Federal Protective Service cuts staff to breaking point

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Russell and Kat are intimately familiar with these guys.

Security Provider Cuts Patrols
Federal Protective Service Faces Financial Problems
   
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 18, 2008; Page B01

The police agency in charge of protecting many federal buildings is so short-staffed that it has cut outdoor patrols aimed at detecting suspicious individuals and car bombs, according to a report to be released today.

The study, by the Government Accountability Office, was requested by the leaders of five congressional committees after earlier hearings raised concern about the Federal Protective Service.

The protective service provides security for more than 1 million federal employees at about 9,000 buildings in the D.C. area and across the country. Caught in a cash squeeze in recent years, the agency has reduced its staff by about 20 percent, to 1,100 officers, the study said. They oversee about 15,000 contract security guards at the facilities.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), head of a House subcommittee on public buildings that has scheduled a hearing today on the report, said it reflected a troubling deterioration in the service.

"The final report leaves no doubt that Congress must take action before the session ends to assure federal employees . . . are fully protected," she said. The report is also the subject of a Senate subcommittee hearing tomorrow.

The GAO study, conducted from April 2007 to this month, notes that the protective service is hiring 150 officers and strengthening its finances. However, the actions "may not fully resolve" the security problems, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Washington Post.

The report traces the protective service's difficulties to its absorption by the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. The service lost a $139 million annual subsidy it had received as part of the General Services Administration and slid into financial turmoil. The protective service responded by reducing officers and focusing them on overseeing the contract guards. The service said it would seek help from local police forces in responding to crime at facilities.

The report criticized that strategy, saying that it "has diminished security at GSA facilities and increased the risk of crime or terrorist attacks" at many buildings.

At many facilities, officers no longer patrol to prevent or detect crime, the report said. As a result, "law enforcement personnel cannot effectively monitor individuals surveilling federal buildings, inspect suspicious vehicles (including vehicles that could potentially bomb federal buildings) and detect and deter criminal activity," the report said.

The service also reduced officers' hours at many locations, the study said. Adding to the difficulties, many of the service's security cameras and X-ray machines have been broken "for months or years," the study said.

The report highlighted problems with contract guards, who generally work at fixed posts and do not have arrest powers. Oversight of the guards is inadequate, with some posts inspected less than once a year, it said.

In one incident, armed security guards stood idly by as a shirtless suspect wearing handcuffs on one wrist dashed through the lobby of a federal building with a Federal Protective Service officer in pursuit. The building was not identified in the report, but officers speaking on the condition of anonymity said it was a court-services facility in the District.

The GAO investigators based their report on interviews and visits to seven of the 11 regions where the protective service works. While the report did not identify them, the regions include the D.C. area, according to protective service officers who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Fewer than 200 such officers work in this region, overseeing almost 6,000 security guards at federal buildings.

As part of its strategy, the protective service had planned to cut its complement of officers to 950. However, Congress this year ordered the service to reverse course and boost the staff to 1,200.

The GAO urged the service to make further changes, such as developing performance standards, improving data collection and clarifying its plans to gain help from local police in responding to crime.

Gary Schenkel, who runs the Federal Protective Service, was unavailable for comment on the report yesterday, according to Ernestine Fobbs, a spokeswoman at Homeland Security.

In a response included with the GAO report, a Homeland Security official did not dispute the conclusions. The official, Penelope McCormack, said that the service "has already undertaken considerable steps to implement the audit's findings."

The steps include drawing up a strategic plan on staffing, adopting a risk assessment program and studying new funding mechanisms, she wrote.

[Pat McCotter]

Russell and Kat are intimately familiar with these guys.

Security Provider Cuts Patrols
Federal Protective Service Faces Financial Problems
   
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 18, 2008; Page B01

...
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), head of a House subcommittee on public buildings that has scheduled a hearing today on the report, said it reflected a troubling deterioration in the service.

"The final report leaves no doubt that Congress must take action before the session ends to assure federal employees . . . are fully protected," she said. The report is also the subject of a Senate subcommittee hearing tomorrow.
...

Protect them from whom? Are they doing something that gets people mad at them?

[Kat Kanning]

Yeah, we didn't see the ICE guys at all today.

http://www.politicalgraffiti.com/nhfree/music/ICEmen-Just_Doin'_Their_Job.mp3

[KBCraig]

Maybe they'll "break" back to the point they were 7 years ago, when FPS was unheard of outside of DC. Federal buildings and courthouses usually had a single contract security guard hired from the private sector after hours, if they had any guard at all. The elderly "night watchman" was all they needed, and was a heckuva lot cheaper than FPS.

[Kat Kanning]

The fed courthouse in Concord seems to have a lot of security guards.

[David]

What's the Mcdonalds slogan right now?  Because "I'm lovin' it"    
This is just one more indication to me that the gov't is falling apart at the seams.  They are amazingly, running out of money.  More accuaratly, there promises have exceeded their ability to suck up more and more money.   

[Kat Kanning]

Maybe they're just prepping for some federal building attack/false flag thing.