form on a regular basis so i wouldn't expect that we have a whole lot of public hearings on this particular matter i know some people don't like that but i think that security is more important than anything else it's important to have a forum where nichols administrate of officer gloria jarman here to my left jarman recently joined the capitol police from the government accountability office and her background and expertise provide the department with well rounded states capitol support as well as well as the support from our oversight and appropriations committee crucial to the successful execution of our mission over a little over a year since  i selected be the chief of police during this time the department is on it undergone many cultural operational and management changes these changes are a larger process to modernize of department for mission capability hansing our ability to protect congress i welcome this opportunity to provide you with an update on our successes thus far and the challenges that remain before us as well as a vision for shaping the future as in any organization teamwork and leadership are essential qualities of a well managed security and law enforcement operation it is through this teamwork and leadership that the capitol police has been able to achieve many successes over the last year i would like to recognize the hard work of all the sworn and civilian staff of the united states capitol police who exhibit their leadership and dedication to teamwork in meeting our mission every single day every day of the year without exception these dedicated individuals w disappointed the capitol police boarding the congress ensure the safety of members staff and millions of visitors from across the globe who come to see democracy at work in addition i'd like to recognize the department's unions the fraternal of police and the teamsters for their contributions to our overall success as well it is through this teamwork that the department has been able to progress over the last year i like to talk about a little a little bit about our progress to ensure our success we have established several tiers of management communication in order to keep all employees better informed on the workings of the department and the expectation of leaders and stakeholders the executive management team the senior management team and our frontline management team have been effective in adept developing accountability down through all levels of management so that the senior leaders can count on the front line supervisors to run day to day operations while you make a concerted effort to map out the strategic path for the department here's some of our progress highlights we have handled multiple special events to include the state of the union capitol concert series large demonstrations and congressional events we have adopted a concept similar to community policing which provides direct outreach by our capital police officers and officials to the committees and members offices with the congressional community we use this program to visit every office in the house office building to to inform them of emergency evacuation procedures for their specific building we implemented news security screening guidelines throughout the capitol complex we planned coordinated evaluated a number of exercises within the capital related to air evacuations lockdowns an active shooter response we finalized our continuity of operations plan and implemented a process for review and enhancement of the plan of awe of all threats and requirements we conducted multiple training exercises across the capital can't campus to improve readiness for storms personnel in the field there have been expressed interest and concern related to the department's effort to address the g a o recommendations and today i'm happy to report that since october two thousand and seven we've closed thirty three percent of the g a o recommendations and we're actively working to address the rest of them we've developed the full set  financial statements for f y two thousand and seven and are actively working on statements for two thousand and eight we've completed a full inventory of our capital assets and assign values to these assets we redesigned our budget planning and execution process to include formalizing to the parliaments and vestment review board at the direction of the committees of jurisdiction we completed the operational and administrative requirements to the merger of the library of congress police and this resulted in the passage of legislation we have revised the uniform and equipment of the capitol police that were uniformity of parents and overall cost and in closing i'd like to say that i'm looking forward to continuing my  efforts to make the u s capitol police a best practices organization i'd like to thank you once again for allowing us to appear before you and my colleagues and myself would be happy to answer any questions that you may have isn't even noon yet thank you one of the reasons i return to the congress was my desire to keep our country safe and secure from future terrorist attacks and because we cherish freedom in the democratic process in our nation obviously we want to keep our legislative process our capital buildings and our lawmakers to be accessible and therefore accountable to those they serve but the very open this that we operate with which we operate this legislative body also produces unique security challenges when considering the vigor with which some want to inflict terror and harm on our country so i'm pleased today this subcommittee is taking the opportunity have a hearing on this important subject since being selected serve on the subcommittee made it a point to visit the capitol police command center and the canine training facility even visited the capitol power plant to see firsthand some of the more unusual challenges that come with securing the capitol complex so mr chairman the topic of capital security is a bipartisan issue and i look forward to working with you in the days ahead and the administrative functions of the department are important and ultimately allow the force to more a billion efficiently meet its security requirements however i believe it is important for the subcommittee to be more fully informed and engaged in the present threat on the present threats facing the congress and the actions that the capitol police are taking to address these threats the procedures that were followed at that time seemed to contradict every bit of training and every bit of information i had received up to that time as to how we handle security threats here at the nation's capital so i hope that we can get involved with the hearings not not them again but behind closed doors perhaps quickly as possible e is certainly the hiring and staffing of employees in certain areas like financial management which many recommendations came ensuring that the financial think within the last fiscal year closing thirty three percent of the shows that we're very actively working on do you think that if we have a hearing next year you'll be able to tell me they've closed one hundred percent of them and ninety percent of impossible for us to really see anything unless we have an idea of the numbers in the numbers have to be i have to have confidence in those numbers and we can't do without a lot of the company saying that those numbers are fair and reasonable and a other metropolitan departments that is civilian to us foreign with respect to the ones in this area i would believe that the metropolitan police has a larger sworn force as well as civilian i would say we're probably average i'm not talking about total size i'm talking about percentage of civilian versus worn i think that would be average and i think  average around the country i think the numbers the numbers of supporting civilians for supporting the number of sworn officers and programs initiatives that come with that i think that  authorized numbers are are pretty much where there's i understand an officer at appointment receives forty nine thousand six hundred thirty one dollars and after they've successfully completed training they're bumped up to fifty one thousand three  hundred seventy dollars annual pay and after their first thirty months on the job they become private first class at a salary fifty seven thousand six hundred one that's the latest information i have how does that compare with other law enforcement agencies in this area that is much higher than most state law enforcement agencies in a metropolitan area and it's very competitive with the federal agencies here in the in the district of risk can you give us some examples of changes that we would see in a transition to a threat based staffing model and how far along you are on that while the concept of operations for a threat based model is concentri are currently actively doing are in relation to for instance our truck interdiction and monitoring program where we're able to establish seventy five new camera systems that focus on  possible approach in the camp as well before they get here given the officers the time to react to that and apply you know the prevention and or mitigation of that threat before it reaches the campus and that's really what our truck entered and monitoring program is and you see that here on the on the four corners of the campus and we're expanding upon that daily using technology to do so that would be an example another current threats to include you know obviously weapons and chemicals biological nucular you pronounce that last word the same way the president does it's very interesting in designing training plans to meet the human capital requirements for the force and the reason i ask is there are different cultures and different departments and i saw that as the attorney general california looking at various departments  throughout california saw that as i was a bit comparing with others across the country and some departments have a culture where physical fitness is very very important others don't seem to have that i happen to be one that happens to believe that that's important particularly at the capitol because not only do you want people to be able to physically respond to any emergency and we could have any type of an emergency here but it also has to do with the nation's capital and we ha to look our best so i wonder whether you'd be considering mandatory physical fitness standards for foreign personnel not only as they come out of the training program and as they first employed but on a regular  f validation standpoint we would want to be right for what we do and we would want it to be something that was achievable and we would want to be something that our current employees could also achieve so i do agree with you that physical fitness and a parent's are are not only important for people to see but it's also important for the health of our officers and it serves as a great deterrent as i take it is something you would like to achieve but you're looking at how it is achievable as opposed to whether or not you think it's a good idea to do that's correct i think it's a great idea and it's something that we are hopefully going to be able to achieve  your arms mr living good i know both of you work together and i do appreciate want to thank you for the cooperation that you've always given me and i appreciate that you know when these bells and whistles go off and when we are airplanes flying above us you know we're all being escorted out a building and you will run into the building so you certainly have my respect simply because you deserve it in any way i can be cooperative and help you please feel free to call me thank you again for your appearance today and also for your men  m operating procedures or whatever limitations in place as to how much overtime an individual can get or not what about the dollar amounts more interested in make sure there's not somebody on duty who has been on duty constantly for thirty six hours unless absolutely lawsuits in the past as you reform human resource practices have we seen a reduction in lawsuits or complaints i don't know the answer to that question right now i can meet the the command center and at that time i asked you you know what resources did you think you needed you didn't ask me to give you that i asked you that  with two letters including one that outlined the cost involved it's not insubstantial nor did i think it would be insubstantial and i wonder mr chairman if in the future at some point in the future we could offline sit down with the chief and the assistant chief about that list and say they didn't ask me to do it i asked them what do you need in terms of additional capital investments so that we c informed and take a look at it and i think some of the better for us to probably discuss closed doors just because of the nature of the equipment and what it would be used for and i think maybe at least for me it would be helpful  you need seventy two why don't we close to that and if you don't should we reduce the authorization down to sixteen eleven we actually we actually need more than that which is evident by the amount of overtime that we expend where we're miss and also to support the new visitors experience at the library of congress and also we have attrition and i believe in zero nine where asking for  budget is prioritize in a way that we have to prioritize hiring and we absolutely need those people which is why we requested it and in the own budget we have requested civilian requests and allegations allocations to identified risk and vulnerabilities in response u s has completed risk assessments for eighteen of one thousand congressional facilities are currently protect and is scheduled to complete all security and can't continuity of operations planning in closing us c p s made significant progress in addressing operational administrative rick misses but there still remains a substantial amount of work to be done until these weaknesses are completely addressed that our recommendations are fully implemented u s e p a will not be in the best position to achieve its overall mission in the most efficient and effective manner this underscores congress's need to stay closely attuned to u how well we protect those we are sworn to serve i am proud of my fellow officers interest in supporting the goals of our oath of office such force they're professionals who want to contribute more to the men and women of the united states carol please take great pride in being given the ground experienced temerity of task associate with securing and protecting everyone in the capitol complex i believe we are well under utilized insight and ideas that could support further improvements in securing the capitol the capitol complex  constant threat that is not always easy to detect or identify to her in combat threats department must be given the adequate and appropriate resources to fill our mission we believe a longer view of the technology and equipment that can significantly mission must be taken further that the integration and scale ability existing in future systems must be given more weight in order to maximize maximize the effectiveness of tax dollars spent well projecting future need in a manner that will make improvements more affordable incompatible in addition to the obvious need for training equipment and adequate funding to carry out our mission for the congress the nation we need you to understand our mission and your cooperation in the performance of our mission we recognize that often our duties may be viewed as inconvenience but they are essential for maintaining the security throughout the capitol complex in officer needs to stay focused on apostles threat without fear from reprisal for properly carrying out their duties due to this ever changing threat officers cannot passively monitor activity but must be able to take a proactive approach to investigate suspicious activity defectiveness of the individual officer at each post each of the patrol vehicles in various support positions around the department is most affected by their personal motivation it is dangerous for everyone who relies upon us if we are reluctant to do what is difficult but required the human factor in our profession isn't usually critical because a blind return head can allow the person intent on harm to bring arms toxins other dangerous commodities to the halls and offices the capitol complex your police officers must feel that they will be supported by the supervisors their chief the police board and members when they make good faith efforts to do their job if they come to common sense that good efforts are punished by the powers that be because they feel inconvenienced and more damage is done to our security than you may understand are just committee in the congress to regulate published to support police officers who don't jointly perform their duties as individuals and as an agency when inconvenience maturity we must encourage responsible officers and officials to support security and to recognize those who work to secure those we protect i have devoted a lot of my time to our mission to protect you and i wish to raise a serious issue that is more traditional your concern i would like to highlight our retirement the lawn or portion of oppression is more competitive now than ever it is critical to the cap a place to not only recruit the most qualified person retirement benefit to be more competitive with other injuries thus more pealing to potential applicants and doing so will not only be able to attract the best afghans but retain the officers that are currently in the field the costs associated with training new office or just to have them leave for another ran as wasting the resources provided by congress and taxpayer in too many instances u s capitol police department is recruiting arm for competitive competing local and federal law enforcement agencies many young men and women who become u s capitol police officers begin to look elsewhere for after completing a few years in our department this very issue faced the metropolitan police department in the early one nine hundred seventy s when the congress approved an expansion of soccer ice strength even with the unprecedented step of authorizing early outs for military personnel to join the metropolitan police department the amputee was unable to reach the new authorized strength because too many new recruits left for law enforcement careers were after securing a piece years of experience is a matter of record that the only thing that stabilized n p t s workforce adaptation of a twenty year retirement system by the congress subsequent to home rule for the district the city abandoned the twenty year retirement they're now in the process of passing legislation that will restore twenty retirement as a worker increase the size of their police department and stabilize their police force control i expect i'm told for votes guessing forty five minutes or so when we return i will understand if you can stay but if you can stay obviously would like you to stay i apologize again there's things left to do we all know that that's the normal course of events and your opinion has satisfactory progress been made i mean nobody expects any of these things to be done overnight do you think they've made satisfactory progress on the report on the  resources to respond to threats we really shouldn't discuss those kinds of things in this forum but i can have a threat matrix that we worked with on to the buildings to the ground and that was encouraging to it's not quite finished the first came on board the message wasn't getting out there since the message is really filtering down to the officers i think has made a huge turnaround in the last few months it's really increasing that's that's that's great to hear because again having done this in the past in my past life i've always thought that wheel if i heard from all six hundred thirty five thousand constituents one day the world would come to a halt so i think most of us are pretty adept at recognizing that at the same time i also know that oftentimes when we get a comment or a complaint result of the fact that you've got a police department that responds to a capitol police board responds to authorization committees both in the house and the senate and responds to appropriations subcommittee and both houses have anything to do with the about having presupposition descriptions that adequate describe the work that's supposed to be done in the training that we're talking about an enterprise architecture that any organization of any should have we're talking about financial management to produce documents that you can rely year the department's been able to achieve some of these changes in this last year but were unable to in the previous years i would say that for years and years and years these problems persisted because there was preoccupation with other issues perhaps and you'd have to ask the former regime whether they figure that that was as important as some of the security missions but when the chief took over he was responsive to our recommendations he set up a there's a ways to go here but the signs are all pointing in the right direction if you had to identify any major remaining risks from the standpoint of how you would see the greatest risk improve in the administrative operations of the department what would those risks be as you would see them and do you have a sense that they are being viewed by the administration with a sense stabilize that staff which is extremely important particularly in two areas the financial management and information technology you're talking primarily administrative staff yes ok i think that's that's key and the other is i just hope that we don't declare victory by having all these policies and procedures put in place and sort of putting them on the shelf and worrying about the next thing you have to sustain the interest and the accountability and getting this job done right day after day and putting controls in place to recognize when things are requiring a different a different way of would would you individually and the organization he represent to work out while they're on duty is a great idea but i imagine to be very costly to be able to do that so you don't have a already formed position against the idea the question of how it would apply and how we would difficulties in the job of being a capitol police officer is that as opposed to many other departments where you're out on patrol most of the officers are out on patrol or detectives doing their work trying to look out for any potential problem that might exist also being officer friendly to the people who are there it seems to me you could run the risk of getting stale at that how how do how do we do in terms of the departments either rotating of positions or keeping your people fresher i mean how is that done and how successfully is that done right now because it seems to me if i were part of this department and man i'm manning my station day after day after day after day i might look at another department and say hey i could be in a patrol car out there on a regular basis or i can be moving around and that would attract me as opposed to as long as you have equivalent wages and retirement so for now i mean for the most part know what the job is when they come here the prepared to stand post there are made fully  aware when they come here they're going to be more of a surety force than proactive police force they usually i mean when you associate with a traditional police farm i guess what i'm trying to say i think making more career paths available to the officers giving him more training and making him feel they're part of the system making them know that we're backing them up and when they're doing their job that they'll have the full backing of the department and the community i mean the officers that are here take great pride in what they project and it's not the same when you go to a local department i mean you're protecting the nation's capital i mean that's something to go home and be proud of and i think i take a great pride and that's why we're here to do our job not rehear because we don't want to go somewhere else we're here because we want to be here and in your testimony you it's a sense of hospitality it's a sense of welcoming people in the training your officers receive from the standpoint the officers in the training they receive how is that dealt with how is that dealt with so that officer can be officer friendly and at the same time be the officer that's on the lookout for suspicious activity given the fact that you're there for hours and hours i think it's just the training in the training we're given in the cademy it's to be engaging to people coming through the doors believe it or not that's a great way of finding out that people aren't receptive to your friendliness and engaging them in conversation that's a great way to get a clue right there  it's the training training we've been given right now is a lot more comprehensive than when i went through the academy it's you're trained to look for a lot more threats than just a simple knife or a gun coming through the doors now there's a lot of different items that we're looking for and it's a lot more training than given to guys on the department ten fifteen years ago from the standpoint of the g a o report was there was there any inquiry made of how the department is organized to ensure that you have supervisory personnel on a regular basis checking the performance of officers was that that was outside the scope of our review we've done a number of reviews of the u s capitol police over the years i don't think we've gone but we haven't reviewed it again whenever you think it's appropriate i don't i don't feel like these things have to be done right this minute but as you get a moment it would be helpful to get another set of eyes on it not because i have any questions about it as an independent