the committee on homeland security will come to order and the committee is meeting today to receive testimony all federal protective service will continue and challenges we can transition and impede progress good morning i'd like to thank our witnesses for appearing before us today we here this morning to discuss the continuing challenges faced by the federal protective service and how those challenges may affect its future the fe protective service is responsible for protecting federal government property personnel visitors and customers by providing law enforcement and related security services about nan thousand buildings that are under the control and custody of the general services administration f t s responds to incidents conduct risk assessments participate in security meetings with g s a property managers and tenant agencies and determines whether g s a buildings meet security standards established by the end agency security committee to carry out this mission f t s currently employs about twelve hundred federal employees about one half of a f p s workforce federal law enforcement security offices but those offices are not responsible for providing a law enforcement presence at the federal facilities on the contrary these employees are dedicated to overseeing the fifteen thousand members of a contract god force but most people that contract guards are the face of the federal protective service  and this trend is likely to continue while congress has mandated that f p s maintain staffing levels of at least twelve hundred g a o has found that the agency continues to have a high attrition rate and like most other fellow agencies f t s must address the impending requirements were tyrants of the baby boom generation about thirty cent of f p s employees will be eligible to retire in the next five years the impending retirements combine with a high attrition rate that f p s must implement a strategic human capital plan yet g a o has found that f p s does not strategic human capital plan the lack of a human capital plan could be mitigated by stella oversights of its force of contract gods but g a o has found that f p s does not live oversea training and performance of these guards in fact in one region f p s failed to provide x ray magnetometer training to fifteen hundred guards since two thousand and four nonetheless these guards were assigned to post at federal facilities in addition to training and oversight challenges g a o has identified substantial security vulnerabilities in the f program g a o investigators were able to successfully carry the i e d components through security checkpoints monitored by contract guards in t n out of t n federal facilities it in the guard program could be mitigated by accurate f t s assessments of risk and the implementation of countermeasures by g s a and its tenet agencies however g a o has found that f p s has only limited influence over the allocation of resources because resource allocation decisions are the responsibility of g s a and tenet agencies i think it's fair to say that the current state of f p s is bleak however the department has put forward a transition plan to move f p s and implement changes throughout the agency we cannot as relocation alone will resolve f p s this problem the multidimensional and complex challenges faced by this agency have been in the making for years the solution to these problems will require resources planning and commitment this planning is the first step but it cannot be the only step taken i look forward to the testimony of the senate today and i look forward to the actions that follow the chair now recognizes the ranking member the four committed gentleman not you feel that that job can be done and in that regard i will be introducing a letter which recently i guess is a copy of let us go from the american federation of government employees they talk about severe staffing shortages in the new york region so to me again not saying what that letter is accurate or not but the fact these are serious issues in any event but to be raised with the  committee rules opening statements may be submitted for the record in our welcome our first panel of witnesses our first witness is mr rand beers on the secretary for the national protection and programs director mr beers oversees operational to direct subcomponents cyber security and communications infrastructure protection risk management and analysis and the united states visitors and immigration status indicated technology commonly referred to as u s business program soon he will be adding f t s to this list of components under his direction and i don't know what else after that has to be is but i'm sure you have a second witness is mr gary shekel the appointed director felt protective service in march two thousand and seven proud of joining f t s he served as assistant fellow security director for transportation security administration at chicago midway airport welcome witness as mr robert patrick the commissioner of public building service at the general services administration as commission the physical infrastructure issues steen at the government accountability office mr goldstein is responsible for g a o as work in the areas of government facilities and tele communication i also welcome you here today  thank you mr chairman thank you and ranking member king and the other members of the committee for inviting us to appear before you today to discuss the transition of the federal protective service and tremendous respect for the work that f p s does every day all over the country as you are aware f b s was transferred to the national protection programs directorate on october twenty eighth of this year with signing of the  closely with the federal protective service and the immigration and customs enforcement agency to ensure an orderly transition and we will be happy to elaborate on that in the question period  related to facility protection finance and human capital planning are currently actively being worked and five are tied directly to the implementation of risk assessment and management program or ramp  the june two thousand a report recommended that develop and implement a strategic approach to manage staffing resources f b s is refined and is using a strategic staff allocation model  levels f b s is accomplishment led close this recommendation last month in addition to this major accomplishment accomplishment s b s has used its human capital management plan to make important progress huge dividends in the national capital region alone for example and improve performance process for contracted guard services resulted in a five point five million dollars cost reduction in two thousand and eight and the savings were passed directly to the agency client additionally f p s eliminated a backlog of two thousand two hundred invoices totaling ninety two million dollars some of which predated the creation of the f b i s consolidated and centralize the entire invoice payment process since and since the beginning of two thousand and eight fiscal year two thousand and eight has paid ninety five percent of all invoices within thirty days and in its most recent months the percentage to ninety nine point five percent i think this is a mark of the seriousness with which we have taken the recommendation and the effort that that f b i has undertaken to move forward third point i want to make is with respect to contract guard oversight f b s has been developing detailed performance measures that are directly linked to the two thousand and eight strategic plan and in f y two thousand and ten f p s will formalize these performance measures  p s has been developing a draft set of more than eighty potential measures that are aligned to f p s programs to determine f p s progress toward meeting the goals and objectives in that strategic plan furthermore  currently developing and additional information collection and analysis tools to allow these comprehensive comprehensive measures to be fully implemented specifically to address these f p s is responded  y firstly identifying contract guards with expired certifications and qualifications and brought them into compliance with contract provisions or remove them secondly it is required contract guards to complete additional training at magnetometer and x ray screening operations and techniques thirdly it is authorized the use of overtime to increase the frequency of contract guard post inspections and finally we've established a national study group a in conclusion transition f p s advances secretary napolitano strategic vision and her commitment to align the functions within the department of homeland security in a manage in a manner that leverage  mr chairman and ranking member congressman king thank you for inviting g s a to come to the to this hearing this morning mr chairman you noted the the range of our buildings three hundred fifty four million square feet of  buildings that house one million federal tenants all around the country and i think what i'd like to do most is to put the is to put the issue of security in context we always say that we have no more important mission in g s a a mission which is which we share with the federal protective service of providing for the security of the people who work in our federal buildings and for the citizens who come to visit and it's important to note that this is an incredibly difficult undertaking because our buildings by and large are not high security installations in the traditional sense of a place where you can surround it with double concertina wire and and and high intensity lighting and keep everybody out on the contrary we invite the public into our buildings they paid for the buildings the people who work in those buildings serve the public so it's a balance that we have to maintain and it makes security quite a bit more difficult than it is in other contexts second and in our buildings we have agencies with a wide range of people who have business to conduct with the with the government security is something that happens in a continuum beginning with intelligence with our with the efforts of our military overseas to disrupt those foreign threats against us in moving into technology in our buildings and also the human assets which is the focus mostly of you're hearing today but it's important for us to work on and we are working with f p s and other federal agencies on defining what the threats are and what are those threats that we can reasonably and most effectively mitigate by measures in our buildings as i said some measures against threats have to be taken outside our buildings and then there are those threats which we need to accept in a way as a risk of doing business in a democracy all of that makes this a new a very complicated job in a job which requires a look at each and every federal facility as a separate security issue the question of what we do when we get down to the to what i often refer to as a last line of defense the the human assets we have in the buildings which are mostly contract guards but also federal protective service officers there are lots of issues which we're going to bring up today they have to do with training they have to do with cost whether they whether the guards that we employ are federal employees or private sector we need to consider how much money it's going to cost us i think there may be opportunities in which we can find that we need fewer human assets on site and replace them possibly with more roving patrols and with with different sorts of technology and different sorts of access procedures to our buildings i'll just tell you we are working as hard as we can with the federal protective service we have liaison's in each one of our eleven regions who are specifically dedicated to working with the federal protective service on doing acid asset security risk analyses on our buildings and working day to day to make sure that security is done as seamlessly as possible two days ago we had a federal protective service which runs the inner agency security committee held a conference in which we discussed the physical standards which applied to the construction and renovation of our buildings we had some very good conversations about the issue which i the issues i raised here about balancing security openness and in mitigating our threats in the most effective way finally i'll just say i will defer mostly to the department of homeland security an f p s on the issues that congressman king raised about the upcoming trial in new york i'll just i will note that we have had terrorist trials in that venue before the as you know congressman the state and the city have also have courts nearby we have a lot of assets that we rely on quite frankly from the city of new york and in the state but we also do have  federal assets we do have a pretty robust federal protective service presence in new york city the physical arrangement of the courthouse in lock up near there the detention center near there i believe are among the things that  made us decide that this is a venue that we can protect but it will require more assets and it will require some inconvenience to ploys and visitors and and drivers in new york city thank you and i'm happy to answer any questions obviously thank you for your testimony and now recognize director ghosting to summarize his statement for five minutes thank you mr chairman and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify in the federal protective service and it progress in meeting its mission of protecting federal buildings employees and citizens as you know after within the department of homeland security is responsible for providing law enforcement and related security services to nearly nine thousand federal facilities in two thousand and four g a o identified a set of protection practices from the collective practices with federal agencies in the private sector which included allocation of resources using risk management strategic management of human capital leveraging technology information sharing and coordination and performance measurement and testing my testimony today is based on a g a o report being released as well as past reports and testimonies and discusses limitations f t s spaces and protecting g s a buildings and resulting vulnerabilities and actions that f p s is taking to perform this work we used to keep practices our as our criteria visitor number of g s a buildings surveyed ten agencies analyzed purton laws and also conducted cover testings ten judge mentally selected high security buildings and four cities f p s his approach of securing g s a buildings were flex some aspects of key protection practices however g a o found limitations in each area and identified vulnerabilities more specifically as spaces obstacles and allocating resources using risk management f p s uses an outdated risk assessment tool and subjective time consuming process to assess risk in addition resource allocation decisions are the responsibility of g s a intended agencies this leads to uncertainty about whether risks are being mitigated also f p s continues to struggle with funding challenges that impede its ability to allocate resources effectively and a lack of equity remains in the fees paid by tenants second f p s does not have a strategic human capital management plan to guide its current and future workforce planning efforts making it difficult to discern how effective its transition to an inspector based workforce will be furthermore because contract guards were not properly trained did not comply with post orders g a o investigators concealing components for an improvised explosive device passed undetected by f p s guards at ten of ten high security facilities in four major cities many contract guards lack required certifications to stand posts in federal facilities third f e s lacks a systematic approach for leveraging technology inspectors do not provide ten agencies with an analysis of alternative technologies the cost and  associated associated reduction in risk as a result there's limited assurance that the recommendations inspectors make are the best available alternatives and tenon agencies must make resource allocations decisions without key information forth has developed information sharing and coordination mechanisms with g s a intended agencies but there is inconsistency in the type of information shared in the frequency of coordination and fifth f p s lacks a reliable data management system for accurately tracking performance measurement and testing without such a system it is difficult for a p s to evaluate improve the effectiveness of its efforts allocate resources or make informed risk management decisions f b s is taking steps to better protect g s a buildings for example  developing into risk assessment program and has a recently focused on improving the oversight of its contract guard program additionally g a o has recommended that f p s implement specific actions to make greater use of key practices and otherwise improve security however f p s has not completed many related corrective actions and f p s faces implementation challenges to achieve those objectives as well nonetheless adhering to key practices implementing jail's recommendations in specific areas would enhance f p s chances for future success and could position f p s to become a leader and benchmark agency for facility protection the federal government this concludes my statement to happen answer any questions the committee may have i'd like to thank all the witnesses for that testimony our man each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the panel now recognize myself for questions i do not often do this but without objection before i start thank you for the video most of those things well those clips of some of the testing that you talked about the ten out of ten spots of can you just give us some history of that yes mr chairman what the video showed it showed three different things the first was one of our investigators going into a level four government facility it was actually one of the buildings that we tested  it occurred in april and may of this year and india investigators carrying the implements to make the device that the second and third frame a show and so it shows our investigator going through security and not being stopped at none of the ten buildings that we went into where we stopped we were able to go into the buildings with the materials assemble the devices in a bathroom and walk  impeded through all of the various offices in the ten buildings in the four cities that we went to these offices included a variety of different federal departments including the department of justice department of homeland security department of state including the offices of the field office of a senator and a u s representative the second shot was actually just the detonator which was carried in which has its own explosive power of the third shot was an actual test that was done at a national laboratory of the device being exploded itself thank you very much and the single have you been provided  of the situation what did you do we took immediate action within hours we had already contacted all of our regional directors authorize additional overtime explain the situation as to what was going on added to th prohibited components them selves or the determination of what is prohibited items is not determined by the federal protective service or who determines that it is determined by the facilities security committee of each building so building it will be just a single agency that represents the facilities security committee if it's a multi tenet agent melty tenet facility or with this committee chairman is normally the largest tenant have a facilities committed which probably has very little working knowledge of what bad things happen to be from a security perspective making policy  decisions that could jeopardize in about a going into a federal building so that causes me real concern that you're absolutely correct in what we are trying to rectify with respect to that and what this summit was about to discuss is one ensuring that there's a security provider on each of those committees that the voting for undertaking measures or in this case defining what are prohibited items include  security considerations and that the members of the committee will be trained in security issues there are a number of other things that we consider but the but your point is exactly right and that's something that  is that none of these components in among themselves were prohibited items what is your position on that mr chairman i would probably respectfully disagree a little bit with director frank on that our investigators noted and  we informed f b s at the time that a number of the buildings through which we gained entry and passed through security the contract we're not looking at first of all and many of the materials that were brought into the federal buildings to make these devices while they may not be specifically prohibited are in themselves unusual have been asking questions as to why i had a purpose for new york on the occasion of the trials for the first what we will do is work in conjunction with the united states marshal service coordinate with state and local law enforcement and federal other federal law enforcement agencies and  what we will do is have to deploy individual members from the federal protective service certified law enforcement officers what we call a critical incident response team in every one of our eleven regions and what we n in light of the correspondence from the local mine eighteen do you feel is sufficient staffing at that location presently and secondly if you have to bring in personnel from other sites within the area i videos that it takes a lot of oversight to provide the adequate supervision for the contract guard for when we first transferred out of we had approximately five thousand contract guards we now have approximately fifteen thousand and we have fewer inspectors at this time than we did when we transferred in two thousand and three with respect to that  resources and staffing levels to match the missions that after ts currently has that study is underway and we will obviously report to you and the other body on the results of that study as soon as it is complete that we'll have then a statement by about what the appropriate level ought to be and if it is an increase how we will get there and how we will pay for it thank you very much thank configured to address this i'm sorry for new york or new york for the upcoming trial based on the seriousness of the trial and the historical perspective which is all we have to go on is the numbers that we needed for the previous trials we don't have any of our regions that could support that and provide their daily operational requirements as well we would have to use a search team from at least  o has released in the past get to this point and that moving people around in the way that they need to does undermine the security of the remaining years and slows down lots of different  i think at this point in time nobody knows the reason we're encouraged the department is doing as stuffing assessment to try and understand that but a concern that we've raised before is that it's difficult to understand what you're staffing needs will be until you have done a risk assessment effect of risk assessment process so you understand fully what the well the vulnerabilities in the threats are because it's difficult stuff not knowing that and we've we've had quite a number of criticisms of that process so it's i'm reluctant to give you a precise date that it's going to be done but it will be done if not by the end of this calendar year very early in the next calendar year secretary charged us to come up with this response timely enough fashion that we can present it to the congress on the assumption that it would require additional resources and personnel give you all an opportunity to interact with us on how we get there should that be the requirement we need to get this done or we're not going to be able to respond to what has been a longstanding what's your assessment i certainly agree with the responsibility to approach and manner and that is exactly what mr beers is talking about however on the other hand one of the things that i think that we have made great strides in and mr goldstein has not been able to see this one yet is we have rolled out a risk assessment management program this year as was pointed out we had a very antiquated very old system where we were dependent on six different systems to conduct an actual risk assessment as of monday of this week we have rolled out our new risk assessment management program ramp this was accomplished from basically a cocktail napkin to actual fruition in less than two years by some very dedicated very smart individuals within that will also provide those answers that we owe the secretary because that will assist in providing the necessary week being being implemented our concern with and we're quite pleased that they are i think actually a little ahead of schedule as i understand so that's the good news one of the concern we have remaining though is that much of the information certifications and qualifications of contract guards as you know we we've had various concerns about whether those qualifications are up to date it's our understanding that the information being put in to ramp to be able to track  whether guards are qualified is the old data which has many inaccuracies and flaws in it and so while the agency has been cleaning that up we are concerned that they may be inputting bad data into that new system which has obviously a lot of coincidentally i guess would be simultaneously were also probably in the data and that's the guard certification information previous to the outlay of ramp we had three points of failure where the search itself subsequent to that we did one hundred percent scrub of all guard certifications we have narrowed this down now because of daily inspections on these certifications narrow this down and implemented all this data into ram if there is a single point of failure is a failure on the side of caution in other words it will prevent an individual guard from standing pose as opposed to allowing someone to stand post that is not y mohamed as many of you know over the weekend the washington post reported on how attorney general holder came to choose new york as a place to lead shaikh mohammed the post wrote u s marshals concluded that the southern district of new york let's harden courthouse security metropolitan correctional center and underground transportation tunnels through which to bring defendants to court each day was hands down the safest question gets on united states soil when he goes before a judge you can bet his lawyer is going to file for a change of venue i can almost guarantee that given that that's going to be something that's going to happen my question for the panel is this cities where we have a combination of resources like a like a correctional center and a courthouse together i could ask my colleagues i'll answer for the record but i believe that there are only two other cities i can think of where we have a metropolitan correctional center that close i don't know if the transportation system between that and courthouse is the same i will say having seen high security trials take place in the southern district of new york before i understand why the attorney general made the decision it is a place that we're used to defending and where there is a and and climb ration of resources that we have but i'll be happy to answer for the record whether any other places  honestly had someone said to me off the top of my head where would you where would you go for a place like this the new york would have probably been at the top of my list and again my concern is you know new york is where ask for a change of venue and again my question is is there another place we can go and have security that apparently new york  in training that perhaps could guard forces opposed to some of the things that we're depended on contractors to provide again our resources our federal resources are some of the answers that we're looking for it's a proactive process it is not something that we take lightly and it is certainly something that we're making strides in on the positive side in enhanced in the guard training and abilities but it's also giving us pictures if you will or view into what the most effective and efficient use of what our inspectors are doing and should be i don't anticipate any increase in the level of your staff given the expansion of the mandate of the work that you don't anticipate that you're basically reconciled to are doing more with less mentality i think that's part of the process that we need indefinite number of additional employees right now would not be the most effective efficient use of our resources i think that once we determine what they actually should be doing how much time it takes them to do that especially with the advance of these new technologies that will timestamp and also develop other officials we may provide may be able to provide more that the onslaught of new technology and new procedures will will that increase the productivity of the current workforce and then what other requirements are there on top of that secondly with respect to this is with respect to the new york city issue please understand as i know you must new york city police department has the strongest counterterrorism activity of any police force in the country which is undoubtedly one of the major reasons that led to attorney general holder's decision to place that in new york city not just marshals it is not just f p s it is that whole total package put together that's going to provide the security thank you mr chairman if i may amount know how you want to allocate the time but if i could put one other thing on the table i was i wanted to one reinforce what secretary beers said which is that i think we all think that i don't think we think that f p s is current staffing level is sacrosanct that if they need more resources that they should they should get it but before we do that we really do need to do a better job of assessing the threat and what other means we have to mitigate the threat but the other point i want to add is this that it's important for you for you to know that federal protective service is mostly funded by security feet payments by federal agencies in federal buildings it doesn't get a separate appropriation and there's an interesting conversation i'll just say that goes on when we ask federal it when we tell federal agencies about security they need well i can't say that anyone has ever boxed at a security measure that we are f b s recommend on the other hand the charge is made per square foot and we do get questions sometimes from the central finance people in washington about how much they're paying and what they are getting it as they as they should question but it raises questions just as the way we work with facilities security committees and what their role is i think the role of the security thing and how it's a sassed and whether that's the only way to find f b s is something that some point ought to be on the table because they enjoy it that that's correct during the extension of our authority and being able to detain individuals and or deadly force in the event that either there or someone else's life is threatened  the working relationships that we have in large federal facilities where we have s p s presence on hand where they can actually affect the arrest works extremely well and plus our relationships with state and local law enforcement in all of our other areas that were responsible for your testimony is that they have the power to detain but not the power to arrest that is correct that you on the stand in this to go  g it is my understanding sir yes the problem arises though and we've reported this previously is that there's a great variety of instruction by the contract guard companies to their guards about what kinds of actions they should be taking and we've done many interviews with the guards themselves we've interviewed hundreds of them over the course of the last year and a half and in talking to them their understanding of what their role is even within a individual company differs greatly and we know of certain instances and have reported them where they where and fact there was at one level for facility we reported this not that long ago where an individual who was being detained by the federal protective service a scaped from the officers ran through the building wearing just one handcuff had had a shirt ripped off when running out the front lobby of it was this is a l building all of the contract guards who were in the lobby all of whom were armed simply stepped away and the f p s officers when running after him did not catch him the individuals actually apprehended by an f p s officer several blocks away w really drilled down into over this past year and that is the consistency in standardization of guard training and that is also one of the areas that would affect staffing we have to determine the appropriate number of guard inherently governmental guard training hours that we would need to to provide to all contract guards we have already assume sixteen additional hours from what we had previously because that certainly is an area of concern can you provide the committee with the written detention policy that l p s provide for the contract god will suspect both and they're fine whether guards have training and certification which are required how far are you in addressing the need to implement this system to monitor and verify and i had incorporated that into phase one of our risk assessment management program all of our our guards are in that system and if in the event that there is in the way the system or so should provide that for us the way the system works is if a guard certification is due on one july that guard that guard company and the region will receive a notice thirty days prior to that and that individual will be notified have to go to regain his or her certification prior to that time in the event that we conduct a guard post inspection after the first and that individual is not certified he or she will be immediately removed from post because that's built into the automated system now in your training and certification do you make sure that these contracting companies these training facilities do they provide training to the guards to make sure that they recognize new techniques new equipment that are being used by terrorist groups around the world  sir as a matter of fact we are threat management division publishes regular training bulletins in our training division has produced specific training bulletins in regards to the penetration we've also produced a training video we have completed but ninety nine point four did not use consistent selection practices to award contracts in addition to these problems with awarding contracts the noted a significant lack of oversight the contractors once they are posted to security detail what have you done to this issue we work hand in hand with our consolidated contracting groups currently under the  consistency requirement across all eleven regions that was done basically eleven different ways several years ago as a result of the policy changes we have also incorporated a project management office that reviews the performance and we've incorporated a semiannual performance review of each individual guard contract company and subsequent to that review we will make the determination on whether or not to re and the in two thousand and nine the published the use of physical security performance measures which requires assessing the effectiveness of security procedures through performance measures and testing what is the status of the implementation again part of that is incorporated into a ramp where we have all the countermeasures that that provides visibility across all nine thousand buildings to give us the comparison necessary so can you assure that we are safer now in these federal buildings than we were four months ago i would say yes and mr thompson had two years ago and i said i think they were safer then i think they're safer now two years because we two years even later because we have focused on our core mission on our core competencies and really have made tremendous strides across the board not only on the mission support side but certainly on the inspectors side our uniformed operations and our our investigators are totally dedicated to the expired that is absolutely correct sir and that was prior to the outset of ramp and one hundred percent scrub of all the certification must go saying do you agree with that i can't answer that question specifically however something quite related which is when f p s recently did describe the director schenkel as mentioning and this was just a couple months ago and to prepare for rampant after our recent report they found that upwards of fifty percent of the guards did not have adequate certifications in place and at least one whole region was unable to provide information to the system because it simply wasn't adequate so i know that that's certainly a goal of the federal protective service to achieve but we have not gone back into check and based on the kind of information that we are gathering to complete the report that we're doing for this committee we are still concerned that that's not the case so   incl your testimony now is all that's done it's correct it will hundred percent we are one hundred percent of guards in our system if they have guards on the contract that are not working on an f p s contract we have no control over that nor would they be allowed to stand in an f p s post require i will give you a ninety nine percent qualification of yes  out somebody else found that out was found out on an operation shield conducted by the national capital region of federal protective service at which time they conducted the guard post inspection and discovered i believe  fifty eight guards they did not have certifications in the system that does not necessarily mean that they were not certified it's just that they were not in the system that is that very the issue that i believe the chairman brought up on power of arrest as an attorney i would tell you that i think well know this that the contract guards do not have the power to arrest if you put me and i'm not a peace officer not put any individual member of the public out there next to one of those contract officers that individual has the same power as that guard is that correct technically when you say technically legally i would say yes i mean i mean i would say yes you're trying to say technically there's a difference i'm talking my legally what's the technical part of it the technical part would be that they are trained individuals in the use of force and we start implementing those recommendations we started in two thousand and six and two thousand and seven when we made the determination to go to an inspector based force and concentrate on our core mission of protection as addressed is that correct at this point in time we're not certain we have not gone back and retested to determine whether or not the new system in place is adequate it is something we certainly could do for all right we've standardized the template but we do not have the authority to standardize the procedures any response on that on the post order compliance i think the post orders really come down to a question of it hearings by the contract guard companies ensuring that the contract guards are trained properly but also oversight from f p s and as director schenkel mentioned one of the biggest challenges they have is having had on the allocation of resources using risk management and some of the issues that were brought up on the management of human capital deficiencies on the  tenants ever complained about paying a higher fee for more security but you know we've talked to many tenants in the course of our work and we have had a variety of responses many tenants are concerned in our report on human capital in july two thousand and nine has a survey of many of the tenants many of the tenants have been concerned that their fees are going up but their services may not be going up with you know at the same time in other words there because of the challenges f p s has faced and the lack of officers in many places there have been concerns that the security is not what it was there is also that there are not officers present at all times in the way it used to be is  transition yes it was brought up by director shanklin in the transition briefings that we received as part of the transition to these issues have all been have all come up during that period but it's my understanding that  for our servicing of f p s ok but it has that cost us anything in terms of our current staffing levels the cost of the transition is we have some estimates it's not finally determine we're working with f p s to determine precisely what that those costs will be this is this is an additional cost quite frankly over and above the cost of services that ice has been providing or that f p s will provide when this transition is complete which will be by the by no later than the end of fiscal year ten but our effort is to have that completed earlier than that time so i addition to what's been done before have you considered increasing the building's security cover we are trying to make this transition not cause an increase in the overall then who's going to pay for s p s do you feel ways today our concern is one of transparency for the agencies who pay their security fees and they don't have the understanding that it's going to pay for administrative costs in transitioning into an agency from one part of  don't have a recommendation at this point we haven't sat down with to discuss this specifically ok do you have any intentions to do so we certainly can we've not done so at this point ok and my last question is for the g s a collaborate with the n p t and the f p s during the transition to address any information sharing issue i've been in this job for three months i think my first week on the job because i had done it before i had a conversation with the security people we have a g s a because we have certain national security responsibilities aside from just protecting our buildings about intelligence and security information sharing s other agencies of the of the federal government and i don't think that's a transition specifically on the question of f p s and g s a i don't think that the transition will affect our in first our information sharing and i do believe that we have  a good channel of communication between us and the federal protective service on the on the information sharing that we need there are certain things that could happen that would require that we take certain actions at a federal building on  management side that we depend on the h s and other agencies of government to tell us i i think we have pretty good channels i'm not going to tell you however that i believe that all of the information sharing in the government some of the information that they may need from time to time i wouldn't guarantee that we have fixed that problem totally inside the government but i must say we think we believe we have the channels we have the security clearances necessary the handling of classified documents and information that we need to do sorts of things you do this to see if things are working well i'm i'm confident that we have as i say that we have the information we need with with the h s on those threats that are specific to federal facilities yes mr chairman could i have another twenty seconds i think you wanted to we have provided we will be providing i should say the fully disclosed facility security assessment we enjoyed an ever increasing positive relationship with the g s a over the last several years and this is a giant underlies an awful lot of the questions here and that we really need to talk about is that it is it is one thing for us to establish uniform standards with respect to security on facilities which we do for how much of a blast resistant they should have for example or what their overall training for guards should be but as i started out by saying each facility is unique in the kinds of agencies it houses the accessibility we need from the public how far they are from a curb or whether they're in a threatened geography in this country or not that it makes this job much more complicated and i'll just say with respect to our question about security guards and overseeing them this is something that i've seen over some fifteen years being associated with organization where they're doing security so i think that you have the resources has happened and clearly we all need to keep working on it but it is because security guards get hired and then they have to adapt to specific circumstances in a building later from texas for five minutes mr jackson lee thanks very much mr chairman and i thank the witnesses for their presence here today and witnesses of the second panel i think we have to direct questions in the backdrop of an enormous number that is really shocking to me i recognize that the federal government has a large number of federal buildings and i find the number here in a moment but what shocks me is that we're talking about five thousand contractual companies all contracts dealing with the security of federal buildings post nine eleven and i find that the starving in terms of the ability for oversight and the careful this in which the personnel actually trained the certification and the federal government even knowing what the level of security is for the thousands upon thousands of federal and individuals who have to go into federal buildings on federal business so mr secretary  if i can can you give any explanation as to what happened in the video that chairman thompson show first of which is were the guards at the facilities that the g a o looked at adequately trained and certified in order to be able to perform the job that should be expected of them to do that that particular issue was addressed by director schenkel and his staff in terms of an immediate audit of all the contract guards to make sure that their certifications were up to date and now this past for doing an intervention here when will the ramp program be fully operational fully operational it will be two thousand and eleven but the initial point and the point of mr goldstein's investigation that's the first part of the program which is the listing of all the contract guards and their certification status that director and his staff will know when they need to have that updated will provide indications to the play game if you will lies would have been long and i'm taken aback by the answers and this is ongoing this is obviously proceeding this administration so you are now having to be the problem that but i need to be pointed in the fact that this could have resulted in massive loss of life and the question is have we changed the mindset again five thousand outside contractors what is the present position on increasing the number of those who are under the federal protective service as employees we have at the direction of secretary apollo tano undertaken a review of the staff size of the federal protective service we have had two data calls and meetings to discuss that optimal resource person well what do you think that is and if the chairman would indulge me in just seven seconds of going up what what is your what is your perception of five thousand what do you think you would need to increase it by to have a balance of the huge number of outside contractors which i can't imagine you can get your hands around in training no matter what kind of system you put in place let me let director schenkel ask the specific answer the specific question because i'm not aware that  responsibilities he has five thousand contracts that would be one for every three guards and i don't think we're i don't i think that's a that's for all federal facilities and not not what f p s is responsible for fifty three contract doors and proximately a hundred twenty six contracts let me let me move quickly to the general accountability office please mr peck what is your assessment of what they have the number of contracts it's it's got to be much more like what they're discussing we have fifteen hundred government owned buildings about eight thousand that are least facilities some of which many of which we have contract guards for so it's you know fifteen thousand guards in g s a facilities it would be much more like a smaller number of contract i have them all number of contract mean a smaller number of contracts and i'd be inclined to think the number that mr shanklin cites is probably closer i don't know specifically than i would just like to get in writing the f p s recommendations of the last year if we have to go back further and then the response of g s a in t of funding or complying with those recommendations ok i'd like to be clear the decisions on those recommendations it goes back to something we said before the decisions on what to do in specific buildings is  by something called the facility security committee which is not a g s a committee chaired by the largest head of the largest tenant in a federal building having said that i will go back and see what will go back and get  documentation that you ask for thanks mr chairman i would only say that there's a lot of confusion here that seems to be one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing but i would hope that at some point we can balance contracts with hired personnel trained by the federal government and being under the auspices of the fed up with directive service national protection programs directorate thank you very much i yield back thank you very much and i'd like to thank our panel of witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for their question s like why secretary of the facilities committee is troubling and i think i don't have to say anything else we would suggest that you have to look at it whatever we need to do with your staff on making sure that we are kept up with what's going on and we need your were there we won't be impeded from doing our  lack of information yes sir with respect to the first issue we are in total agreement with respect to dealing with the security committees and that's why and this is one of the values is a marriage of  solid recommendations coming out of that i gave you some indication of what they the direction that where we're going but i can tell you that secretary napolitano is personally interested in this i have had at least two conversations with her specifically on this point after she became aware of this challenge that that director schenkel and mr goldstein as well have pointed to so we really are focused on that with respect  to the provision of information we report i believe by the end of this calendar year on the status of the transition that's not to say that we won't talk or provide information in between but we owe you as owe ourselves a constant monitoring of this process and we'll keep you informed thank you very much we look forward to it before being dismissed out of ramana first panel of witnesses that the members of the committee may have additional questions he's the federal legislative council for national association of security companies nation's largest contract security association its member companies employ over four hundred thousand security offices throughout the in the commercial and governmental section welcome i would once again like to thank all our witnesses for being here today as previously stated witnesses for statement will be inserted in the record and now acts each witness to summarize his statement for five minutes beginning with mr wright thank you mr chairman chairman thompson ranking member king and members of the committee my name is david wright i'm president of a few local nine one a the f e s union since the nine tax of was was growing frustration and outrage as the f p s was allowed to deteriorate despite intervention by congress to establish minimum staffing levels f p s still has less boots on the ground when it joined d h s with our move to m p p d i'm hopeful that d h has can finally get the vital mission protecting federal employees and all these right  s faces daunting challenges as officers and inspectors have been shocked and dismayed by the recent g a o reports and vulnerabilities that continue to exist every day they put their lives online to accomplish the d h s s mission contract guards in two thousand and one there were five thousand contract guards and fourteen hundred fifty total f p s personnel by two thousand and nine over fifteen thousand contract guards but only twelve hundred twenty five total  personnel that's refolding creasing guards coupled with a sixteen percent cut in f p s staff was a recipe for failure no one should have been surprised to discover the deficiencies in contract guard management performance and guards ability to detect weapons and explosives despite this critical shortfall on be actually decreased security charges collected to monitor and administer contract guards by twenty five staggering lapses by make and sourcing of contract guards at higher risk buildings and important component of any overall reform effort for at p s among the other challenges faced by f p s is  funding structure as a result of in cuts of seven hundred million dollars since nine eleven we have federal law enforcement f p s law enforcement officers that do not have better a law enforcement retirement or  benefits at f p s operates only during normal business hours in new york and other major cities criminals and terrorists don't work business hours and neither should f p s building security committees that fail to approve critical security countermeasures there's a case going on right now of an f p s recommendation for a nighttime guard at a courthouse and in a western state that guard countermeasure has been declined for years by the non security professionals of the f s b and very recently there were gunshots directed in that congressional office we also face field law enforcement staff that is significantly below congressionally mandated minimum and lastly a critical manpower shortage in new york city we need your help to remedy these challenges by number one mandating sufficient f to protect federal employees and facilities to recognize f p s dedicated law enforcement officers with appropriate law enforcement benefits and three in source contract guard positions at higher risk facilities by replacing them with federal police officers and for remedy the s p s manpower crisis in new york a trial of khalid shaikh mohammed at the new york city federal courthouse will present a security risk that f p s is ill equipped to handle without depleting security at other federal buildings in the country since two thousand and one while f p s a decrease in the risk of attack on federal facilities has increased the number of non d o d non f p s security specialist and police officers has increased by over thirty two hundred positions the v a police which protects one hundred fifty four medical centers nationwide is twice the size of f p s and manpower the sole federal agenc charged with critical mission of protecting thousands of federal buildings and millions of federal employees and visitors from terrorist and criminal attack the federal protective service is now within n p p d but remains an agency in crisis i believe the state of the f p s right now is little different than that of the airline industry security prior to nine eleven then a reliance on poorly trained unmonitored contract guards with no law enforcement authority security implementation by conflicting entities an unworkable funding structure and a perception of security through inspections instead of protection by boots on the ground federal officers prove disastrous mr chairman ranking member members of the committee when america demanded professional security at airports in the wake of nine eleven congress and the administration responded by hiring over twenty thousand federal officers to staff the a now's the time to do the same for f c s the dedicated men of f p s the dedicated men and women of f p s need your help to enable our success and to protect federal employees and properties across the nation thank you for the opportunity to testify thank you very much for your testimony now reckon i missed a payment to summarize his statement for five minutes thank you mr chairman a largest contract security trade association as you said representing private security companies that employ more than four hundred thousand security officers across the usa private security officers protect federal facilities businesses public areas and critical infrastructure and they are often the first responder on the scene of a security or terrorism incident nasco member companies employ many former law enforcement and military personnel as those security officers and in their management sadly the death of private security officer stephen johns earlier this year at the holocaust museum was a tragic reminder of the vital role the private security officers play every day in protecting the public nasco firmly believes that federal facilities can be sufficiently protected and in a cost efficient manner through the utilization of private security officers however the recent findings of the g a o in a study of the f p s contract guard program were troubling and the problems that  d need to be addressed by both f p s and contractors on the operational level the impending rollout of ramp a centralized interactive database management system should provide for a significant improvement over the current unreliable decentralized system for collecting and monitoring security officer training and certification data f p s is also updating and planning provide more and more frequent x ray magnetometer training given to security officers primary role of building access control deficiencies in this critical training were understandably highlighted by the g a o nasco members is also call for improvements to be made to current f p s firearms training for security officers nasco strongly agrees with the g a o recommendation for better building specific and scenario specific training one long standing issue that has already been discussed today is the issue as cause much confusion among f p s contract security officers and where better  clearer guidance is needed is on the subject of what actions constitute detention of a person which can be lawful and what actions constitute an arrest which usually is unlawful and can give rise to a lawsuit nasco is also hopeful that efforts to improve program management and increased oversight will lead to better communication between f p s offices and between f p s and contractors at certain levels of communication between f p s and contractors is excellent but in others it is not so good which has resulted in delays and added expenses in the hiring and processing of officers however in the final analysis the flaws and weaknesses in contractor and security officer performance found by the g a o expose a more fundamental issue at hand quality versus cost it is nascar's position and we think the public agrees that quality should always play a primary role when selecting a private security company particularly when the protection of federal employees visitors and facilities is involved are tangible reasons why higher quality security costs more higher salaries attract higher caliber officers internal company training screening and operational procedures will be better and internal company management oversight will be stronger s contract award process needs to be adjusted to ensure that quality service and performance is properly considered in relation to cost nasco is not alone in believing that f p s security contracts awarded based on best value are often realistically awarded based on lowest cost and technical capability and past performance of a company are not being valley as they should as for the impending transfer of f p s from under ice to n p p d we believe it is a very positive move as many of already pointed out the federal infrastructure protection mission f p s alliance with n p p d s mission to protect all critical infrastructure in closing work needs to be done to address and resolve the current problems in the contract guard program nascar believes that with a greater regard to quality in the park chairman process and with improvements in contracting data management oversight and training the performance of f p s contractors and curity officers will increase and th will the level of security at federal facilities nasco stands ready to work with the committee and its staff on any and all efforts to improve the standards and quality of contract security at f p s and elsewhere thank you and i'd like to thank the witnesses for their testimony and i remind each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the palau now recognize myself for the first questions let me again thank both of you for your testimony is looking at how can we keep the security at those federal buildings the best that we can the options are either to ramp up the federal employment aspect look at the contracting ramp that the one of the issues that both you gentlemen talked about spoke of training and  we were really concerned about it if you heard the testimony and questions from the committee on the first we kind of burrow down that we just want to make sure that it is done right that facilities committee cost us a real heartburn because you have some people in those buildings making security decisions in many instances that don't know anything about security they just happen to be the largest  d there were huge cost cutting measures undertaken and part of those cost cutting measures was a reduction in training for federal officers we've had very few what we call alert or our law enforcement refresher training at the federal law enforcement training center so security has definitely suffered in the times of what was described a deficit prior to that at p s had excellent training and pretty much the funds to accomplish that training but as stands today i think there is requirement put you in companies make contractors are required to provide one hundred twenty eight hours of training in addition then there's also f p s provided training we think the amount of training is qualify four times a year for the firearm training the contract security officers only qualify once a year and it's a very rigorous firearms training which is to be commended but we feel that the proficiency level could be lacking without the proper amount of qualifications per year but we have noticed f b s has really started to work on improving the training that it's risk has been its is is this is a big issue normally private security officers do not have a wrest power however there are some exceptions for instance in virginia a licensed armed security officer does have a wrest power at the facility where he's protecting and also in d c there is a class of officer called a special police officer who has a rest with already but primarily  contracts curity officer has this with f p s well if f p s made it a requirement of the contracts that the contract security officer be a special police officer then yeah it could be incorporated into the yeah very few contracts require f p s p o training as of now but more could so the answer is yes or no the answer is yes you know guess it's based on the local jurisdiction but if the local jurisdiction does allow us does allow for a class of private security officer to have a rest powers's the local law then yes then those yes and very timely to this discussion here today we have instances of since july chairing the increased oversight increase contract guard monitoring this results in tensions between federal officers and and private guards one tactic that i've noticed in one region in particular is a propensity to allege harassment by private guards alleging harassment towards federal officers in those cases we have we have very definite problems getting our officers into these facilities getting them protected and shielded from what i consider malicious charges by private guards there are tensions i mean we are the monitors we are the ones that bind the wrongdoing we are our federal officers are the ones that find individuals being are without proper commissions so yes there's absolutely  tension lady from california yes thank you mr chairman and i also want to thank you for holding this hearing because as we're hearing now on both sides and information clearly you know the information needs to be had mr chairman i'd like to ask could we get a clarification from the folks who spoke in the first panel if in fact as mr right has just presented that the staffing costs has been decreased by twenty five percent without objection ok my second thing is mr right you guys have an ongoing contract you're a local do you guys have an ongoing i know i'm new on the committee service ok let me stop you there because there's only so far we're we're actually able to delve into this mr chairman might also suggest that being on the transportation committee i know there was a long time that  contract has been left out and secretary la hood has made a commitment to get to the table and address some of these issues and i might also suggest that we requested secretary napolitano any outstanding things that might be heading in that hav resolved that they go to the table and and do them or whoever the appropriate people and i feel later you know this committee has a long standing commitment to giving workers the right to choose representation and i don't see what you're suggesting is not consistent with that long standing committee ok and then mr emmett could you describe for me what are the qualifications for do you have a list of standard qualifications out the contract officers must meet is there a standard that standard is set completely by f p s and to your knowledge with your association and how much auditing actually goes on to determine if what the contractor says at their meeting in terms of who they're bringing forward is is in fact correct information we don't do any studies of that but i would like to say though that we welcome more oversight of the program we welcome more oversight of contractors there have been problems with contractors and if there are problems with certain contractors then maybe they should not continue to have those contracts nascar has always stood for raising the standards in the industry and we fully believe that when you've raised standards and you do you base your contracts based on quality as opposed to cost you will be able to get that sufficient level of protection that is required at a much lower and more efficient rate than hiring full time federal police officers  some instances you just don't not need a full time law enforcement officer monitoring x rays and magnetometer machines well my time is about to expire let me just say chairman i think in light of some of the things that have happened you know even on full military bases very recently and with what we've dealt with in the last few years and certainly probably what ahead i would venture to say we have to be very careful we don't know what we're going to expect that any person might walk into any building on any given day to do something that's inappropriate and so i would actually say that i would prefer particularly in a federal building where there is a public expectation that appropriate security does exist that all efforts are made to do that and i won't get into the nuts and bolts of whether it's one or whether it's the other but i think we have an obligation and the public expects us that we're providing a certain level of service and unfortunately there been a couple instances where that probably has not been the case and so i look forward  working with the chairman i thank you for having this hearing and i look forward to all of the follow up to ensure that we can create that within our building thank you i'd like to thank the delay from california as well as our  witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for their questions before concluding however i'd like to remind our panel of witnesses that the members of the committee may have additional questions for you and above what we've already laid out and we actually do you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions the other commitment i give to both witnesses is   if there anything going on that you don't see consistent with established policies please let us know i know staff loves to hear me give them work but