Broken machines, delays plague secure ID card program

The Homeland Security Department's troubled effort to issue secure identification cards to U.S. seaport workers has experienced new problems, including a dispute between the government and the program's prime contractor over additional funding to resolve technical errors, according to interviews and documents obtained by CongressDaily.

The department is responsible for providing workers who have access to secure areas of U.S. ports with new ID cards under the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program.

But eight out of 12 machines used to produce TWIC cards have been returned to the manufacturer, Datacard Group, for repairs, causing what was a one-day turnaround for cards into a 10-day turnaround, House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson said in a letter sent Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff.

"At this juncture, it is difficult to determine which is more astonishing - the fact that the facility producing these cards is experiencing a 66 [percent] machine failure rate or the fact that this machine failure rate has resulted in a tenfold increase in the card production schedule," Thompson wrote.

Additionally, workers who need help with or information about their TWIC cards are waiting far longer than they should when they contact a call-in center for assistance.

The call-in center is managed by the TWIC prime contractor, Lockheed Martin Transportation and Security Solutions.

Under the TWIC contract, callers should not wait more than three minutes. Now, the average wait time is 16 minutes, and callers usually hang up after eight minutes, said a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, which administers the TWIC program.

"This is not the level of service that we expect to provide to individuals who require a TWIC," he said.

Lockheed Martin gave TSA a corrective action plan at the end of May to reduce the wait time but sought additional funding to carry out the plan, documents show.

"Implementation of the attached corrective action plan comes with an associated cost for which [Lockheed Martin] believes TSA is at least partially responsible," a company official wrote to TSA in a May 29 letter.

TSA accepted the corrective action plan but has rejected the company's attempt to get more funding.

"TSA is committed to ensuring that individuals requiring a TWIC [card] be able to do so as efficiently and as easily as possible," the TSA spokesman said. "We are also committed to ensuring that our contractor adheres to the obligations of the contract as agreed upon."

Lockheed Martin has apparently backed off its request for more funding. "We have informed our customer that there is no additional cost to the agency for implementing these measures," a company spokeswoman said Tuesday.

"As a result of the corrective action plan we're putting in place -- including additional staffing already underway and an e-mail option -- we've reduced the wait time by 50 percent, a downward trend that will continue," she said.

The department estimates about 1 million workers will receive TWIC cards, with about 250,000 printed to date.

Last month, the department announced it was pushing back its deadline for completing the rollout of TWIC cards from September to April.

"Needless to say, every production delay increases the likelihood that this deadline will not be met," Thompson told Chertoff in his letter.

"It would be both unfortunate and unfair if the necessary activities of these employees and their respective employers are hampered due to avoidable delay in card production," Thompson added.

Another TSA spokesman said the eight TWIC printers that were sent back to the manufacturer should be working again in a matter of days. "We anticipate the issue will be addressed this week and we will back to normal operations within a couple weeks," he said.

The printing center has the capability to produce more than 32,000 cards each week when operating at full capacity, which exceeds weekly printing needs, he added. "This is a minor delay that should not significantly impact the program or our ability to deliver cards," he said.

Regardless, Thompson asked Chertoff for answers to a series of questions, including whether Datacard Group will be responsible for covering the costs of the repairs and whether the firm's contract had been competitively bid.

"The fact that two-thirds of the machines have broken down at the same time may indicate that there is a design or operational flaw in the machinery," Thompson wrote.