Created in 1789, Customs is one of the federal government’s oldest agencies. Customs is responsible for collecting revenue from imports and enforcing customs and related laws. Customs also processes persons, carriers, cargo, and mail into and out of the United States. In fiscal year 1997, Customs collected about $19 billion in revenues and processed about 18 million import entries; about 128 million vehicles and trucks; about 706,000 commercial aircraft; about 214,000 vessels; and about 442 million air, land, and sea passengers entering the country. Customs performs its mission with a workforce of about 19,500 personnel at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and at 20 CMCs, 20 Special Agent-in-Charge offices, and 301 ports of entry around the country. At the end of fiscal year 1997, Customs had deployed 7,207 inspectors at these ports. This represented an increase of 17 percent over the level in fiscal year 1992, the earliest year for which complete data were available. The nine ports we visited or contacted—LAX Airport; Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport; JFK Airport; New York/Newark Seaport; Newark International Airport; and the Houston and Detroit air and sea ports—were among the busiest of their kind in the United States in fiscal year 1997. According to Customs workload data, these ports accounted for about 31 percent of all air and sea passengers and about 19 percent of all cargo entries processed by Customs in fiscal year 1997. The ports also accounted for about 21 percent of all inspectors deployed by Customs at the end of fiscal year 1997. We were not able to perform the requested analyses to identify the implications of differences between assessed and actual inspectional personnel levels because Customs had not assessed the appropriate inspectional personnel levels for its ports. Customs had not done so because it does not have a systematic, agencywide process for assessing the need for inspectional personnel and allocating such personnel to process commercial cargo at air, sea, and land ports and to process passengers at sea and land ports. While Customs uses a quantitative model to determine the need for additional inspectional personnel to process air passengers, the model is not intended to establish the level at which airports should be staffed. Customs is in the early stages of responding to a recommendation in our April 1998 report that it establish an inspectional personnel needs assessment and allocation process. Inspectional personnel levels at the selected ports at the end of fiscal year 1997 were at or near the levels for which funds had been provided to the ports. According to Customs officials we interviewed at air and sea ports, these personnel levels, coupled with the use of overtime, enabled the ports to process commercial cargo and passengers within prescribed performance parameters. In our April 1998 report, we reported that Customs does not have a systematic, agencywide process for determining its need for inspectional personnel for processing commercial cargo and allocating such personnel to ports of entry nationwide. We also reported that, accordingly, Customs had not determined the appropriate inspectional personnel levels for each of its cargo ports and for its cargo processing functions. In addition, we reported that while Customs had moved in this direction since 1995 by conducting three assessments and two allocations, these assessements and allocations were limited because they (1) focused on the need for additional positions rather than first determining the feasibility of moving existing positions, Customs’ drug-smuggling initiatives rather than its overall cargo processing operations, and Southwest border ports and certain air and sea ports considered to be at risk from drug smuggling rather than all 301 ports; (2) used different assessment and allocation factors each year; and (3) were conducted with minimal involvement from nonheadquarters Customs units, such as CMCs and ports. Accordingly, we pointed out that focusing only on a single aspect of its operations (i.e., countering drug smuggling); not consistently including the key field components (i.e., CMCs and ports) in the personnel decisionmaking process; and using different assessment and allocation factors from year to year could prevent Customs from accurately estimating the need for inspectional personnel and then allocating them to ports. In its assessment for fiscal year 1997 (conducted in 1995), to estimate the number of inspectional personnel needed, Customs combined factors such as the need to (1) fully staff inspectional facilities and (2) balance enforcement efforts against violators with the need to move legitimate cargo and passengers through the ports. In its assessments for fiscal years 1998 and 1999 (conducted in 1996 and 1997, respectively), Customs used factors such as the number and location of drug seizures and the perceived threat of drug smuggling, including the use of rail cars to smuggle drugs. To allocate to the ports the inspectional personnel that were funded by Congress, Customs used factors such as (1) commercial cargo workloads and (2) specific aspects of the drug smuggling threat, such as attempts by private sector employees at sea and air ports to assist drug smuggling organizations in their efforts to smuggle drugs (described by Customs as “internal conspiracies”). Customs also does not have a systematic inspectional personnel assessment and allocation process for processing land passengers. In 1995, Customs assessed the need for additional inspectional personnel to process incoming land passengers but since then has not done such an assessment. As with the assessments for cargo processing, this assessment was limited to Southwest border ports to address drug smuggling and related border violence. The primary factor considered in this assessment was the physical configuration, i.e., the number of primary passenger lanes, of the ports involved. Customs has not assessed the need for inspectional personnel to process sea passengers. According to Customs officials at the Newark seaport, because of the cyclical nature of the sea passenger workload (in terms of the time of week and year), they did not assign inspectional personnel to process sea passengers on a full-time basis. The port assigned inspectional personnel from other functions, such as cargo processing, on an “as needed” basis to process sea passengers. Conversely, a Customs official at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport indicated that it would be operationally desirable to have dedicated inspectional personnel to process sea passengers that arrive on board cruise ships three days a week. This port also assigned inspectors to process sea passengers on an as needed basis. Unlike its cargo and other passenger processing functions, Customs has employed a quantitative model since 1993 to determine the need for additional inspectional personnel to process air passengers at the 16 largest international airports in the United States, including the 5 airports we visited or contacted. In developing its recommendations for inspectional personnel, the model utilized the following factors in its formula: (1) the number of arriving international passengers and the activities required to clear them for entry, (2) workforce productivity, (3) growth in workload, (4) the number of passenger terminals at each port, (5) enforcement risk (threat), and (6) the number of positions equivalent to the amount of overtime spent to operate a particular port. Table 1 shows the model’s recommendations for inspectional positions and Customs’ allocations of such positions to the five airports we visited or contacted for fiscal year 1998 and the recommendations for fiscal year 1999. Customs officials considered the model to be an analytical tool in their decisionmaking. As such, the model is not intended to establish the level at which airports should be staffed. Rather, the model’s results and recommendations are considered to be an indicator of the additional inspectional positions needed by each of the 16 ports, given the six factors discussed earlier that the model considers. The model’s results and recommendations are reviewed by Customs officials and are modified in two primary ways. First, Customs does not allocate all of the positions recommended for particular ports. According to Customs officials, because additional inspectional positions have generally not been available from regular (“Salaries and Expenses”) appropriations, Customs has provided additional positions to airports mainly by funding them through user-fee revenues. However, according to these officials, user-fee revenues each fiscal year were not sufficient to fund all of the positions the model estimated were needed. For example, for fiscal year 1998, a total of 142 additional positions were actually funded by user-fee revenues, while the model estimated that 288 additional positions were needed. The model recommended that out of the 288 estimated additional positions, JFK Airport needed 108 additional positions and LAX Airport needed 20 additional positions. As a result of internal reviews by Customs officials, JFK Airport was allocated 12 positions and LAX Airport was allocated 16 positions. For fiscal year 1999, the model recommended that out of the 175 total additional positions it estimated as needed, JFK Airport needed 88 additional positions. As discussed below, the model indicated that LAX Airport was overstaffed. As of August 1998, the allocation of inspectional personnel was pending the outcome of congressional appropriations for fiscal year 1999. The appropriations would determine the actual number of additional positions that could be funded. Second, Customs did not move existing positions from airports that the model indicated were overstaffed. For example, for fiscal year 1998, the model indicated that 4 airports were overstaffed by a total of 37 positions. For fiscal year 1999, the model indicated that LAX Airport was overstaffed by 8 positions and that 4 other airports were overstaffed by a total of 42 positions. In our April 1998 report, Customs officials stated that they generally did not reallocate existing inspectional personnel for several reasons, including legislative limitations placed on the movement of certain positions, such as those funded by user-fee revenues for specific purposes at specific locations. In addition, according to the Customs official who administers the model, primarily because the model did not take into account certain factors, such as sudden changes in airline markets, Customs did not plan to move positions from the ports that the model indicated were overstaffed. In our April 1998 report, we concluded that in order to successfully implement the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (the Results Act) (P.L.