Homeland Security's Use of Contractors Is Questioned

Homeland Security's Use of Contractors Is Questioned

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 17, 2007; Page A03

At the Department of Homeland Security, contract employees help write job descriptions for new headquarters workers. Private contractors also sign letters that officially offer employment. And they meet new government hires on their first day on the job.

About the only thing they do not do, a critical new congressional audit concludes, is swear in DHS employees.

Across several of DHS's most troubled projects, including delayed programs to replace the Coast Guard's fleet and to issue secure credentials to port workers, contractors are so enmeshed in DHS's work that they oversee other contractors. Some are assigned work that involves awarding future business, setting policy or drawing up plans and reorganizations, according to the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm.

"Plainly put, we need to know who is in charge at DHS -- its managers and workers, or the contractors," Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) said in a written statement. "This heavy reliance on contractors raises the risk that DHS is not creating the institutional knowledge needed to be able to judge whether contractors are performing as they should, and at a fair price."

Lieberman plans to hold a hearing on the report's findings before the Senate homeland security committee today.

Independent analysts have increasingly warned in recent years that the government's growing reliance on private firms threatens to undermine agencies' decision-making, a risk the audit found was heightened in DHS's case by its complex 2003 start-up and the rapid expansion of its workload.


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