We appreciate the opportunity to come before this Subcommittee to discuss the views of this Office on H.R. 809, the Federal Protective Service Reform Act. This bill would generally restructure the Federal Protective Service within the General Services Administration (GSA), grant expanded law enforcement authority to Federal Protective Service officers and investigators and make changes regarding pay structure, contract guard training and number of police officers.
Our Office has done a significant amount of work in recent years relating to federal building security in general and to Federal Protective Service operations in particular. Much of this work was spurred by federal initiatives to upgrade federal building security after the bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. We have reviewed GSA's installation of security equipment, the adequacy of database documentation of security upgrades, and the proper usage of security enhancement funds. In the past few years, we have also reviewed the functions and operations of both the Federal Protective Service criminal investigator and contract guard programs.
The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is responsible for protecting federal employees and property in federal buildings owned or leased by GSA. To meet this responsibility, FPS performs both law enforcement and physical security functions. The FPS workforce includes uniformed police officers and nonuniformed officers, including criminal investigators and physical security specialists. FPS currently supervises over 6,000 contract guards. The FPS function of guarding and securing federal buildings has been a part of GSA's Public Buildings Service (PBS) since 1949.
FPS Reorganization
The centerpiece of the bill under your consideration today is the proposal to remove FPS from PBS and establish it as a separate operating service of GSA. This new service would be headed by a Commissioner who would be appointed by and report directly to the GSA Administrator. The Commissioner of FPS would be required to have at least 5 years of law enforcement experience in a command or supervisory position. That Commissioner, in turn, would appoint the Regional Directors and Assistant Commissioners for FPS. These Directors or Assistant Commissioners would be required to have 5 years direct law enforcement experience, including at least 2 years in a supervisory position.
We agree that improvements are needed in the existing FPS structure. We strongly believe there needs to be a direct chain of command and line of authority between the FPS headquarters in Washington, D.C. and FPS field personnel. We also support the requirements in the bill for the FPS head,
Assistant Commissioners and Regional Directors to have law enforcement experience. We believe these provisions are particularly critical insofar as FPS performs a law enforcement function. Law enforcement agencies, including those (like Offices Inspectors General) which operate within larger non-law enforcement agencies, are traditionally staffed by professional law enforcement personnel with a direct chain of command from the headquarters level to the field level. This structure assures more effective oversight of the use of law enforcement authorities, the development and implementation of training requirements, and consistent application of policies and procedures - particularly important with respect to matters such as jurisdiction and use of deadly force.
We think that most outsiders would be surprised to learn that, while the FPS Assistant Commissioner here in Washington is the nominal "head" of the FPS, he can only issue policy guidance; he does not have command and control over the FPS Directors in the 11 GSA regions. These directors, only 2 of whom currently have law enforcement experience, report to Assistant Regional Administrators for PBS in the regions and not to FPS headquarters.
Two of our audits serve to illustrate some of the problems inherent in this organizational structure. In our examination several years ago of the criminal investigator program within FPS, we found that criminal investigator activities in the field were generally operating autonomously, with no program accountability or measurable performance standards. We reported that the criminal investigators resided in a fragmented organization, with unbalanced staffing resources, disparate lines of authority and inconsistent approaches to implementing investigative guidelines from region to region. We also found the criminal investigator program lacked a useful management information system as well as a centralized system for identifying and developing specialized training needs. In addition, we noted the following problems:
-- Investigator staffing varied widely between regions - from one criminal investigator per 641 buildings in one region to one criminal investigator per 42 buildings in another.
-- Investigators in some regions reported to experienced lead investigators or Special Agents in Charge; others reported to various non-investigatory personnel.
-- Inconsistent interpretations of law enforcement authorities and application of policies raised concerns of whether the safety of federal employees was being compromised. Although we performed this review three years ago, our information is that the conditions reported in this audit are similar now and, in some cases, have deteriorated.
Similar problems were noted in another audit we issued in March of this year, in which we examined FPS management of the contract guard program. As you are aware, GSA contracts with private security firms for both armed and unarmed guards at federal facilities. As noted, there are currently over 6,000 contract security guards nationwide. FPS central office has been trying to create a national program with standards to be applied to all GSA guard contracts. FPS central office determined that five program areas should be standardized in all regional guard contracts. These included guard training, weapons and ammunition, guard eligibility, a basic written examination, and suitability and certification requirements. Our review of this program concluded that an absence of programmatic controls and oversight has led to operational breakdowns and questionable practices at the regional levels. Specifically we noted:
-- Hundreds of guards were on post without valid suitability determinations. Guards lacked necessary to perform their duties.
-- Armed guards were on post without any firearms training or they were overdue for firearms qualifications. Contract enforcement and oversight was not consistent. There was no consistent policy on post orders.
-- Guard services were being procured by purchase orders and were not then subjected to critical program requirements.
In addition to formal audits, we have addressed a number of situations over the last few years in which regional FPS employees have acted in violation of or contrary to established national policy. Those situations have included the following:
-- Several instances of FPS officers carrying firearms off-duty; one instance of an FPS officer firing a warning shot while off-duty;
-- A number of instances of FPS officers carrying firearms without having been properly qualified;
-- FPS in one region issuing badges and credentials to non-law enforcement personnel and issuing badges and credentials bearing unauthorized titles and endorsement signatures; and
-- A FPS supervisor in a region authorizing the issuance of shotguns, which FPS officers are neither qualified nor authorized to carry.
The clear message in these audits and other reviews is that FPS would greatly benefit from an organizational overhaul to improve its ability to effect implementation of consistent policies and procedures and to better handle disciplinary issues. By requiring law enforcement experience at both the central office at the supervisory level in the regions and by providing that the FPS head would appoint the Regional Directors in the field, H.R. 809 takes several steps toward this organizational overhaul. In one regard, though, we believe that this part of the bill could be strengthened. Currently, the bill provides only that the FPS head "appoint" Assistant Commissioners and Regional Directors. In order to ensure direct lines of authority between central office and the GSA regions, we suggest that the bill also provide that the Regional Directors (and Assistant Commissioners) Report to" the FPS head and not the various senior regional officials..
We do not believe, however, that FPS necessarily needs to be removed from PBS in order to effectuate the changes in chain of command for purposes of strengthening FPS's law enforcement functions. In our view, these changes can be made within PBS. This would achieve the much-needed improvements in command and control over law enforcement functions, while meeting the coordination and other concerns PBS has with the proposal to remove FPS entirely.
Under H.R. 809, the new FPS Commissioner would serve as the "law enforcement officer and security official of the United States with respect to the protection of Federal officers and employees in buildings and areas that are owned or occupied by the United States and under the charge and control of the Administrator." We believe that this broad designation of the new Commissioner as the "security official of the United States" for the protection of federal buildings is generally unworkable and adds confusion to what are in fact legitimate and important security functions that are exercised by PBS. Security is a multi- faceted area, and involves aspects of building location, design, planning, and operations. Building location, design and planning would clearly seem generally the province of PBS. On an individual building operations level, building security and safety is the responsibility of FPS and the Building Security Committee (BSC) for that building, with support of the building manager and other building personnel.
This bill's proposed removal of FPS from PBS and its designation of the FPS head as the "security official for the United States" leave unanswered several critical questions: What security functions would remain in PBS and what security functions would be transferred to FPS? Clearly building security design functions should remain the responsibility of PBS, while police activities and supervising guard forces should be the responsibility of FPS. In between, however, lies a gray area where the decisions on division of responsibility and transfer of functions are not very easy. Who would decide on the location of guard posts and whether they are armed posts? Who would decide on locations of security equipment? Currently, the BSC for each federal building, which is made up of tenant representatives and a FPS security specialist, and is supported by the building manager, make many of these decisions. How would removing FPS from PBS change this process? Would it help or hinder the process?
We believe that, even under the current organization, better coordination of the building security function is needed. We have concerns FPS a stand-alone service in GSA may not be an immediate cure for, and may even exacerbate, some of the problems we have seen in recent years, such as in GSA's efforts to upgrade security equipment at Federal facilities. There, we issued a series of alert reports in which we reported on repeated instances of missing, uninstalled and non-operational security equipment and many inaccuracies in the databases on the status of this equipment. Based on conditions we discussed in these reports, PBS reported a material weakness for purposes of the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act. Ultimately, the problems there were a failure of coordination, between and among central office and the region, FPS security personnel and customer agency officials, and FPS and the building managers. Whatever organization may result from this legislation or GSA's own efforts, a strong linkage between FPS and PBS needs to be developed and maintained in the area of building security. Law Enforcement Authority
H.R. 809 would give FPS special police - renamed "police officers"- general law enforcement authority, including the authority to carry firearms, seek and execute arrest and search warrants, and make warrantless arrests under specified circumstances. We support this provision. It is a much-needed clarification of the uniformed officer's law enforcement authorities, which, under current law, have to be somewhat assumed or implied. We also agree with the changes made in the bill from earlier versions to limit these authorities to use while on duty and subject to regulations approved by the Attorney General.
The bill would make a minor change to the law enforcement authorities exercised by the nonuniformedoffficersofFPS - renamed by the bill "criminal investigators" -- but appears to leave those authorities mostly the same as they exist currently. This leads, however, to an unfortunate, and likely unintended anomaly - the criminal investigators would exercise different, and mostly lesser, law enforcement authorities than the new police officers. For example, nonuniformed officers (or special agents) could arrest without a warrant only for felonies; the new police officers could arrest for misdemeanors and felonies. In addition, nonuniformed officers do not have express authority to seek and execute search warrants; the new police officers would. We know of no operational imperatives that would favor such a result. We would advocate changing the bill to give the new special agents the same law enforcement authorities as the new police officers. We would also suggest making those authorities subject to regulatory supervision of the Attorney General.
Contract Guard Program
Finally, we would like to briefly mention the provision of the FPS bill which would require the new Commissioner of FPS to prescribe minimum standards of suitability for employment to be applied in the contracting of security personnel. In the last few years, FPS has taken significant steps toward creating a national program for the contract guards. The program devised by FPS included the development of minimum training standards for all guards and the creation and implementation of national certification guidelines and other procedures to be followed in all guard contracts. However, our March 2000 audit of the contract guard program, which we discussed earlier, shows, however, that many of these efforts have fallen short. As we already noted, we identified literally hundreds of instances where guards were on post at GSA-controlled facilities without the initial suitability check and, in some instances, despite unfavorable adjudication determinations. In addition, over 100 guards were overdue for required re-certifications and numerous background checks were in pending status for more than one year.
The critical problem here, though, is not necessarily one of a lack of standards - FPS has already devised minimum standards for training and suitability. Rather, our review indicates it is a lack of consistent implementation in the regions, coupled with inadequate resources to provide effective oversight of the guard contracts. The problem to be addressed, therefore, whether through this legislation or by the agency itself, is ensuring that policy and procedures issued by FPS headquarters are effectively enforced in the regions.
In the end, regardless of how the issues regarding FPS may be resolved, for something as important as security of federal employees and property, any restructuring must take into account the need for clearer lines of responsibility and accountability.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my formal statement. I would be pleased to answer any questions the Subcommittee members might have.