerns and challenges with how FPS manages that process.
They are required to do building security assessments on all
the buildings, but in many cases, the individuals are either
not fully trained--there are too many buildings that have to be
done in a certain time period--or there are other duties of the
officers that get in the way. They are pulled in so many
different directions.
Senator Voinovich. In other words, the answer is that they
don't have the full capacity to look at a building and
ascertain from looking it over the type of human capital they
are going to need to secure the building. In other words, I
would think that for every building, Level IV, for example, you
would have a plan, this is what we are going to need to secure
this building.
Mr. Goldstein. I don't think they do. We have also had
concerns about their risk assessment process. They don't have
complete crime statistics. They don't, as I mentioned, do
everything they need to on building security assessments. And
their approach to determining a risk assessment process,
because it includes the Building Security committees and also
doesn't include having a portfolio-wide strategy as opposed to
a building-by-building strategy, I think gets in the way of
effectively and efficiently protecting buildings.
Senator Voinovich. Second, GSA pays for it. Is that a
problem? In other words, today, for instance, the Capitol
Police are out of the legislative budget of the U.S. Congress.
Now, FPS tenants are charged back to GSA. Does that present a
problem in terms of funding and going forward properly----
Mr. Goldstein. Certainly.
Senator Voinovich [continuing]. Or would they be better off
being paid for separately?
Mr. Goldstein. The tenants actually pay for it out of
their----
Senator Voinovich. Yes, but they are Federal tenants.
Mr. Goldstein. Sure, but it is not GSA so much. It is the
tenants. Should it be an appropriation versus a fee-for-
service?
Senator Voinovich. Yes, that is the question.
Mr. Goldstein. We have never taken a formal view on that. I
think there are many reasons that it ought to be done, though,
because I do think it does get in the way.
Senator Voinovich. The other question is about contract
guards. From what I can see, most of these outfits aren't doing
the job that they are supposed to be doing. The issue is, it
looks to me like they don't have the capacity to determine
whether the contract guards are doing their work. That is, they
don't have the oversight that is necessary to do that. Should
we go to what we have here at the Capitol with our own police?
We have people that work for the Federal Government. Should we
farm this out to third parties? I think, Senator Collins, you
had mentioned the lowest bid. If you get the lowest bid, you
get the lowest quality.
I am in one of those buildings. There are hundreds of
people in there. We put their well-being in the hands of a
third-party contractor. Does that make sense? Will we ever be
able to get to the point where we don't have the kind of things
that you found in your investigation by using contractors?
Mr. Goldstein. I am not sure that you would ever fully
avoid those issues, whether it is a contract or a Federal
workforce. I think whichever kind of workforce is doing that
job, they need to be much better trained and they need to have
gone through the kind of background checks and the kind of
supervision----
Senator Voinovich. Will that ever happen by hiring private
contractors, as we have been doing in the past?
Mr. Goldstein. I think it can happen if FPS puts the
resources to ensuring and overseeing it. When you have many
parts of the United States where FPS rarely gets to visit the
contract workforce except for perhaps once a year, I think you
are always going to have these kinds of problems. But that is
indeed the case.
Senator Voinovich. Our best person, and I am going to try
and find out, has been moved from Cleveland out to Hawaii and I
would like to know, why are they moving him out? We just don't
have the people there to get the job done. It is the same thing
all over the country. It is just unbelievable to me that this
thing has gone on for as long as it has.
The other thing is that they have talked about Risk
Assessment Management Programs (RAMP). We believe that we need
to have performance metrics to determine whether people are
doing the jobs that they are supposed to be doing. This new
system is RAMP, and now they are saying it won't be ramped up
in 2011. I think that is not soon enough, is it?
Mr. Goldstein. Well, we have been concerned about the
delays in RAMP and we have criticized FPS for not having the
kind of performance metrics they need to do the job and to be
able to put together a complete risk assessment approach to the
portfolio.
Senator Voinovich. Isn't there some commercial program that
they could use that is off the shelf instead of starting from
scratch and building their own?
Mr. Goldstein. We have not looked at that, sir. Mr.
Schenkel may be able to illuminate that. But we have not
actually looked at the RAMP process itself other than to
recognize that there are a lot of delays, and in the meantime,
things are not getting better.
Senator Voinovich. Let us get back to the contractors
again. Do you think we would be better off if we got away from
hiring contractors and went to our own policing?
Mr. Goldstein. Senator, it is a policy decision. I think
GAO would be uncomfortable making that kind of a
recommendation.
Senator Voinovich. Do you ever think they will have the
supervisory people to make sure that we are not getting poor
performance from these people?
Mr. Goldstein. I think they could if they invested the
time, the resources, and had the right management and staffing
structure to do it. But it will take a lot more than what they
have today. I don't mean specifically in resources, it will
take some more resources, but it will take a lot more
understanding of how to manage a very large program.
Senator Voinovich. Is 1,200 people enough?
Mr. Goldstein. Probably not, but it is hard to determine
how many people they need until they have a risk assessment
approach that allows them to determine how to mitigate risk
across the portfolio. Right now, it is budget-driven, it is not
risk-driven.
Senator Voinovich. So from what I can see, you would almost
have to start from scratch. They have to evaluate what they
need, the number of people and the kind of people, and then if
they are going to do the contracting out, they are going to
have to have people on board that are supervisors to make sure
that they don't get the short end on these contracts.
Mr. Goldstein. They need to have the systems and the
measures in place that would allow them to determine what their
goals are, and from those goals, an understanding what the risk
is for the portfolio to have a human capital model that would
help them deploy the right resources based on where they have
determined that the risks ought to be placed.
Senator Voinovich. Well, I am anxious to hear Mr. Schenkel.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. Me, too.
Senator Burris.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURRIS
Senator Burris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goldstein, I have been around government a long time
and we have some pretty big buildings in Chicago. I hope that
none of those tests were done in Chicago. I don't suppose you
can reveal where your tests were done, or did you in your
testimony reveal any of the locations?
Mr. Goldstein. You are right. Unfortunately, I can't reveal
the locations in a public meeting, sir.
Senator Burris. OK. But I would like to know privately
whether or not any of those are in Chicago----
Mr. Goldstein. I would be happy to talk to your staff.
Senator Burris [continuing]. Because we have the Sears
Tower, which is not a Federal building, but is always a target,
so that is a deep concern.
Could you confirm for me, Mr. Goldstein, that GAO ran these
tests and only one of the GAO testers was caught going through
the detector system with some type of bomb-making materials?
Mr. Goldstein. Senator, in all 10 cases, GAO investigators
were able to get through the metal detectors and the X-ray
machines, and assemble their bombs. What I was referring to
earlier was that in only one instance did any guard even ask a
question. In all the other instances, no one even asked any
questions about what was being brought in. But the explanation
that the investigator gave the guard satisfied the guard. The
material was put back on the X-ray machine and the investigator
was allowed to proceed unhindered.
Senator Burris. Now, I understand that this would be the
normal airport-type security that we go through here in the
Dirksen Building. There are guards down there and we have to go
through the metal detectors. I assume that is the same type of
apparatus that is out in these other buildings----
Mr. Goldstein. That is correct. They are standard X-ray
machines and magnetometers.
Senator Burris. My concern is, I think we are pretty well
protected here in the Capitol. I have seen lines wrapping
around the wall and guards going through bags and pocketbooks
very extensively to secure us, and what the GAO indication is,
this is not happening in our Federal facilities out in the
various States and communities.
Mr. Goldstein. I can't make a comparison because we didn't
look at the Capitol Police, Senator. But clearly, the ability
to get into 10 large Federal buildings in four cities and make
bombs undetected and walk around is an indication that those
buildings are not fully secured. That is correct.
Senator Burris. I would like to follow up on what Senator
Voinovich raised in reference to the ability of FPS to have
guards that are Federal employees rather than contract
employees. Does GAO have a position on that, because I am
pretty sure the Capitol Police are Federal employees. I don't
think they are contract guards, are they?
Mr. Goldstein. You are correct, Senator. They are Federal
employees. We don't have a position on whether they ought to be
federalized or whether they ought to be private contractors,
and frankly, we haven't made recommendations yet at all because
we haven't finished the work. We will issue our report in
September. But we do feel that regardless of whether they are
Federal or contract, the training, the certifications, and the
kinds of things they are doing, both to be placed at posts and
then once they are on post, to follow post responsibilities,
has not been fully adequate.
Senator Burris. Do you know if there have been any tests
run by GAO on the Capitol itself?
Mr. Goldstein. That was not part of this work here.
Senator Burris. It was not part of the study. Interesting.
Now, in reference to the contractors, who is really responsible
for training them? Is it a contractor's responsibility or a
Federal responsibility? Who is responsible?
Mr. Goldstein. It is a combination, Senator. The contractor
is responsible for making sure that their people are trained,
that they get the CPR training and the first aid training. Some
of the training is done by FPS, such as the weapons training.
All the guards are qualified at a range by a FPS officer. So it
is a mixture of the training that is required.
Senator Burris. OK. It looks to me like we don't know who
actually is doing the training because you said it is a
mixture.
Mr. Goldstein. Well, it is a combination. In other words,
there will be classes that the contractors hold for the guards
on basic kinds of issues of how to be a guard and that kind of
requirements. But some of the training has to be done by the
Federal Protective Service, and that includes the firearms
training. No guard is supposed to be able to stand post unless
they have been qualified by a FPS officer on a range.
Senator Burris. In some of our smaller communities where
there are Federal facilities, I wonder if there have been any
tests in small communities. If I was a terrorist--and I don't
want to give them any ideas--but if I was a terrorist, I
probably wouldn't try Chicago. I would probably try Centralia,
Illinois, which is my home town, where there are 12,000 people.
I wonder what type of training--there is a Federal facility in
Centralia--that contractor or those guards would have. So did
you try any small facilities at all?
Mr. Goldstein. I would be happy to talk to your staff and
let them know exactly where we did go, Senator.
Senator Burris. Please do.
Mr. Goldstein. Certainly.
Senator Burris. I would appreciate that. And Senator
Collins, the terminology we use in State government is
generally the lowest responsible bidder and that lowest
responsible bidder means that the bidder may not be the lowest
price, but it has the training and the skills and the ability
to carry out the assigned contract responsibilities. And so
that is what I would hope the FPS would be looking at in terms
of the contract that they sign. Or we ought to look at
requiring all of these guards be Federal employees that would
go through Federal training processes, even though it might be
difficult to do.
But this is alarming in terms of the times that we are
living in and the environment in which we are living, that
someone who wants to make a violent statement could do so--it
doesn't have to be an outside terrorist, it could just be a
local angry person. We have this problem with our judges right
now and what is happening with them--we did have the family of
one of our Federal judges murdered in Chicago. And so something
has to be done.
Thank you, Mr. Goldstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Burris. I totally
agree with you. I mean, look, we just had a few weeks ago that
case where the homegrown terrorist who was radicalized here
walked into an Army recruiting station in Little Rock,
Arkansas, and killed an Army recruiter. Federal buildings are,
unfortunately, natural targets for anybody who wants to cause
us harm because of their symbolic value and meaning.
This is really serious stuff and I appreciate the work that
you have done, Mr. Goldstein. There is always a risk in going
public with this, but what we hope is, of course, that going
public will generate a rapid response, both from FPS, the
Department of Homeland Security, and Congress.
It is ironic that we are focusing on this today in the
aftermath of the deadly incident at the Holocaust Museum here
in Washington, which as you mentioned, I guess, is not a
traditional Federal facility. But it does receive assistance
from the Federal Government. But I have asked my staff--maybe
they will work with you on it--to just take a look at that,
because those guards performed heroically in that crisis, and
to take a look at what their arrangements are for their
security systems and personnel and the extent of their
certification and management. I know it is one facility, but it
may be a standard that we want to try to meet in all of our
facilities.
I am going to try to see if we can give Mr. Schenkel an
opportunity to give his opening statement before we break to go
and vote, and then we will come back for questioning.
Mr. Goldstein, I thank you very much and we will follow
your work. We look forward to the report later in the summer
and we want to work with you on the legislative response, which
is urgent, as well. Thank you.
Mr. Goldstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Collins.
Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Schenkel, we will call you to the
table now, Gary W. Schenkel, Director of the Federal Protective
Service, and ask you to respond to this very serious indictment
of the agency that you head. Please be seated.
TESTIMONY OF GARY W. SCHENKEL,\1\ DIRECTOR, FEDERAL PROTECTIVE
SERVICE, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Schenkel. Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member Collins,
and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for this
opportunity to appear before you today. Although the Government
Accountability Office has yet to provide the U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Federal Protective Service a
draft report regarding concerns that have been recently
released by the GAO, I welcome the opportunity to appear before
you today and to discuss the immediate actions I have put in
place to address these security concerns in advance of
receiving this report.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Schenkel appears in the Appendix
on page 58.
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As I have testified previously, FPS delivers integrated law
enforcement and physical security services to Federal agencies
in 9,000 General Services Administration (GSA) owned and leased
facilities throughout the United States and its territories.
The FPS performs fixed post access control, implements
screening functions, and provides roving patrols of facility
perimeters and communal open space.
FPS is comprised of 1,225 law enforcement and support staff
personnel. FPS also utilizes more than 15,000 contract security
guards employed by private companies to supplement physical
security services. FPS Law Enforcement Security Officers
(LESOs) and more aptly termed as inspectors, are uniformed law
enforcement officers who possess the full authority and
training to perform traditional police functions.
Currently, FPS has approximately 600 inspectors who are
trained as physical security experts and provide comprehensive
security services, such as facility security assessments and
implementation of testing of security measures. FPS conducts
nearly 2,500 facility security assessments every year. In
fiscal year 2008, FPS responded to 2,571 protests and organized
disturbances, made 1,888 arrests, investigated more than 2,100
accidents, investigated 1,503 larcenies, processed 248 weapons
violations, and prevented the intrusion of 669,810 banned items
into Federal facilities, with significant assistance of
contract guards.
Of the approximately 9,000 buildings protected by the FPS,
1,500 are categorized as Level III and Level IV, our highest-
risk buildings.
Upon my arrival in 2007, it was apparent FPS was
experiencing some serious challenges. Since its transfer from
the GSA in 2003 with a full-time equivalent (FTE) workforce of
1,400 spread across the country in 11 different regions, FPS
needed to focus on becoming a single standardized agency. This
required a new operational construct as well as developing new
business practices. FPS simultaneously faced budget constraints
which could have resulted in having to reduce the number of
FTEs.
The fiscal year 2008 President's budget supported
approximately 950 FTE personnel. To avoid having to reduce the
number of FTEs, FPS sought to realize financial savings in
other areas rather than cut personnel. Consequently, many
programmatic elements, such as training and equipment
purchases, had to be rescheduled until FPS received sufficient
funding. What remained unchanged, however, was FPS's obligation
to protect the 9,000 GSA owned and leased facilities, oversee
the 15,000 armed security guards, and manage over 150
contracts.
During this period, FPS carefully assessed its organization
and made difficult decisions based on customer input and
expectations. This refocusing of effort culminated in a FPS
strategic plan that shaped our future activities. In
particular, FPS focused on standardizing procedures.
In 2008, the Consolidated Appropriations Act gave FPS
needed resources by establishing a workforce foundation of no
less than 1,200 Federal FTEs and the authority to raise fees to
financially support that number. As a result, in March 2008,
FPS embarked on its first hiring effort in more than 6 years.
FPS now has 1,236 FTEs. This monumental hiring effort presented
new challenges in addition to implementing the FPS strategic
plan to create a standardized operation to provide daily
operational support to our customers. The strategic
transformation of our workforce to acquire the appropriate
skills in the appropriate geographic locations will continue to
be paramount on our task list and will underpin our
comprehensive mission action plan.
When GAO presented its alarming oral report to us several
weeks ago, it caused us all grave concern. We have all worked
very hard and were taken aback upon receipt of this disturbing
news. We knew we had challenges ahead of us, and
coincidentally, we have also noted and initiated corrective
actions to address these shortcomings.
Within 3 hours of learning of the lapses of visitor
screening procedures, I, along with my senior staff, conducted
a conference call with the 11 regional directors to brief them
on the issues. During that call, I instructed the regional
directors to immediately increase the number of inspections of
protected facilities in their respective regions, to report
directly to FPS headquarters specific actions they would take
to address and correct contract guard performance issues.
I promptly issued letters to the regional directors and
contract guard companies' customer agencies, FPS employees, and
other stakeholders that notified them of the following actions
that we would take to address them and some of the GAO
findings. These actions included: Establishing a national study
group headed by two experienced FPS regional directors to
examine FPS visitor and employee screening procedures;
directing FPS regional directors to immediately begin to
exercise recently established overt and covert inspection
techniques to assess various elements of employee and visitor
screening processes; requiring regional directors to institute
random searches of packages, briefcases, and bags as part of
visitor and employee screening procedures, and ensure there are
posted signs alerting those entering the building that they are
subject to these searches; instructing regional directors to
take all necessary action to immediately increase its oversight
and inspection of contract guards; directing FPS employees and
other stakeholders to be constantly vigilant, to immediately
report poor performance of duties by contract guard force to
FPS law enforcement personnel or their supervisors; reminding
the contract guard companies that substandard performance by
contract guards is unacceptable and will not be tolerated, and
informing them the number of frequency of inspection of the
guard posts and certifications will increase; issuing an
information bulletin to all inspectors and security guards to
provide them with the information about package screening,
including examples of disguised items that may not be detected
by magnetometers or X-ray equipment; contacting all customer
agencies and asking that they raise their security awareness
and asking them to review their respective building access
procedures to ensure they meet their business and security
needs; and contacting GSA regional administrators and their
offices of security informing them of all of our actions.
Going forward, we have established Tiger Teams headed by
senior FPS regional directors and aggressively attacked the
challenge of overseeing the contract guard program. Within the
next 60 days, the FPS will seek to identify training gaps in
the contract guard force and take immediate steps to close
them; increase the frequency and vigilance of the inspections
of guard posts and contract companies to identify guards with
expired certifications and qualifications; establish and
develop training schedules to ensure contract guards receive
current and adequate training in magnetometer and X-ray
screening operations and techniques; and initiate dialogue with
the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, the Transportation
Security Administration, to explore and research new
technologies as well as training opportunities to assist in
mission accomplishment.
FPS realizes the evolving nature of security and has been
moving forward. We have well over 30 percent of our FTEs
involved in various levels of training. We are on our way to
becoming a mature, experienced, and well-trained organization.
The training process requires a full 32 weeks of intense
training to become an inspector.
We have promulgated five new policies that will strengthen
the contract guard program, ranging from refinement of the
contract award process to the mandatory frequency of guardpost
inspections. We have developed seven financial process standard
operational procedures and have begun the necessary training to
institutionalize the use of these processes.
FPS is in the final development stages of the Risk
Assessment Management Program, which will revolutionize the
facility security assessment process and negate the need to use
the six disparate systems currently used by our inspectors. It
will provide accurate and timely codification of guard training
and certification processes and post inspections.
The Computer-Aided Dispatch and Information System will
standardize reporting procedures, consolidate crime and
incident reporting, and time-stamp our operations, thus
providing accurate, defensible data to support future staffing
models.
FPS will award a contract for the post-tracking system,
which will strengthen the accuracy of post staffing and billing
and will further reduce the administrative burden on our
inspectors, allowing them more time for active patrol and guard
oversight. All three of these systems will come online in
fiscal year 2010.
In addition to the technological solutions, we are focused
on providing greater training and maturity to our workforce. We
are dedicated to our mission, to our profession, and to
improving our organization to meet the expectations of this
extremely important mission.
I want to express to you my personal sense of urgency and
commitment to the important responsibility I share with the men
and women of FPS in keeping our Nation safe. I am honored to
lead the proud and professional men and women of FPS. I can
tell you that they are dedicated, determined, and committed to
developing, implementing, and maintaining the highest level of
physical security to ensure that facilities that they are
charged with protecting are secure and their occupants are
safe. I am confident that they can be relied upon to ensure the
FPS will continue to meet the challenges of its homeland
security mission.
Thank you again, Chairman Lieberman and Ranking Member
Collins, for holding this important oversight hearing. I will
be pleased to answer any questions you might have at this time.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Schenkel. That vote has
gone off and we will go and vote and come back.
I just want to very briefly say that from the statement you
have made--incidentally, we don't have a report either. I
gather you were briefed, as we were, on an interim basis and
the full report will come out later in the summer, hopefully.
But I take it at this point, from what you are not contesting
the factual basis of the findings of GAO that were critical of
the agency?
Mr. Schenkel. No, Senator, we are not.
Chairman Lieberman. And insofar as you have offered excuses
or explanations, what I heard was that the reduction in the
full-time equivalent staff a few years ago may have contributed
to some of the criticism that GAO has made this morning, is
that correct?
Mr. Schenkel. That is correct, Senator. I take full
responsibility. I am the Director of the organization. There
are some impacting factors that I think have made significant
differences and I think they will come to light during the
questioning, sir.
Chairman Lieberman. Fine. Senator Collins, do you want to
ask a question or two or do you want to wait?
Senator Collins. I think I will wait. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. OK, thanks.
The Committee will stand in recess. We will get back as
soon as we can. It won't be less than 20 minutes. Please stay
close at hand.
[Recess.]
Chairman Lieberman. The hearing will come back to order. I
thank you, Mr. Schenkel, and others here for your patience
while we were over on the Senate floor voting.
Let me ask you an open-ended question, and you were good
enough to acknowledge the facts of the GAO report and to list
some of the things you are doing, which I appreciate, to
respond to the report. And I understand that you haven't been
there for years, but you have been there since, I guess, 2007,
so you are in your second year. Stepping back so that we may
learn, how do you explain to yourself how these things were
allowed to happen at FPS?
Mr. Schenkel. At FPS in general, or are we specifically
talking about these security----
Chairman Lieberman. The security guards, correct.
Mr. Schenkel. Yes. It is purely a lack of oversight on our
part. I think Senator Voinovich mentioned that perhaps starting
from scratch was the way to go about it. In essence, we have
started from scratch twice. When I came on board in April 2007,
my task was to organize 11 police departments into one.
Chairman Lieberman. When you came on, did you know the
agency was in some difficulty?
Mr. Schenkel. Not as much as it turned out to be.
Chairman Lieberman. Yes. But as you came on and reviewed
what was there, you saw some problems, and one, I take it, is
very important, though not particularly sensational, but it
sounds like there were 11 fiefdoms, not one uniformly
administered national organization, is that right?
Mr. Schenkel. That is correct, Senator.
Chairman Lieberman. Go ahead.
Mr. Schenkel. At that time, we fully recognized our
challenges ahead of us, taking 11 different ways of doing
business--I am certainly not saying that was the wrong way to
do things, I will just say this was a new era that we had to
deal with, so consequently we had to standardize our efforts,
and to do so at a time when we were also facing some fairly
austere times and had to reduce numbers, we had to concentrate
on what our core mission was, and that is the protection
mission.
We were fairly distracted in previous years, for a lot of
different reasons, none of them valid at this point, but we
recognized that our core mission was to protect Federal
facilities and their occupants. So we developed a strategic
plan to get us there at the same time we were downsizing to a
fairly paltry number of people with which to do this. So we had
to make some very drastic decisions as to what we would
concentrate on, reprioritize our efforts.
Subsequent to that, thanks to the 2008 omnibus bill, we
were regenerated, if you will, and we were able to embark with
our first hiring effort in at least 6 years----
Chairman Lieberman. And again, those are full-time
equivalents, if you will, the people who supervise the contract
private security guards.
Mr. Schenkel. Yes, Senator. We made a conscious decision to
go to the LESO, as opposed to trying to carry both inspectors
and police officers because of our core mission. We needed the
flexibility, especially with the downsizing. We needed
individuals that could do both police officer operations, and
the inspection and protection mission.
Getting that rejuvenation, if you will, out of the 2008
omnibus bill and then being able to hire has been a tremendous
move in the right direction. We are at 1,236 today.
Chairman Lieberman. Twelve-hundred-and-thirty-six full-time
equivalents?
Who supervise the 13,000 to 15,000 private security guards?
Mr. Schenkel. Yes, Senator.
Chairman Lieberman. Do you think you have overcome that
sense you found that these were 11 fiefdoms, 11 separate police
departments, as you said?
Mr. Schenkel. When I came here, I made an analogy that we
were a ship and it takes 38 miles at sea to turn an aircraft
carrier. I think we are probably on mile six, but we certainly
initiated the turn.
Chairman Lieberman. Because as I listened to both you and
the GAO's witness earlier, in the question of the security
guards I was left with a question in my mind about who is in
charge. In other words, it seems to me that some of the work
done by what I would call the supervisors that are working
full-time for the Federal Protective Service is the work that
normally would be done as part of a contract by the security
guard company. So I wonder if it is clear who is in charge.
Mr. Schenkel. The contracts are written very specifically.
Whether they are written completely and comprehensively in
comparison to our mission, I think bears some scrutiny. We have
recognized, fortunately, because we have been involved with the
GAO for at least the full 2 years that I have been here, they
have provided us validation on many of the things that we have
recognized internally as being an inherent responsibility
either for the FPS or an inherent responsibility for us to take
on that maybe a non-traditional role in the past.
The training issue, I think, is one of the most prevalent.
We are responsible for 16 hours of entry-level training of the
contract security guards----
Chairman Lieberman. So FPS is responsible, not the security
guard company?
Mr. Schenkel. That is correct, sir. And I think through our
findings, and this report certainly validates it, that we need
to be much more involved, and that is our intent, to take a
more active part in standardizing the training itself,
monitoring the training, and in many cases I think we need to
actually deliver the training to ensure compliance and to
ensure standardization across all 50 States.
Chairman Lieberman. Finally, before I yield to Senator
Collins, one of the ideas under active consideration, as you
well know, is to take the Federal Protective Service from
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where it is now, and move
it into the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD)
of the Department of Homeland Security, maybe into the Critical
Infrastructure Protection division, where it certainly seems by
your responsibility you better belong. Do you have an opinion
on that?
Mr. Schenkel. I think that I obviously agree with the new
Secretary's opinion that it does align our mission along with
that of critical infrastructure protection. I think it will
also give us the visibility that I think is necessary for
people to recognize that we are the security provider and that
we do have a level of expertise that can only get better.
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, I agree. Part of what comes out of
this report today is that this has to not only be your urgent
responsibility to change a status quo which is unacceptable,
and you acknowledge it is unacceptable, but that there has to
be involvement from the highest levels of the Department. Mr.
Goldstein said that earlier, and we are going to do our best to
make sure that happens.
Senator Collins.
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Schenkel, I don't doubt that you are very troubled by
the GAO's findings and I appreciate your accepting
responsibility and your commitment to reforming the agency.
What troubles me most is that what GAO found indicates systemic
problems. If GAO had been successful in smuggling bomb
components into one or maybe two buildings, it still would have
been troubling, especially since these are high-risk, high-
security buildings. But the fact that GAO succeeded each and
every time is so troubling and it indicates a pervasive,
systemic problem. So now that you know this, now that you have
been briefed, tell me what you believe specifically needs to be
done.
Mr. Schenkel. Senator, I believe that the GAO report and
certainly these penetrations have really pointed out an
ambiguity, if you will, in responsibility. There are standards
that are assigned to Federal facilities based on the level of
risk. There are procedures and processes that are followed to
protect such buildings based on that level of risk. But at that
point, it starts to get very ambiguous as to who is responsible
for actually pinning down the specifics and standardize
practices, if you will.
I think that it is our inherent responsibility to not
necessarily dictate, but certainly provide a baseline for all
of the Federal facilities that would prevent something like
this, or certainly mitigate the possibility of something like
this happening again. I think that it is a partnership. FPS
can't this alone. FPS needs not only the customer agencies, we
also need the GSA, who has always been a good partner with us.
And subsequently, we have established at least the baseline, if
you will, and submitted this to GSA as a standard that would be
prolific across all 9,000 buildings. I think that is a step in
the right direction.
Senator Collins. You are saying that responsibility needs
to be clarified, but do you need more people, more training,
more resources in other ways? We can't help you solve this
problem unless we know specifically what you need to correct
such egregious security lapses.
Mr. Schenkel. Well, Senator, right now, we are coming up
with some, I think, very aggressive means to address these
problems, in particular training of our contract security
guards, literally going back out to retrain them. The reality
is, it is this same 600 inspectors that are also responsible
for inspecting 9,000 buildings over periods of time. It is the
same inspectors that respond to high-visibility, high-risk
situations such as the terrorist trial that was mentioned
earlier in the testimony.
When we were at 1,400, we only had 7,500 guards to oversee.
We are now at 1,200 and we have 15,000 guards to oversee. It
breaks down to about 10 guard posts, which could actually be
multiple guards, for every one inspector out there. That is if
all the inspectors are fully trained, healthy, while on the
job.
Senator Collins. So that sounds like you need more people.
Mr. Schenkel. The ratios are much greater now than they
were in the past and our responsibilities have grown
exponentially.
Senator Collins. What about the responsibilities
contractually that are put on the private security firms?
Shouldn't there be contractual requirements for them to ensure
that the certifications are current for their employees?
Mr. Schenkel. Senator, there are contractual requirements,
but quite simply, you need oversight and you need a means to
monitor those and measure their success.
Senator Collins. But it sounds like there is no
accountability in this whole system. These security firms are
being paid tens of millions of dollars a year to provide
security for vulnerable Federal buildings, buildings at which
thousands of people work and visit each day. Shouldn't FPS be
holding the contractors accountable?
Mr. Schenkel. FPS's responsibility is to provide the
oversight, not only on the guards, but on the contract
compliance itself, to ensure that they meet the expectations of
the contract. The reality is that FPS didn't have anything that
is workable to actually measure that performance. We have some
technologies coming online. I know that doesn't solve the
problem today, and there is no excuse for what has happened
already. I can tell you, though, that we do have some
standardized technological solutions to that that will allow us
to provide immediate oversight. We have also promulgated
several policies in the last several months, but also the
reality of that is we need to train to the level of proficiency
in those policies before we can get to where we need to go.
Senator Collins. What worries me about your response is you
have cited technology in the pipeline or people being trained
now, it is going to take a while. We have an urgent problem. It
isn't just the threat from al-Qaeda terrorists, it is the
threat from a domestic terrorist, such as the person who killed
the guard at the Holocaust Museum. The threat is here and
present and we know from the GAO study--and the GAO study is
not the first to identify problems. There was a GAO report in
June 2008 that identified serious problems. There is the
Inspector General's report of April that identified serious
problems. We can't be just working toward solutions. We need to
have solutions right now, because every day that we don't,
thousands of people working or visiting these buildings are
potentially at risk.
I would ask the Chairman to join me in asking you to
produce in very short order a corrective plan, or a plan of
action that tells us specifically what you are going to do, how
you are going to ensure that the contract employees are living
up to the requirements for which they are being paid, and also
providing us with your needs. We are eager to help you get the
resources, the training, whatever it is that you need to help
strengthen the security. I think this is urgent enough that you
should provide that to this Committee within the next couple of
weeks.
Chairman Lieberman. No, Senator Collins. I appreciate it.
And as I indicated earlier, and, of course, we have been
working together on this, we want to actually put in
legislation to reauthorize the Federal Protective Service and
make changes that express the urgency that we feel about
getting this right. So Senator Collins' request, I join in,
which is to let us know within the next week or two what you
need.
As I mentioned earlier, for now, we have lost confidence,
so we haven't actually advocated for any significant increase
in funding with the appropriators this year--and Senator
Voinovich, who is a Member of this Committee, is the Ranking
Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland
Security--because we want to get the structure right and the
management right and then come back and try to fund you
adequately. But I would urge the same.
And again, we weren't going to hold a hearing on this until
the report came in, but we were so jarred and unsettled by some
of the preliminary indications in the briefing we got from GAO,
we just thought we should go public with it and then work with
you and Secretary Napolitano and our colleagues here to get it
right quickly, because this is a vulnerability.
Senator Collins. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins. Senator
McCaskill, I believe you were next.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL
Senator McCaskill. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman. I
appreciate this hearing and I wanted to focus in on the
contracting issue.
It is my understanding that all of these contracts are
competitively bid?
Mr. Schenkel. Yes, Senator.
Senator McCaskill. And do you have a handle on how many
different companies are participating in these bids? Is this
several large companies or are there lots and lots of smaller
companies?
Mr. Schenkel. Currently, we have a great number of small
businesses, that are involved in the contracting business right
now.
Senator McCaskill. How many of your current FPS guards are
retired law enforcement officers?
Mr. Schenkel. I will have to get that for you, ma'am. I
don't know.
Senator McCaskill. I know in my experience, spending time
in courthouses, that when I go to the Federal courthouse in
Kansas City, I see a lot of my old friends from the Kansas
City, Missouri, Police Department that I used to work with when
I was a young assistant prosecutor and they do a great job,
these former law enforcement officers. They understand what
their job is and I think they do a terrific job, and so I would
be curious to what extent has there been any effort to, in
fact, use retired law enforcement officers because many of the
people who retire from front-line police department jobs are
relatively young people, because of the nature of how young
they go into policing and the retirement systems that are in
place in many communities. Early retirement is not unusual. And
so I would like to know that.
And what is the cost to the taxpayer for each contract
employee in your Department versus each Federal employee,
apples-to-apples jobs?
Mr. Schenkel. Well, there really aren't any apples-to-
apples jobs, but the contract security guard, we pay roughly
$36 an hour, if you will, but that is not what the contract
security guard actually receives. That includes the overhead
from the company. Overall, a fully-loaded law enforcement
security officer is about $180,000. That includes training,
equipment, travel, uniforms, everything. A contract security
guard comes in at between $63,000 and $85,000 a year.
Senator McCaskill. So it is half the cost?
Mr. Schenkel. Roughly.
Senator McCaskill. OK. I would like you to give that to the
Committee in writing, if you would, what kind of value are we
getting out of contracting versus hiring direct Federal
employees. We have found in many other instances that once the
math is actually done, that it is surprisingly close, the two,
and I just think there has been this enormous explosion of
contracting in the Federal Government without anyone slowing
down and really doing the cost-benefit analysis as it relates
to the costs. And obviously, we have a significant cost here
that we have talked about at length, and that is the risks when
you don't get people who are required.
I notice that two-thirds of your budget, about $1 billion,
are the guards. What is the other third?
Mr. Schenkel. The other third is our costs. Our operations
and maintenance budget is about $277 million to support 1,225
FTEs. Of the $1.3 billion, the rest is either pass-through for
contract security guards or other security measures that have
to be funded through our customer agencies.
Senator McCaskill. So what you are saying is one-third of
the budget is administrative support for the other two-thirds?
Because your job is actually guarding, correct?
Mr. Schenkel. Our job is to provide the recommended
protective measures. Our law enforcement mission, our LESOs,
our 1,225 FTEs are supported out of that $277 million. The rest
is for countermeasures or supportive countermeasures, that
being the contract security guards or equipment that goes along
with the security mission.
Senator McCaskill. I know that you all have discussed this
to some extent, but the 1,200 people, their job is just to be
supervising the contract guards?
Mr. Schenkel. That is not their lone responsibility,
Senator. That is just part of their responsibility. As part of
their facility security assessment and then contract
performance oversight, it includes not only the active patrol,
which is also tied directly to the guard post inspections and
oversight. That is a good portion of their responsibility. But
they are not directed just to oversee the guards. That is only
a part of their mission.
Senator McCaskill. And what is the other part of their
mission, besides overseeing the guards, if you could?
Mr. Schenkel. That is providing the facility security
assessments, occupant emergency plans, training for occupants
of buildings, their regular law enforcement missions, arrests,
prevention of damage to properties, responding to
demonstrations----
Senator McCaskill. Tell me about the arrests. I mean, where
do they have direct line responsibility for arrests?
Mr. Schenkel. On the Federal property.
Senator McCaskill. So when something occurs in a courthouse
that would require an arrest, they are called by the guards?
Mr. Schenkel. In a courthouse, it is a slightly different
situation in that the courthouse has U.S. Marshals and Court
Security Officers, which are their contract security guards. We
only do the perimeters of a courthouse. But, say, in a Federal
building in Chicago, if there is an incident on that property
or in that Federal building, it would be our officers
responding and making the arrest.
Senator McCaskill. And in terms of security, when we wanted
to open an office on a streetfront, was it your employees that
came out to look to tell us that we shouldn't?
Mr. Schenkel. We are obligated to provide the facility
security assessment, in other words, to tell you the benefits
or perhaps the problems with opening a Federal facility in a
certain location.
Senator McCaskill. And that would be one of those 1,200
people that came out to look at the facility that we moved into
and give a risk assessment as it relates to that facility?
Mr. Schenkel. It is actually only about half of that 1,200.
There are only about 600 inspectors of the 1,200 FTEs that
actually is involved directly with the facility security
assessments, the guard oversight, and the response.
Senator McCaskill. Well, it just worries me a little that a
third of the budget is for 1,200 people and two-thirds of the
budget is for 15,000 people. That seems a little heavy-handed
on the 1,200 side. I will take a look at the budget, and if you
have any additional information you would like to provide as it
relates to that budget, I haven't had a chance to drill down
into it, but I want to make sure that you have adequate
personnel. And I have no problem, as the Chairman and the
Ranking Member said, supporting additional funding for the
protection of these buildings because I think it is needed.
Obviously, the GAO study showed how desperately it is needed.
But I want to make sure that we have a handle on where all the
money is being spent now.
Thank you. And by the way, I saw on your resume that you
graduated from a college in Missouri, so I wanted to note that.
He is a smart guy. He wants to get it right. He graduated from
Lindenwood in St. Charles, correct?
Mr. Schenkel. Yes, ma'am.
Senator McCaskill. OK. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Well, I am impressed. Thank you.
Senator Akaka.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
for having this hearing.
The Federal Protective Service plays a critical role in
protecting millions of Federal employees across this Nation and
I am concerned that we are not doing enough to secure the
Federal buildings that house these employees. Last year, my
Subcommittee held a hearing to examine GAO's earlier report
detailing troubling shortfalls in FPS. It was a huge concern
over a year ago and it still is a concern. That hearing
highlighted inadequate funding, staffing, training, and
equipment, as well as poor oversight of contract security
guards.
In response to a plan to further downsize FPS, Congress
acted to require FPS to maintain at least 1,200 employees to
adjust its funding to support that staffing. While some
progress has been made, it continues to struggle, especially in
the area of training and contract guard oversight. Some guards
are not receiving mandatory training prior to standing post.
FPS does not have reliable systems for oversight of contract
security guards and there is no system in place to verify
training certification of guards.
My question to you, Mr. Schenkel, is about cases and
policies of oversight exercised. FPS's 11 different regions
sometimes have 11 different ways of doing things. I understand
FPS recently revised many policies to increase consistency
among the regions, including updating post orders and contract
monitoring policies. What steps have you taken to ensure these
new policies are being followed, and what training is being
provided to FPS and contract guard employees on these new
policies?
Mr. Schenkel. Senator, that is a very good question because
that tends to lead to what Senator Collins had asked before.
Our plan is comprehensive in nature and we realize many of
these shortcomings and we had to reprioritize again after we
received this GAO report as to what training was the priority
and where it should go and who should be delivering it, which
we took on immediately.
As I said, we published seven financial policies and five
direct contract guard oversight and contract policies within
the last 8 months. However, I am not going to lead you astray
and say that we are fully versed on these things and train to
them. We have to train to these. We are in the process of doing
that right now.
In addition to that, we have also formed a policy
compliance unit. If you will, it is an oversight of the
oversight. We have a team that we have formed that actually
goes out to the respective regions and ensures that, first,
that these policies are being taught properly and utilized
properly, and then drilled all the way down to that, not only
the contract guards, but the Federal Protective Service
employees are also being held accountable and held accountable
for compliance with these policies.
These are all works in progress. I don't mean by any means
to lead you to think that we are right there right now. But we
have taken steps in the right direction to get us there.
Senator Akaka. I mentioned about being concerned with the
reliability of your systems for oversight of security guards.
Do you have or are you close to a reliable system?
Mr. Schenkel. We have three systems that will assist us
tremendously. Our first and foremost and most important is our
Risk Assessment Management Program. Right now, we are dependent
on six different systems, four of which do not belong to us,
just to provide a facility security assessment. Because of the
cumbersomeness of this system that is in place now, if you
will, it can take as much as 8 to 10 days to do one facility
security assessment. This new RAMP program will expedite that
through defined algorithms that will actually provide a
solution based on fact for a facility security assessment.
In addition to that, it will provide the oversight, the
necessary compliance pieces, the metrics that will be able to
track guard force performance, guard certifications, and guard
compliance. We will be able to pull it up just by the
individual's name. The individual inspector will be able to
pull out his or her laptop, open this up, compare the name and
badge number to the individual's training record, and it will
be right there. This is coming online in fiscal year 2010.
In addition to that, we have a Computer-Aided Dispatch
Information System. Right now, again, as you heard earlier in
the testimony, we are dependent on a lot of what I call a
stubby pencils and paperwork to keep track of many of the
things that we do. The Computer-Aided Dispatch Information
System will computerize and combine all of our offense reports,
all of our incident reports, and will also time-stamp the
activities of all of our people, not just our inspectors. That
will assist us in validating and defending good staffing
numbers to where we can come to you and say, we need X number
because we have demonstrated by using these systems that, in
fact, it takes longer to do a facility security assessment in
Montana than it may in New York just because of the geographic
dispersion.
In addition to that, we also have a post tracking system
that is coming in 2010. That post tracking system will replace
another stubby pencil and paper drill. Right now, our
inspectors are bogged down doing paper copies, ensuring that
individual guards are on post. This new post tracking system
will be an electronic measure that will automatically identify
and define an individual on post, how long he or she has been
on post, and take the inspector out of that tedious paper drill
so he or she can go out there and provide more oversight, more
training for these guards.
All of these are coming online in 2010. In reality, it will
also take us until 2010 to be trained up on these systems, to
detect any flaws that need to be corrected. It will be a full
year, I believe, before we are actually incorporated into all
of these systems, our inspectors are confident in the system,
and they are all through their training, because we still have
half of our force in entry-level training, if you will, to
become an inspector. It is a full 32 weeks. Our first new hires
are just coming to fruition right now as far as their
certifications.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. My time has run out, but let me
ask this question. Given what we have learned here today, what
are your top three priorities for FPS's full-time and contract
guard workforce as the agency moves forward? So you can provide
it for me in writing, if that is all right.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Akaka. We have
worked together on this, including the initial request that the
Committee made for GAO to do this investigation.
Look, Mr. Schenkel, I know that this has been a tough
report for you to absorb. This is the first time I have met
you, but from all I know of your record, you are a devoted
public servant. But the reality here is, and you said it
yourself, this is an unacceptable situation. Periodically, we
ask the Secretary of Homeland Security, of all the threats to
our homeland security, what keeps you up at night? What do you
worry about? And I am afraid, based on the GAO report, the
guards of the 9,000 Federal buildings in the country and the
people who either work in them or come in and out of them now
is one of the things that will keep the Committee up at night,
if you will.
I know that some of the changes--this is not your fault,
but the Federal bureaucracy moves slowly, but this is a crisis.
I hate to hear that you have to wait until next year to
implement some of the changes that will make things better. I
hope that in responding to the request that Senator Collins
mentioned and that she and I make now to you together, that in
the next 2 weeks, you will provide some report to us on
immediate steps you are going to continue to take to make the
situation better and what suggestions you would have for us as
we prepare legislation, which we will move urgently through to
help you improve the management of this operation so that next
year in the budget cycle, or maybe even earlier by way of
supplemental, we can provide you additional funding once we
have the confidence that the management structure is in place
to make this situation better.
I am also going to ask if you will make yourself available,
or your staff, on a monthly basis to meet with our bipartisan
staff, to just get reports on what has been happening in the
previous month. The Comptroller General has a High-Risk List
for Federal Government agencies. I think based on today, we are
going to put Federal Protective Service on our High-Risk List
and we want to work with you to get it off of that list as
quickly as possible.
Fair or not, the reality is that in 10 of 10 tests that we
heard about today, GAO with bomb-making equipment was able to
get into 10 different Federal buildings and assemble the bomb
and walk around with it and we just can't have that. I know you
agree with that, so that is our mission, to raise our guard,
because we also know that our terrorist enemies are out there
every day planning ways to attack us, and unfortunately,
Federal buildings are a natural, logical target.
Senator Collins, would you like to make a final statement?
Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to
thank you for so promptly holding this hearing. I want to
commend the GAO for its investigation and our staff for their
work on this issue. And I just want to reiterate what you have
told Mr. Schenkel. This is a crisis. It is simply unacceptable
that we have such a poor level of security at busy Federal
buildings that are obvious targets. I don't think we can wait
to remedy the problems that were outlined and that we have
discussed in depth today.
So I look forward to working with you, Mr. Schenkel, as
well as with the Members of this Committee and the GAO to
immediately remedy these very serious and alarming gaps in our
security. It is truly unfathomable that in the world that we
are living in today, with the lessons of September 11, 2001,
still fresh in our minds and the most recent incidents that the
Chairman mentioned in Arkansas as well as here in Washington,
we know the risk is here and we simply must provide better
security at obvious targets, such as Federal buildings. Thank
you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Collins.
Just thinking as Senator Collins was talking, this is a
21st Century version of the shoemaker's children having no
shoes. We accept the responsibility through the Department of
Homeland Security to protect the American people, and thank God
and thank everybody who works in the Department, we have now
gone almost 8 years since September 11, 2001, without another
major terrorist attack. The ones that we have had have been
local and limited, usually homegrown, and yet we are not doing
the job we should do to protect our own Federal buildings. That
is unacceptable and I have every confidence that you will work
with us to make sure that we change that.
I thank you. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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