[Senate Hearing 109-581]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-581
ACCESS DELAYED: FIXING THE SECURITY CLEARANCE PROCESS -- PART II
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE AND THE DISTRICT
OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 9, 2005
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2006
24-930 PDF
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512-1800
Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota CARL LEVIN, Michigan
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Andrew Richardson, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Minority Staff Director
Nanci E. Langley, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Tara Baird, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Voinovich............................................ 1
Senator Akaka................................................ 10
WITNESSES
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Linda M. Springer, Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management,
accompanied by Kathy Dillaman, Associate Director, Federal
Investigative Services Division, U.S. Office of Personnel
Management..................................................... 3
Clay Johnson, III, Deputy Director for Management, U.S. Office of
Management and Budget.......................................... 5
Derek B. Stewart, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 7
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Johnson, Clay, III:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 30
Springer, Linda M.:
Testimony.................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Stewart, Derek B.:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 34
APPENDIX
Questions and responses for the Record from:
Ms. Springer................................................. 49
Mr. Johnson.................................................. 55
Mr. Stewart.................................................. 57
``Plan for Improving the Personnel Security Clearance Process,''
November 2005.................................................. 64
ACCESS DELAYED: FIXING THE SECURITY CLEARANCE PROCESS -- PART II
----------
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2005
U.S. Senate,
Oversight of Government Management,
the Federal Workforce, and the
District of Columbia Subcommittee,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:04 p.m., in
room 342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. George V.
Voinovich, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Voinovich and Akaka.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. The meeting will please come to order.
Good afternoon and thank you for coming.
Today, our Subcommittee will hold its second hearing on the
Federal Government's security clearance process. Today's
hearing on this issue is titled, ``Access Delayed: Fixing the
Security Clearance Process--Part II.''
I know that this issue must seem mundane to most people,
and I doubt that it resonates with the general public. However,
a broken security clearance process has serious consequences
for the Federal Government and the Nation. Highly-skilled
employees may sit idly by for months, waiting for their
security clearances to be finalized, while important national
security work is not being done. I have no doubt that many
people are dissuaded by the long process and seek opportunities
elsewhere, thus denying the government of many hard working and
smart people.
Finally, I understand that government employees who already
hold security clearances may nevertheless face lengthy
reinvestigations while seeking jobs in other agencies that
require clearances. I can only imagine how frustrating this
must be.
Let there be no doubt that a broken security clearance
process has a negative impact on those seeking to serve, and on
the overall safety of our Nation.
Today's hearing will examine two critical components of
reforming the security clearance process. First, we are going
to review Executive Order 13381, issued by President Bush, and
the steps that the Office of Management and Budget is taking to
implement the policy. Second, we will examine the Office of
Personnel Management's strategic plan to address the
longstanding backlog of security clearance investigations,
which was released on Monday evening.
On June 27, 2005, one day prior to our first Subcommittee
hearing on security clearances, the President issued the
Executive Order in compliance with Title III of the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The
underlying policy goal of this Executive Order was to establish
uniform, centralized, efficient, effective, timely, and
reciprocal means of determining eligibility for the access to
classified information.
I look forward to Mr. Johnson's testimony this afternoon,
as he is the Administration's point person for implementing the
Executive Order. It has been almost 4\1/2\ months since the
Executive Order was issued and I am anxious to learn what steps
you have taken to ensure it is implemented in a consistent
manner throughout the Federal Government.
Additionally, we discussed the transfer of investigative
functions from the Department of Defense to OPM and what impact
that shift will have on the government's ability to investigate
and adjudicate security clearances in a thorough and
expeditious manner. At the hearing, Kathy Dillaman, OPM's
Deputy Associate Director of the Center for Investigative
Services, said the agency would provide their plan to improve
the security clearance process to Congress by the end of
October. Even though the submission was a week late, I commend
OMB and OPM for working together on the strategic plan. After
our discussions here today, I hope that we will all have a
clearer understanding of the strategies, measures, and
benchmarks the Executive Branch will use to track the success
of the security program.
Central to the successful implementation of the strategic
plan is the leadership from the Federal agencies in charge of
the security clearance process. To this end, I was pleased to
learn that OPM Director Springer recently promoted Ms. Dillaman
to an Associate Director for the newly-designated Federal
Investigative Service Division within OPM. By elevating Ms.
Dillaman to that position, OPM is sending a strong message that
they are serious about enhancing their security clearance
investigative procedures.
In addition, I understand that Mr. Johnson has been
personally involved in the drafting of the strategic plan. Mr.
Johnson, thank you for your efforts and for ensuring that the
plan was developed in a collaborative manner with input from
all agency stakeholders. That is terrific.
We all share a common goal of fixing a process that has
serious implications on the ability of the Federal Government's
national security workforce to get the job done. Qualified
civilian and contract employees are waiting too long for
security clearances. It is both unreasonable and unacceptable
for civilian employees to wait an average of 274 days for a
background investigation to be completed. Even worse, as noted
by GAO, it was taking DOD an average of 375 days to process
clearances for private sector contracting positions back in
2003.
However, the processing time for security clearances is
only part of the problem. According to the OPM strategic plan,
there are approximately 232,000 security clearances pending
approval. When one considers the sheer size of the backlog
coupled with the time it takes to conduct an investigation, it
is apparent that immediate improvements must be made to the
security clearance process to get the workload down to more
acceptable levels.
Fortunately, when examining the OPM strategic plan, it is
evident that bold goals have been outlined for improving the
timeliness of the investigation, which in turn should help
minimize the backlog. For example, OPM intends to complete 80
percent of their investigations within 90 days by the end of
calendar year 2006, thereby meeting the parameters outlined in
the Intelligence Reform Act. An improvement of this magnitude
will require a concerted effort from the OPM investigative
workforce.
Therefore, I am interested to hear from Director Springer
on what steps OPM will take to ensure that they have the
workforce with the requisite skills to streamline and improve
the security process. I would also like to know if there is
anything specific that Congress can do to help in your
endeavors.
Senator Akaka and I will work together with the
Administration and GAO on this matter. We hope that our
collective efforts will improve the security clearance process
so that it will be removed from the GAO high-risk list within a
reasonable time frame. Also, Mr. Stewart, I am interested in
your assessment of the OPM strategic plan to see if you believe
it lays the foundation for removing this issue from the high-
risk list.
I would like to thank our witnesses for their participation
this afternoon. I look forward to your testimony.
Unfortunately, Senator Akaka has a conflict. Though, I hear
from his staff he is going to try and make time to attend. We
have three great witnesses today and I want you to know that
your entire statements will be entered into the record. I now
ask that you please stand and be sworn in, as is the custom of
the Subcommittee.
Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help
you, God?
Ms. Springer. I do.
Mr. Johnson. I do.
Mr. Stewart. I do.
Senator Voinovich. Our witnesses include Linda Springer,
the Director of the Office of Personnel Management. Linda, it
is great to see you. Clay Johnson, I am glad that you are here,
and Derek Stewart, thank you for coming today. Linda, we will
start with you.
TESTIMONY OF LINDA M. SPRINGER,\1\ DIRECTOR, U.S. OFFICE OF
PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT; ACCOMPANIED BY KATHY DILLAMAN, ASSOCIATE
DIRECTOR, FEDERAL INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES DIVISION, U.S. OFFICE
OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
Ms. Springer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is always good to
be back to visit with you on these issues. We appreciate the
opportunity to testify today about OPM's efforts to expedite
security clearance processes and specifically our efforts to
reduce the current backlog.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Springer appears in the Appendix
on page 23.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you know, OPM is now responsible for ensuring that, each
year, approximately 1.4 million Federal employees and
contractors meet suitability and/or security requirements so
that they can serve in the Federal Government. By the end of
2006, OPM is required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Protection Act of 2004, as you stated, to reduce investigations
processing time to 90 days. We intend to meet that goal by
adhering to the strategy laid out in the ``Plan for Improving
the Personnel Security Clearance Process,'' \1\ which was
jointly prepared by OPM, the Office of Management and Budget,
and major clearance-granting agencies across the government.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Plan for Improving the Personnel Security Clearance
Process,'' November 2005 appears in the Appendix on page 00.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our last update to you was at the June 28, 2005, hearing on
this issue. Since then, we have worked hard with OMB to
complete an analysis of our overall process and proposed
performance goals and milestones that could be measured with
data available from OPM's automated processing system. We have
also been working with OMB and senior representatives from the
intelligence community, as well as the Departments of Defense
and Homeland Security and others, to develop an overall ``Plan
for Improving the Security Clearance Process.'' We have also
worked together to build a consensus about those performance
goals and the action items which we will be measuring to
improve. We assure you that we are meeting our timelines and
goals.
Meanwhile, some specific actions that we have taken are in
the areas of assisting agencies in improving the forecasting of
their workload. That has been a challenge for them. We collect
quarterly data, comparing agencies' annual workload projections
with their actual requests, and we are then able to enlighten
them, so that they can better project their upcoming workload.
That will help us with our staffing.
We have also been increasing the amount of staff that are
devoted to background investigations. We have reached levels
now that we think will help us to get through not only our
current workloads, but also the backlogs.
We have also implemented an automated process for
collecting the subjects' background information electronically,
rather than through a paper-based format. This new system is
used by agency employees, who are seeking clearances, to submit
their background investigation. Since its implementation, that
system has been able to improve our timelines and our accuracy
for investigations. Electronic submissions reduce the amount of
time applicants spend completing forms, and those forms are
more accurate, when done through the automated process versus
the manual.
During June of this year, about 370 investigation requests
were used by the new system. By October, we were up to over
4,200 per week, and that success rate in that greater
utilization is helping us in making a noticeable impact on our
timeliness.
Investigation time has been reduced in all levels of
clearance. For example, the investigations process related to
top secret clearances is a particularly important and sensitive
program. When OPM was delegated this authority in February
2005, there were 72,000 investigations in process. As of
October, that number has gone down to 54,000. So we have a ways
to go, but I think we are demonstrating that we put a good down
payment on making a dent in the backlog.
In June, OPM reported that its goal was to average 35 days
or less for the priority initial clearance investigations by
October 1 of this year. In October, our Federal and contractor
field staff completed all required subject and source
interviews and advance results to the agencies in an average of
34 days for over 890 priority investigations.
To ensure our processes are successful, OPM continues to
measure investigation timeliness, including the overall
required to get field coverage and information from key third
parties at the national, State, and local government agencies.
That is a critical dependency for OPM in meeting our 90-day
goal under the Act.
To summarize, OPM is making significant progress. We have
worked with other agencies and OMB in the development of
reasonable goals and targets and we are working to meet them by
measuring success and making procedural changes. We are using
greater automation. We are hiring additional people. And we are
on track to meet the goal of the 90 days within of receipt by
the end of calendar year 2006.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks and I would be glad
to take your questions.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much. Mr. Johnson.
TESTIMONY OF CLAY JOHNSON, III,\1\ DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR
MANAGEMENT, U.S. OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
Mr. Johnson. Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me up
here today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears in the Appendix
on page 30.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When OMB was designated the lead agency and I was
designated by Director Bolton to be the point person on this,
we formed what we called a Security Clearance Oversight
Committee to guide this effort. On that committee, we have
Kathy Dillaman, representing OPM, and we have the seven largest
users of security clearances--Defense, State, Homeland
Security, Justice, Energy, Commerce, and Transportation, seven
agencies. We are focusing on the non-DNI intelligence world,
which is about 10 percent of the total.
We are focusing on the part where all the investigative
work is done by OPM. When we get that up to full speed, then we
will bring the other 10 percent in; using the same
methodologies and the same metrics. So, that is why those seven
agencies are the ones involved. We also have representatives
from the National Archives, because they have been working on
this issue for years, and we have representatives from the
National Security Council, because they have worked on it.
We also have a representative from the Director of National
Intelligence because we want to make sure that whatever we set
up for the non-DNI world, that it will be compatible with the
way they envision running their world. We are going to use the
same metrics, the same levels of accountability, the same
performance standard.
So we have met three times, end of August, end of
September, and then just last Friday. We have had two
committees, one headed up by the National Archives person that
looked at the whole issue of reciprocity, and a representative
from every one of those seven agencies plus the DNI
representative were on that. They have done fabulous work to
clarify what we have to do to have a functional granting of
reciprocity with regard to security clearances.
We had another committee that Ms. Dillaman headed up that
looked at what are our standards across the board. What our
adjudication standards are, what should our delivery of
security clearance request forms be to OPM, and what should our
investigative turn-around time standards be, and so forth? She
and representatives from all the agencies have been working on
that plan, which was delivered Monday night, and which you have
seen.
I am highly confident that we will accomplish the goals
that have been laid out for the security clearance process in
the Intel bill. There is lots and lots of clarity. We have a
very clear understanding via the Intel bill of what the goals
and time frames are, what we are supposed to do, and by when.
It is very clear what each agency has to do to meet its overall
goals, what they have to do in terms of delivering accurate
information to OPM to launch the investigative part of it and
then what kind of turn-around time they have for the
adjudication part of it, and it is very clear what OPM has to
do. These have all been mutually agreed to by these seven
agencies plus the DNI.
The agencies have, or soon will have, detailed action plans
for getting their adjudication turn-around times up to
satisfactory levels. I think it is 80 percent within 30 days.
Some of them will be able to do that very quickly. Some will
have to hire many more adjudicators, or train many more
adjudicators, so that the action plan called for is different
for each agency.
There is a lot of performance information. Attached to the
plan are some of the metrics that we envisioned using to hold
ourselves accountable. Everything that moves in this process
will be measured, so there is lots and lots of performance
information that we have to manage ourselves with. There is a
very strong commitment to do what we say we are going to do.
One of the things I have been really pleased by is how
``leaning forward'' every representative, from every agency,
is. We know this system is broke. We know there is no law of
physics that needs to be violated to unbreak this system. We
just need to be very clear about what needs to be done and then
go do it. There is a very strong commitment to hold ourselves
accountable. It is not OMB holding the rest of the world
accountable, but it is really the security clearance world
holding itself accountable for having a functional system.
There is a tremendous can-do attitude. We all know we can
and will reform this process and we are all--if I do say so
myself--I think it is a shared sentiment--very proud to be
working on it because we know this has been broken for a very
long time and our group is going to be the one that fixes it.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Mr. Stewart.
TESTIMONY OF DEREK B. STEWART,\1\ DIRECTOR, DEFENSE
CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE
Mr. Stewart. Mr. Chairman, we are pleased to be here today
to discuss the government's plan to improve the security
clearance process and, in particular, we focused on DOD's
personnel security program. We want to thank you, Mr. Chairman,
for your continued focus on this critical issue. We really do
appreciate your attention to this matter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Stewart appears in the Appendix
on page 34.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I testified before this Subcommittee in June, I made
several points, and I would just like to review quickly three
of them. I told you in June that GAO declared DOD's security
clearance program as high-risk due primarily to three things:
Longstanding delays in completing investigations, a growing
backlog, and no effective method to estimate total workload
requirements.
I also told you that GAO viewed the problems with DOD's
program as a national security matter because DOD has about two
million clearances and is responsible for the clearances of
contract personnel in 22 other Federal departments and
agencies.
And the third point I made before this Subcommittee was
that DOD's investigative function, when transferred to OPM in
February, was not a panacea that would fix all the problems.
Well, today, Mr. Chairman, I sit before you almost 4\1/2\
months later and I am pleased to tell you that based on our
review of the government's plan, we think that the plan
represents an important step forward and will address some of
the longstanding concerns that we raised at the June hearing.
One very positive feature of the plan is the numerous
metrics. You just heard Mr. Johnson say, anything that moves,
we can measure it, and that is true. There are numerous metrics
to help monitor the timeliness of the clearance process,
statistics on how long the process takes for investigations,
the various types of investigations, the amount of time needed
to determine clearance eligibility, and on and on and on. These
are all very good metrics that will help keep the government on
track. We are very pleased to see that.
On the other hand, our review showed that there are a few
elements of the plan that are less comprehensive than those
found in, let us say, a fully-developed plan. To illustrate
this point, I will cite just three examples. We believe that
the plan would benefit from more details on the resources
required to accomplish the plan's objectives.
Mr. Chairman, in June, I remember you said directly to Ms.
Dillaman, I want to know if you don't have the resources you
need to get the job done. So I know that you know that is a
critical point.
The second thing that we think the plan would benefit from
more of is more focus on monitoring and improving the quality
of the security clearance process. The primary metric in the
plan for measuring the quality of the investigations is the
percentage of investigations returned due to incomplete case
files. We do not believe that this metric, which is essentially
rework, is by itself a valid indicator of quality.
And last, the plan requires agencies to improve the
accuracy of their workload projections to be within 5 percent
of their actual demand, but it does not establish interim
milestones for achieving that, or a target completion date for
when that requirement has to be met.
As I noted earlier in my June testimony, DOD's inability to
estimate its workload requirement was a major contributing
factor that led to GAO's high-risk designation, because they
could not accurately estimate their workload requirements. We
cannot emphasize enough that the accurate workload projections
will heavily influence the success or failure of the
government's plan.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would repeat that we are
encouraged by the high level of commitment by Mr. Johnson and
his staff at OMB in taking a lead to develop this plan. This is
a positive step in the right direction. And again, Mr.
Chairman, we appreciate your attention and the Subcommittee's
attention to this critical matter. This concludes my prepared
remarks. I will be happy to take your questions, sir.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much.
The first question that I have is in regards to resources.
Ms. Springer and Mr. Johnson, in the 2006 and the 2007 budget
that the Administration is putting together, do they include
the funding to provide people and resources to get the job
done.
Ms. Springer. We think that the 2007 budget, as well as the
2006 budget, Mr. Chairman, are set in a way that we can support
the number of people we need to hire. That includes contractors
as well as permanent staff.
One of the challenges that we have is that it takes about a
year or so for an investigator to become fully productive, up
to the level that they will ultimately achieve. So the levels
of staffing that we have budgeted for will allow us to bring
on--actually, I don't want to say over-hire, but to bring on
enough people to compensate for the fact that there is that
learning curve. So we are comfortable that the amount that is
in the budget will allow us to do that.
Senator Voinovich. In terms of retirement, succession, and
competency, do you feel that you have this under control?
Ms. Springer. We think we do, and obviously, as you
mentioned, I have elevated Ms. Dillaman up to the point of
being a direct reporter of mine so I am personally involved in
reviewing that. But we have anticipated a normal termination
and attrition and we understand that the turnover levels of
contractors are different than for permanent staff, so we have
taken all that into account.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. We had the OPM review for the 2007 budget the
other day and I was asking about this, what resources were
needed, and I think it is fee-for-service, agencies requesting
clearances pay OPM for their services, that is where they get
their money. It is not an appropriated amount. It is tied
directly to the level of work they do. So the money is there
and the question is managing the cost. The big challenge is not
where do you get the revenue to cover it, but managing the cost
so that the productivities and the retirement and so forth and
the competency levels are what we need to do to achieve the
goals.
Senator Voinovich. The reason I am asking the question is
that you have many other things that are on your plate.
Ms. Springer. A few.
Senator Voinovich. One of which is the pay-for-performance
programs. I want to make sure that we are not shifting money
around. I want to be sure that you have the budget and
resources to carry out this task. I want to make sure you have
the wherewithal to get the job done.
Ms. Springer. Right.
Senator Voinovich. In 2004, GAO noted that OPM's primary
contract was hiring around 100 investigators a month and at the
same time was losing around 70 employees. However, during the
last hearing, Ms. Dillaman indicated that the primary
contractor turnover was down to 18 percent. Is this still the
case? In addition, your plan mentions that OPM plans to promote
a redistribution of staff between the companies currently under
contract to better position a broad base of companies to deal
with the unanticipated workload changes.
I would be interested in knowing, how are your private
contractors doing?
Ms. Springer. I would like to answer that and then maybe,
if I could, ask Ms. Dillaman, if that would be all right, if
she would----
Senator Voinovich. Yes, that would be fine.
Ms. Springer. One of the things that we are doing with our
contractors is to have a better segregation of duties, if you
will, so that, for example, when we have quality assurance
reviews and quality control, that we have got a contractor that
is independent enough of the process to be able to review what
another contractor is doing.
So one of the things that we have observed is that we
needed a better segregation of duties, if you will, to have
that right assurance. So bringing on additional contractors was
partly to address that particular situation, so we get a better
assurance over that result.
As far as the 18 percent turnover rate, I think that is
probably a typical rate. Actually, it may even be a little low,
but I am going to ask Ms. Dillaman if she would respond.
Senator Voinovich. Ms. Dillaman, would you stand so I can
swear you in.
Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help
you, God?
Ms. Dillaman. I do.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Ms. Dillaman. And yes, Mr. Chairman, the turnover has
stabilized. It is remaining constant. We have redistributed the
resources. Today, the five new contracts that OPM has let has
about 1,200 resources of the 6,600 contractors and there will
be a continued redistribution of those resources, so we are
right on target with what we projected in June.
Senator Voinovich. Do you have the people to monitor what
the contractors are doing?
Ms. Dillaman. Absolutely.
Senator Voinovich. That is good. What input did you get
from the private sector in terms of putting your plan together,
Mr. Johnson?
Mr. Johnson. We wanted to make some progress on the plan
before we met with them, so we met with them first October 18,
with representatives from a number of companies. We have
another meeting Monday afternoon to talk to them, and we have
laid out for them the kind of plan we were developing, our
thinking about reciprocity, the kind of performance measures we
were developing, and got their initial response. We will do the
same thing, but with the real plan, on Monday. The feedback
they have given us is they have let us know loud and clear,
which we knew already, that this is very important for them.
We understand we need to create a mechanism whereby they
can communicate to us if it is not working from their
standpoint but have a mechanism that doesn't require them to go
to the hand that is feeding them to complain about how their
security clearance process isn't working. So we are going to
set that up so they can go to a third party to let us know
whether it is working or not----
Senator Voinovich. So in other words, if they have a
problem, under the plan, they could come to you and say----
Mr. Johnson. Right.
Senator Voinovich [continuing]. This isn't working the way
we want it to. So you did get their input on how they thought
the process could be improved?
Mr. Johnson. Well, again, they have asked for feedback
mechanisms and they asked to be kept informed and they
encourage us to do it sooner rather than later. I think they
were very pleased with the seriousness of it and the commitment
and the method to the madness and on the measures we were going
to have, and the Intel bill goals are what they are and they
understand we are committed to achieving those goals and are
highly confident that we will be able to do so.
Senator Voinovich. OK. Senator Akaka.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me welcome the panelists. It is good to see all of you,
and I regret that I missed your testimony.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for your leadership
in seeking to reduce the number of government programs that are
on GAO's high-risk list. What we are doing in this
Subcommittee, examining problems and inefficiencies, is really
having an effect.
I was late because I was coming from an Armed Services
Readiness Subcommittee hearing where Chairman Ensign and I
heard testimony from Under Secretary Ken Krieg who also
testified at this Subcommittee's hearing on DOD logistics last
month. We also had DOD Comptroller Tina Jonas, as well as
Randolph Hite of GAO there. At the SASC hearing, the Secretary
spoke of the successful collaboration he has with OMB and GAO
in developing plans to reduce the number of DOD programs on the
high-risk list. This ties in with our concern here today.
Mr. Chairman, we are making good progress on the high-risk
list, and I am pleased that the Administration, at the highest
levels, is involved in the process. Mr. Chairman, I want to
thank you for holding this hearing. If I may go to one
question, we are coming to a vote.
Senator Voinovich. Yes, why don't you go ahead.
Senator Akaka. All right.
Senator Voinovich. We have got some time left. I am going
to try and see if we can't run this until about the end, and
then we will leave and try and cast the second vote, because
there are two votes, I think, if it is all right with you.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Johnson, thank you for your approach to
addressing the challenge. I can see that the OPM plan provides
certain goals and milestones. Although I did not expect to see
details on funding the plan, I know that meeting the plan's
metrics will require significant funds for programs and other
personnel services. Some of my questions for Secretary Kreig
were along these lines, too.
My question to you is, do you or Director Springer have any
preliminary figures on how much money will be needed to reach
the goals of the plan, especially in the area of information
technology needs?
Ms. Springer. Senator, we don't have a number to give you
right now. We could look into it. I can say that for the next
year, the next budget cycle and the way this is structured, the
way our income or our money comes in to fund these things, that
we are well-funded to be able to achieve next year's goals. But
looking long-term, particularly for IT, we would have to get
back to you on that. We will do that.
Mr. Johnson. But the money that funds their security
clearance activities comes from the fees that are paid by the
agencies that are seeking the clearances. So if there is a lot
of volume, there is a lot of money. It varies with the amount
of work.
Senator Akaka. Director Springer, I commend the plan's
efforts to monitor how quickly agencies are supplying the
required records to complete the clearance investigation. I
know that investigators are sometimes hindered in their work
because of problems obtaining State and local records. However,
I know my own State of Hawaii has what is called the Criminal
Justice Information System that allows all Islands to hook into
a single reporting system, which, in turn, can be used by
Federal law enforcement, as well.
Can you describe the State and local access problems and
share with us whether you believe legislative action is needed
to facilitate such access?
Ms. Springer. I am going to ask Associate Director
Dillaman, who is responsible for the program, to answer that,
Senator.
Ms. Dillaman. Senator, we have a team dedicated to the
research into a number of different State and local record
systems to see the best way to use technology or access to get
the information we need. We do, in fact, with our duty station
in Hawaii, use your centralized criminal history record system.
That is true in many States.
At the State level, we are looking at Bureau of Vital
Statistics records, possibly National Guard records, other
records at that level, and quite frankly, 50 States have 50
different ways of keeping their records. So the liaison has to
be State-specific to identify how the records are kept, what
the most efficient way to get access to those records would be,
and we have to monitor the timeliness for each State.
There are 26,000 local law enforcement agencies and it is
the same exact issue with each and every one of them. So doing
adequate research to determine whether or not a State record
system suffices in lieu of doing local checks, or, in fact, the
reporting system within a State is such that it doesn't, that
we have to go to each and every local law enforcement agency
where we know the individual has activity. And so that is a
dedicated team effort on our part.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Director Springer, the plan's
staffing distribution charts project the total staff level of
9,000 by October 1, 2006, with a mix of 1,800 Federal employees
and 7,200 contract staff. Projected staff levels 3 years later,
October 1, 2009, would still be at 9,000, but with 500 fewer
Federal workers. Can you explain why the mix of Federal
employees to contract workers will change?
Ms. Dillaman. Well, the primary reason for the change is
going to be related to normal decrement, normal termination,
retirements, for example, that we expect will occur and then
rebalancing will just happen as we have to go to contractors to
some degree to compensate for that.
Let me just say that I have spent a fair amount of time out
in the field at field offices, at several of our field offices,
visiting with the staff, legacy DSS staff, OPM staff,
contractors, just about every type, every level, supervisors
down to investigators, just about every level, hundreds of
people who are working on this effort, and over the past few
weeks, I have had a chance to go out and visit them. And what I
can tell you, because I open up the microphone and say, just
ask me any questions you want to, the questions range from,
``We would like to have an ice machine in our office,'' to
``Can you get us a certain type of technology?''
But I can tell you that the questions that we are getting
don't indicate a level of dissatisfaction or a lack of support,
but rather a real sense of commitment and can we get even some
better tools and understanding of the objectives. I am not
getting questions about the requirements that we are putting on
the ability to meet the goals.
So I think that whether it is the contractor community or
whether it is an employee, a legacy employee or an OPM
employee, that everyone is committed and working together very
well. That mix will just evolve as we have changes in
retirement, normal changes that we project over these next
couple of years.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. My time has expired.
Senator Voinovich. I need to recess this hearing to go and
vote. I have additional questions, and I am sure Senator Akaka
has some as well. I apologize to you, but that is the way
things are around this place.When I was governor and mayor, I
controlled the schedule. Thank you. [Laughter.]
[Recess.]
Senator Voinovich. The Subcommittee will come to order and
reconvene. I apologize for the delay. I hope you had a chance
to talk back and forth.
Mr. Stewart, in your statement, you raised a couple of
questions in regard to the plan that you observed. Overall, you
thought it was a good, comprehensive plan but you did raise a
couple of issues with the plan. I would be interested in the
response to those questions that you raised, either by Ms.
Springer or by Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Stewart. The couple I mentioned----
Senator Voinovich. If you could repeat them again. I want
to give them a chance to respond to the fact that you raised
these issues.
Mr. Stewart. Yes. There are a couple of issues. One centers
on quality, and Mr. Chairman, I want you to know that I didn't
mention it, but Mr. Johnson and the OMB staff and the GAO staff
have been meeting. We had a meeting right after the hearing in
June. Mr. Johnson invited us over in July and then we met again
in October. We have been talking and we have made this comment
to OMB, so this is not a surprise.
When we were briefed on the plan, the one concern we had
was around quality. There are a lot of metrics, as I noted, in
the plan, really good metrics to measure things, but we are
concerned about the quality of the process. We know that the
government has hired a lot of new investigators and will
continue to hire new investigators. It is important to make
sure that everybody is trained and on the same page, familiar
with the government standards, etc., and the plan mentions that
there is a training program.
But beyond that, we don't see a mechanism in the plan, a
metric, I guess, for measuring quality beyond the metric of
rework or the percentage of investigations that are returned
because they are incomplete.
Senator Voinovich. So it is the quality of the work that is
done which reflects the quality of the people that do the job.
Your concern is: Is OPM going to have the training necessary
for their employees to be able to do a quality job?
Mr. Stewart. I couldn't have said it any better, sir, and I
would just add to that in addition to the training, will there
be something other than rework that OMB or OPM will be looking
at to make sure that quality is built into the process?
Senator Voinovich. Ms. Springer.
Ms. Springer. Yes. Thank you for restating that question.
With respect to training, I will say a few things. Let me make
a couple of comments about training and quality control, if you
will, and then maybe I will ask Ms. Dillaman if she wants to
supplement.
There is an OPM team that is dedicated to training new
agents. The first year, in particular, as I earlier mentioned,
is where that steepest learning curve is.
Senator Voinovich. Can I ask you something?
Ms. Springer. Yes.
Senator Voinovich. How much of this work is going to be
done in OPM and how much of it is sent out to contractors?
Ms. Springer. Do you mean the training work itself?
Senator Voinovich. You are going to farm out some of this
work, correct?
Ms. Springer. The investigative work.
Senator Voinovich. So the contractors are going to do the
investigation work. OPM is not in the business of doing the
investigative work. Do you have people that do investigative
work?
Ms. Springer. Yes, we do.
Senator Voinovich. About what percentageof the workload
will they be doing versus the private sector group?
Ms. Springer. It is about a one-quarter/three-quarter
split, three-quarter contractor, one-quarter OPM.
Senator Voinovich. OK. What is the reason for the one-third
that are in-house? Does the work that they are doing require
highly-trained people?
Ms. Springer. Yes.
Senator Voinovich. The other work that you are farming out
may not require that level of training?
Ms. Springer. I am not sure it is so much that we had to
supplement quickly and with flexibility the existing staff that
we had and that we inherited, and the fastest way to do that
was with contractors. I don't think that there is one
particular type of work being done solely by contractors and
another type that is done solely----
Senator Voinovich. So you do not distinguish the work that
is being sent out or kept in-house on the level of
investigation that has to be done?
Ms. Dillaman. Sir, if I may address that, when we inherited
the Federal agents from the Defense Security Service, both
groups, the Federal and the contractor group, were dedicated to
all levels of background investigations. Now, the long-range
plan is to segregate the work so that, for example, the Federal
agents are clearing the contractors and the contractors aren't
clearing themselves and that the Federal agents would serve as
a backbone, where the more sensitive investigations, higher-
priority investigations, or those investigations that may
contain up-front known issues would be handled by the Federal
team. But for the remaining Federal capacity, they would be
working side-by-side with the contractors doing the same work.
Senator Voinovich. I would like to get an idea of what the
cost is for the in-house employees versus the contractors.
Additionally, I would also like to see the level of the quality
of the work.
I suspect that you pay more for the people that are in-
house, but the issue then becomes do you get a better quality
worker? My understanding is that a lot of the in-house
employees are part-time workers. Down the road, I would really
like to get a feel for just how this is working out and what
the trade-offs are. Of the third that are doing it in-house,
how many of them are going to be around for a while and how
many of them would be close to retirement.
I would like to know, what is your succession plan? What is
your long-range plan?
Ms. Springer. We can get that for you.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Stewart, your concern is the
training of the people that are in-house, as well as the
training of the contractors. Specifically, the supervision of
the work that is being farmed out to make sure that the quality
of the work that is being done is what it should be.
Mr. Stewart. Yes, sir. And in fact, in our 1999 report,
which is a little old now, we made this recommendation 6 or 7
years ago. We thought to ensure quality that there should be
some periodic sampling of case files to see how well the
investigators had satisfied the standards. We actually did
that, Mr. Chairman, and it was tedious. With a team of six or
seven people, the job took a year and a couple of months. But,
we went through actual case files and sampled to see how well
things were done. It is that type of quality assurance that we
were looking for in the plan that we didn't see.
Senator Voinovich. It makes sense to me that if you are
going to farm out three-quarters of your work to the private
sector, that you have a process in place to monitor the
performance of the private sector, to periodically ascertain
the quality of the work that is being done. Ms. Springer, are
you going to implement this review process?
Ms. Springer. We have some of that now, and if you would
like to describe just briefly what we are----
Ms. Dillaman. Certainly. And by no means, the returns from
agencies, that is not the only metric of quality. In our
structure, we have built a very robust quality assurance
program for the contractors. I have a branch dedicated to
contract management and quality oversight.
Every investigation conducted by a contractor goes through
a review process. The terms of the contracts require the
companies themselves to have a quality assurance program that
we review. Over and above that, I have a dedicated Federal team
that does sampling of the contractor-conducted cases, both to
confirm that the contractor has a good quality assurance
program. Rigid metrics are kept down to the agent level on
those.
Parallel with that, I have the same quality assurance
program with the Federal agents that conduct investigations. So
there are multiple tiers of quality review with performance
statistics at the company and individual level.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Stewart, I would like you to sit
down with Ms. Dillaman----
Mr. Stewart. Yes.
Senator Voinovich [continuing]. And talk about this and
maybe get back to me in the next couple of weeks. I would like
to know whether or not what OPM has in place is what you have
in mind.
Mr. Stewart. We appreciate Ms. Dillaman's contribution
here. I was not aware of that entire structure. I am aware that
the contractors have their own quality assurance program. That
concerns us a little bit, because that means that they get to
judge themselves, and that has been an issue for a while and we
have made a couple of recommendations back 7 or 8 years on that
point, long before Ms. Springer and Mr. Johnson's time on this
issue. I think Ms. Dillaman had been around then, I am not
sure. But we will get together and get more details.
In fact, Mr. Chairman, at your request, we have underway an
engagement looking at the processing of top secret clearances.
So we are going to get into some of these issues as we proceed
with that work and we are going to report back to you formally
in a report on what we find.
Senator Voinovich. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Stewart. The other issue, the other concern that we had
was on the projection of workload requirements. Mr. Chairman,
if there is one thing that really concerns us, it is the
workload requirement. You may recall when I was here in June, I
testified that DOD had not done a good job of estimating its
workload requirements and I gave you a few statistics, and I
will repeat those. In fiscal year 2001, DOD over-estimated its
workload by 150,000 cases. In 2002, it under-estimated its
workload by 135,000 cases. And in 2003, it under-estimated its
workload by 100,000 cases.
We have talked to contractors recently, Mr. Chairman, and
the contractors tell us that their biggest concern in
conducting this work is that they don't know what the workload
requirements are. They don't know what is coming at them. They
don't know how to prepare for what is down the road. One
contractor told us it cost them almost $80,000 to hire, train,
and develop an investigator. They told us that they were trying
to change the paradigm of hiring retired Federal workers and
part-time staff, and they were actually active on campus,
recruiting people with degrees in criminal justice and trying
to build a younger, more committed workforce. That is
expensive. They want to do it. They are committed to that. But
they don't know what the requirements are.
So we think it is critical that the agencies do a good job
of--not a good job, but an accurate job of projecting their
workloads. The plan speaks to that. Our concern is that there
are no interim milestones. There are no target completion dates
for when the agencies are supposed to do this, and we know from
experience with DOD, if you don't force a certain date, it is
not going to happen. It hasn't happened in 20 years and it
probably won't happen until their feet are really held to the
fire.
Senator Voinovich. So you are saying that the customers of
OPM need to do a better job of projecting their caseload.
Additionally, the plan needs more milestones to ensure that
this problem can be fixed.
Mr. Stewart. Absolutely, sir. I mean, if I am OPM, I say to
DOD, you know generally what your workload is. What initiatives
do you have in place? With contract employees, of the two
million security clearances that DOD is responsible for, about
a third of those are for industry personnel, contractors,
almost 700,000. When a government contracting officer lets a
contract, that contracting officer knows, or has a pretty good
feel for, which jobs are going to require clearances. There
should be some way that DOD can roll that up and say, these are
how many contracts we are going to let. This is how many people
we need to clear----
Senator Voinovich. So that really gets back to OMB making
sure that the agencies that are the customers of OPM come up
with accurate numbers. It makes sense to guarantee the
contractors that they will have X-number of work for 2 or 3
years. In turn they will hire a better quality of individual
and train them.
We have a 5- or 6-year highway fund. Before we went to
ISTEA and T-21, Congress would appropriate money annually. The
contractors around the country never knew whether the money was
coming or wasn't coming, so they weren't able to plan their
workforce, the equipment they would need, and so forth. This
new system has really put them in a position where they can do
a better job of managing their workforce and their capital
investment. In my opinion, we are getting a much better
turnaround. We are getting more in return from the money that
we are spending. So it would be interesting to see if something
like that could be done.
For my next question, there are five reports that OPM has
laid out, clearance granting, agency reporting, and agencies
with delegated investigative authority require OPM to obtain
performance information from other Federal agencies. What steps
are you taking to work with the Federal community to make sure
you receive the information in a timely manner, and also, how
will you verify the authenticity of the performance
information?
Ms. Springer. Well, one factor there--I will just start off
and maybe Mr. Johnson will want to comment--is that OMB now
approves delegations related to--for these investigative
agencies. In order for them to get their continued delegation,
it is going to be predicated on their ability to provide
accurate data and timely data to OPM for us to be doing this
kind of tracking of how they are doing. So there is a little
bit of leverage that we have with respect to that. The agencies
are going to want to give us timely and accurate information.
I don't know if you want to comment further on that.
Mr. Johnson. On the information, there are different kinds
of information that we need that we track. How long it took for
somebody to--once they handed a form to a prospective
employee--from that date to when they submitted it accurately
to OPM. There is a date on the form. They know when they get
it. So that is automatic. That comes with it.
The error rate, they get it--so Ms. Dillaman determines the
level of errors. So we don't have a problem in getting that
information.
I think we do require them to report to us when they
complete the adjudication, so there is a requirement that they
are obligated to report to them, and we don't get that
information automatically. We are relying on them to report
that to us and report it accurately to us.
We have not talked about how we build a quality control
process into that to make sure that they are reporting that
information accurately. Right now, we need to set up a system
where it will be what it is, and then the next level of
sophistication is to make sure there is quality control to make
sure it is accurate.
A lot of the information comes to us automatically. It is
really the adjudication completion date that is the one thing
that we rely on them to report accurately to us.
Senator Voinovich. In other words, the investigation is
done. You do it for the agencies. They look at the
investigation and they do the adjudication on whether or not
the individual is qualified to come to work for the agency?
Ms. Dillaman. Exactly, and the clearance will be reported
in the central clearance record system, so that, too, gives us
an indicator of when the action actually took place.
Senator Voinovich. For example, if you are hiring somebody
for the State Department, when do they go on the payroll, after
the adjudication is done?
Mr. Johnson. Well, Ms. Dillaman and I were just talking
about this during the break. Some agencies grant interim
clearances, and so we are talking about getting information
from agencies and understanding who uses interim clearances,
who does not. That will have a bearing on whether Ms. Dillaman
should be rushing the non-interim clearance people their
information, because they can't go to work until they are
granted the full clearance. So we need to understand that
better.
But the short answer to your question is, it depends on the
agency. It depends on whether they grant the interim
clearance----
Senator Voinovich. It seems to me you are going to have to
figure out a priority system. I think we are losing very
qualified individuals because it takes too long to get their
clearance.
Mr. Johnson. You have a priority-setting clearance, I mean
process, don't you?
Ms. Springer. Yes. We actually charge for a quicker turn-
around. There is a protocol where if you pay a premium for
special cases, where there is something that needs to get
through really fast. I am not as familiar with it, but there is
some way if there is a particularly urgent situation.
Senator Voinovich. Well, if you start getting into the
nitty-gritty of it, it is more complicated than you think. But,
the priorities are important, particularly, when we are going
to be competing for qualified individuals. We have asked GAO to
do a report on the need for scientists and engineers in various
departments throughout the Federal Government. Anything that
stands in the way of bringing these people on board puts the
Federal Government in a non-competitive position.
Mr. Johnson, reciprocity is a vital component of the
National Intelligence Reform Act and the President's Executive
Order. In order to address the issue, you established the
reciprocity working group. Can you discuss the structure of
this working group, including the mission of the group and the
Federal agencies that belong to it? In addition, what, if any,
enforcement authorities does the working group have to ensure
that agencies are abiding by the reciprocity standards of the
Intelligence Reform Act and the Executive Order?
I hired somebody to come in and work in my office that had
certain clearances from the State Department and it took a
while for her to--when she came on board with me, it was the
same kind of clearance and it took a while before all that
information got sent over. If it wasn't for the fact that I
think she pulled some strings, because she knew some people
over there and was able to jump-start the thing, it would have
been quite some time before the clearances went through.
So how are you going to deal with that, because that is a
problem. Some of these agencies, as you know from the testimony
we had, are kind of----
Mr. Johnson. Protective of their----
Senator Voinovich. You have got it. Yes. How are you going
to work on that?
Mr. Johnson. The committee we formed is not an enforcement
committee. They were to define what the reciprocity issues are
and what has to be done, what they recommend doing to address
those issues. So they have laid out what the exceptions for
reciprocity should be, and their proposal is that it is when
the current clearance that someone has is an interim clearance,
or is the result of a waiver, that has been granted or it is a
clearance--or the new clearance calls for a polygraph and the
old one didn't--that would allow additional work to be done.
The new clearance prohibits foreign-born family members,
whereas the old clearance may not have. Or if somebody has an
exception, if they want to seek other than those, they have to
come and get Josh Bolton's or my approval.
So it is very specific about when additional investigative
work is allowed. If none of those situations occurs, you accept
without further investigative work and without further
adjudication the clearance that the person has if it is for the
same level.
Senator Voinovich. Is there a secure website where agencies
can view a person's clearance status?
Ms. Dillaman. There is a database, sir, that will be in
place December 15, that OPM is sponsoring, where all the
clearances will be residing in one central record system. Each
agency will have access to to confirm the person's current
clearance status with this system.
Senator Voinovich. And then the point is that there are
some indicators in place that say when an agency could require,
as Mr. Johnson has said, more information and when it wouldn't
be satisfactory in terms of whatever it is they wanted?
Ms. Dillaman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson. So if they come to Ms. Dillaman for more
investigative work, she can say, well, this person--this is an
improper request, so there is a recordation there, possibly.
Then that is one piece of feedback that they are not granting
reciprocity. Another one is where the contractor or the
employee believes they have a clearance and they are not being
granted reciprocity or it is not being recognized by the new
employer. We are going to create a mechanism where they can
communicate that to us, as well, so we will have some data
gathering about where reciprocity is not being granted.
Senator Voinovich. Will you get reports regarding the
agencies' request for information to determine whether some of
these agencies are getting a little bit fastidious?
Mr. Johnson. Yes. You asked about enforcement, I mean, how
do we--what bad things can we do to agencies that don't
recognize other people, or clearances granted by other
agencies.
Senator Voinovich. Yes.
Mr. Johnson. What I mentioned in my opening remarks, I
think is relevant here. The attitude and the ``can-do'' mindset
of the agencies involved is really great. Everybody understands
that we can better train all our adjudicators. We can do the
work more consistently and faster and they are going to do
their part. Just in general, I don't think we have a problem
getting people's attention. It is not the Bush Administration,
just in general. If you are real clear, about which agencies
are not granting reciprocity and what individuals are above the
standard or below the standard for reciprocity, then some
appropriate, important person calls some other appropriate
person and says, you have got to honor reciprocity.
So there has been an Executive Order since 1997 that says
there shall be reciprocity. Nobody has held an agency
accountable for abiding by that Executive Order. You need
performance measures and then you need a mechanism to hold
agencies accountable for complying with the rules.
Senator Voinovich. It is important to make sure that we
have buy in from the top. The message needs to be that we want
to get the job done, we want to make sure that we are thorough,
but we don't want to put ourselves in a position where we are
slowing the process down.
Mr. Johnson. Yes. That is why it has been important to have
the representative from the DNI there who agrees with all the
things that have been decided about reciprocity and they are
fully prepared to abide by those rules.
So one of the things we have talked about also is the
concern about how consistent or inconsistent the quality of
adjudication might be. Some agencies have said, well, I am not
personally satisfied with the quality of the training my
adjudicators get. And someone would say, well, mine are great,
and medium, so we were talking about how we bring more
consistency to the quality of adjudication, not the
investigative work, but the adjudication, so there is an effort
underway to look at how we could standardize the training. DOD
has most of the adjudicators in the Federal Government, so one
thought is maybe we should make that a good training program.
Maybe we use their training program as the sort of benchmark
for how to train all adjudicators.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Johnson, I would like you to know
that I am excited about what you are doing. I really believe
that if you carry out what you have planned, then I think that
we can get this off the high-risk list. The only question I
have is why does the Executive Order expire on July 1, 2006?
Mr. Johnson. Let me talk about that. The thought was, we
will revisit, then, who ought to be the prime mover. Right now,
there is some thought that the DNI ought to be the person that
is ensuring that the security clearance process works. In July
or June of this past year, the DNI was trying to get office
supplies and so forth, so they were not prepared to do that, so
they said, let us make it OMB, because we are prepared to do it
and we know how to do it, so let us do that and then we will
review the bidding this next year. I don't know whether the
decision will be that we continue to be the oversight or
whether it comes to DNI. But, we know the thing will not be
where we want it to be by June, but we will pick somebody else.
We will renew the Executive Order and go from there.
Senator Voinovich. I would feel a lot more comfortable if
you stayed with it.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, although, sir, the three times we
have met, the oversight committee, we have a little vote for
who the most valuable member of the meeting is. I have never
won that award. [Laughter.]
But Ms. Dillaman has won it each time, so if there is a
treasure in this group, it is Ms. Dillaman.
Senator Voinovich. Well, you had better be concerned about
Negroponte stealing her. [Laughter.]
Ms. Springer. It is not going to happen. [Laughter.]
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much, and again, I
apologize to all of you for having to leave and vote. I am
thrilled about where we are with this process. Mr. Stewart, I
encourage GAO to continue working with OMB and OPM. Again, I
want you to know, if there is anything I can do or this
Subcommittee can do to help make this possible, let me know. I
want to do it. Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:32 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.058
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.060
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.062
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.064
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.069
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.071
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.073
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.074
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.075
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.076
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.077
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.078
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.079
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.080
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.081
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.082
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4930.052