GOP seeks to cut DHS personnel funding

House Republicans on Thursday charged the Homeland Security Department's proposed fiscal 2011 budget boosts funds for administrative offices at the expense of security programs such as Coast Guard operations and border security efforts.

Republicans indicated they are likely to try to strip money intended to increase staffing and spending on Homeland Security offices and put it toward operational activities.

GOP lawmakers tried the same move unsuccessfully last summer, when the House considered the department's budget.

"In the midst of a drug war, how can the administration propose to significantly decrease the interdiction capabilities of our brave Border Patrol agents and Coast Guard personnel, but request to increase the funds for bureaucrats in virtually every office within DHS' headquarters?" House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Hal Rogers, R-Ky., asked during a hearing with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

He said the budget would increase spending on DHS administrative offices by nearly $500 million and almost 600 full-time employees.

"This is way beyond what I think is necessary," he told Napolitano. "I can't fathom what the game plan is here."

Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said he believes there will be bipartisan support for cutting funding to administrative offices and putting it toward the Coast Guard.

But Napolitano repeatedly defended the budget, telling Rogers his characterization of the request "is respectfully off the mark."

She called it "superficial" to claim that the budget increases bureaucrats at the expense of operations. "Nothing could be further from the truth," she said.

She said the new staff would be spread through operational elements to ensure good program management and good procurement practices. "It is part of creating the structure of the department out of which operations arise," she added.

One area where Democrats and Republicans agreed was their demand that the department submit outstanding expenditure reports.

Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Price, D-N.C., said his panel will have a hard time in particular evaluating the budget request for the Coast Guard without the required expenditure plan for the agency's Deepwater recapitalization program.

"We're having to prepare the budget as we go along here as we interrogate your subordinate agency heads," Rogers said in response. "We have to have those reports in order to be able to question whether it's the right thing to do."

He said other due expenditure plans include one for border security and technology and another for aviation security.

Napolitano apologized for the delay submitting the reports. But she said the subcommittee has requested 300 reports, and she asked the panel to prioritize those that it wants most.