A top Republican congressman on transportation safety and security issues blasted the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Friday for its federal workforce of airport screeners or Transportation Security Officers (TSOs).
There's been growing anger regarding allegations that TSA screeners have conducted inappropriate pat downs of airline passengers.
Representative John Mica (R-FL) stated that the TSA bureaucracy could save up to $1 billion over five years by switching to airport security personnel employed by private contractors at the nation’s top 35 airports.
Mica is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which oversees the TSA’s budget and operations. He told fellow members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that having contract security personnel supervised by federal security directors and supervisors would be more cost-effective and a model that has worked in many industries including nuclear power plants and other critical locations.
On Thursday, the House voted to cut the TSA’s budget for the next fiscal year by $270 million, and TSA officials and union leaders warned that airline security is likely to suffer, but Mica said the additional funding is unnecessary if private screeners are used more widely.
"Right after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, lawmakers and the media began a campaign to revamp airport security programs by replacing contract agency guards with federal employees. While the idea seemed plausible at the time, what eventually occurred was counterproductive," stated former police officer Edie Quinones.
Security guards from agencies -- who many believed contributed to the 9-11 plane hijackings -- were quickly hired because they were the only ones with airport screening experience and knowledge of high-tech screening equipment.
"What we witnessed were security officers who failed to protect the airlines being hired by the federal government with better pay and more employee benefits including membership in a federal employees union," said former NYPD detective and security firm owner Sid Franes.
A report released Friday by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee compared the cost and performance of private screeners at San Francisco International Airport with the federal screeners at Los Angeles International Airport.
The report showed that it costs an average of $2.42 to screen a passenger using private contractors but $4.22 per passenger for the federal workforce.
The contracted screeners in San Francisco processed an average of 16,113 passengers per year while federal screeners in Los Angeles processed an average of only 9,765 passengers per year, according to the report.
Training expenses were also cheaper with a contracted workforce, who required less than half the $17,652 it takes to train a federal security officer.
Mica also accused the TSA of deception. He claimed, “TSA cooked the books when conducting past cost comparisons of the two models, misleading Congress and the public by artificially inflating the costs to use private contract screeners.”
The House committee’s report claims that private screeners are 65 percent more efficient and would save taxpayers 42 percent of the current costs compared with the federal workforce at airports.
Disputes over using private contractors have intensified since January, when the TSA announced it would arbitrarily stop allowing airports to “opt out” of using federal screeners.
The opt-out choice was included as a compromise in the Aviation Transportation Security Act that Congress passed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Sixteen airports had chosen to use private contractors, the largest one being San Francisco International Airport.
“With 63,000 employees, TSA has become a bloated bureaucracy that is too focused on managing its personnel and protecting its turf,” Mica said during the congressional hearing..
The House then voted 219 to 204 to reduce the TSA’s annual budget by $270 million.
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