RSSIndustry asks Congress to intervene
By STEPHEN LOSEY – Staff Writer, Federal Times
May 09, 2006
A Pentagon office’s decision to stop processing security clearance applications from its contractors April 25 threatens to worsen a backlog that is already delaying work and driving up expenses.
Defense Security Service spokeswoman Cindy McGovern said May 2 a large, unexplained increase in the number of security clearance requests ate up the entire fiscal year’s budget in seven months. With no funding, DSS now has about 3,000 applications on hold and does not know when it will begin work again.
Industry representatives are calling on Congress to step in and fix the problem. They fear the delay will worsen the shortage of cleared workers. Most Defense Department contracts require workers with security clearances. Without those employees, contractors can’t begin the work they were hired to do, risking missed deadlines and higher expenses.
If contractors don’t want to wait – and many can’t afford to – they are forced to hire employees who are already cleared. This increases the demand for those workers, which nets them higher salaries and results in more expensive contracts for the Pentagon.
The Information Technology Association of America on May 1 called upon lawmakers to quickly pass legislation that would force the Defense Department to resume processing those applications. The industry group said Congress should order the Pentagon to provide enough funds to DSS to get back to work and eliminate the backlog.
ITAA and six other groups sent Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a letter May 4 demanding he step in.
The groups – ITAA, the Professional Services Council, Aerospace Industries Association, Contract Services Association, Intelligence and National Security Alliance, Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association and National Defense Industries Association – said Rumsfeld should find money for DSS to restart its operations immediately, review DSS’ fiscal 2007 funding request to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and work with industry to overhaul the department’s clearance-granting process.
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, is also demanding that acting DSS director Janice Haith explain what is causing the problem. In an April 28 letter, Davis called the work stoppage “baffling and disturbing.”
The agency is now working with the Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management, which conducts background investigations for DSS, to figure out why demand is increasing and why its dollars aren’t stretching as far as they once did, McGovern said.
One possibility is that the Pentagon is requiring more contractors to have top secret clearances, McGovern said. OPM charges DSS $3,700 for each of those clearances, whereas secret clearances cost DSS between $150 and $160. Top secret clearance holders also must be reinvestigated every five years at a cost of $2,400, McGovern said. DSS did not know how much top secret requests have increased, if at all.
OPM spokeswoman Susan Bryant said it appears Defense did not estimate its costs properly. Bryant did not know if OPM is receiving more top secret requests from DSS.
DSS has so far spent or obligated $145 million. Judging by the rate of requests it has received so far this year, it estimates it would need $101 million more to get it through the end of the year. McGovern said DSS expects to process far more clearances by the end of this year than in fiscal 2005.
DSS isn’t sure what it will take to solve the problem for good.
“More money is the obvious short-term solution,” McGovern said. “But there are long-term policy issues that need to be addressed as well.” Finding out why clearance requests are increasing is one of those, she said.
Ted Daywalt, president of VetJobs.com, a recruitment Web site for military veterans, said the government went overboard when classifying positions after Sept. 11 and has placed an extraordinary strain on DSS. For example, Daywalt said, one agency classified an administrative assistant in charge of travel requests and expense reports as requiring a top secret clearance.
“There’s no reason for that,” Daywalt said. “You could justify a secret clearance for that position, but not a top secret requiring a polygraph.”
Daywalt said the work halt at DSS will drive up contracting costs. He received numerous calls from his customers who are Pentagon contractors in the days after DSS stopped processing requests.
Those companies told Daywalt their cleared employees almost immediately started asking for pay raises.
“People with clearances know they’re in high demand,” Daywalt said.
The demand for cleared contractors has allowed employees to essentially write their own contracts in recent years, Daywalt said. He said one company, which he declined to identify, paid an Oracle database administrator who had a top secret clearance – but no college degree – $180,000 a year. Those administrators usually make $80,000 salaries, he said.
And DSS’ woes will only make the problem worse, Daywalt said. The Pentagon will have to pay contractors more, or they will not be able to turn a profit on their deals and will default on contracts.
ARINC, an Annapolis, Md.-based company that provides systems engineering services to the Air Force and other Pentagon agencies, is already feeling the effect of the shutdown. Stacy Silverthorn, who oversees ARINC’s recruiting in San Diego, said May 3 the company is turning away potential hires that a week earlier it would have hired.
About 60 percent of ARINC’s positions require security clearances.
Silverthorn said ARINC used to hire people and immediately start working on getting them the requisite clearances. But with DSS not processing requests, ARINC is limited to hiring people who already have the right clearances, she said. “We have to re-evaluate who’s coming in the door,” Silverthorn said. “We have a smaller pool to hire from, and our existing staff is that much more valuable.”
However, ARINC spokeswoman Jo Ann Metcalf said the problem is not hurting the company as a whole. ARINC is still interviewing and hiring qualified applicants regardless of their level of security clearance, she said.