Protective service finalizes report on finances, but misses deadline

Homeland Security Department officials are in the final stages of preparing a report on the cash-strapped Federal Protective Service's financial situation, but will be late in delivering it to the congressional committees that requested it.

The House and Senate appropriations committees gave FPS, which provides security for more than 8,300 federal facilities, a Wednesday deadline for submitting the first of two reports chronicling how it developed budget shortfalls last fiscal year and what officials are doing to improve its finances.

A spokesman for the DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, which houses the protective service, said the report was "completed … before the deadline."

"The report is now undergoing review and clearance by various federal agencies," said Dean Boyd, the spokesman. "Once this clearance process is completed, the report will be provided to the appropriators as quickly as possible. The appropriators have been notified of this situation."

A source within the agency's management, who spoke to Government Executive on condition of anonymity, said a draft of the report reveals that FPS had a budget shortfall of more than $60 million for fiscal 2006 and the first month of fiscal 2007. DHS officials had informed appropriators in June that the protective service was expecting a shortfall of at least $42 million, and had requested a shift in funds to cover the gap.

But appropriators expressed reluctance to grant extra money without seeing evidence the agency had a longer-term plan to get itself on strong financial footing. They requested the two studies of FPS' finances in a conference report accompanying the fiscal 2007 Homeland Security appropriations bill. The one due Wednesday was to address the extent and cause of the budget shortfall for fiscal 2006, which ended Sept. 30. The second report, due April 30, is to provide an update.

In addition, the management source said, the draft version of the report that was due Wednesday highlights the agency's desire to increase rates for the security it provides. No particular amount of increase was mentioned, since the source had only viewed a draft copy of the report going to congressional appropriators and not the final version.

Separately, other sources with FPS said the agency plans to scale back the hours that its officers - but not its contract guards - work at certain buildings, in an effort to cut costs.

Some West Coast federal buildings that had been guarded around the clock by FPS police officers will no longer have security on weekends or from midnight until 6 a.m. during the week, sources within the agency said. The new hours will take effect Nov. 12, the sources said, citing agency documents. The abbreviated details may be expanded to other regions, they said.

"There are still federal employees coming in over the weekend" when security no longer will be present, one of the sources said.

No contractors' deals with the agency will be affected by the switch; FPS only is scaling back its own staff commitment to reduce overtime, sources said. The agency employs about 1,000 of its own officers and has about 10,000 contract guards.

"We do not publicly discuss details surrounding the ICE FPS security posture at federal facilities for obvious operational security concerns and per long-standing policy," Boyd said. He added that "no specific changes" are set to take place Nov. 12.

The protective service recently has tried several methods to scale back costs. The division first offered early retirement packages to employees. But following what some called a lack of interest in those deals, another FPS manager told employees in an e-mail that they should consider applying for job openings elsewhere within ICE.