By Stephen Barr
Wednesday, March 5, 2008

The police force in charge of protecting most federal buildings, recently criticized as understaffed and demoralized, will soon add officers.

Congress last year directed the Federal Protective Service to have 1,200 full-time employees by July 31 and stipulated that 900 of them must be full-time law enforcement officers, inspectors and agents.

By adding staff, Congress hopes that the police force, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, will be better able to deter terrorist threats. Last month, the Government Accountability Office said understaffing and other problems affect the police force, exposing buildings in the Washington area and elsewhere "to a greater risk of crime or terrorist attack."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, in a Feb. 28 letter to Congress, said the police force has about 750 of the required 900 law enforcement personnel on board and is working to hire the remaining 150 by the end of July, as directed last year by Congress.

He cautioned that not all of the new hires may be trained in time, delaying compliance with the law until the end of September.

On Friday, officials will post an announcement on USAJobs.gov, the government's recruitment Web site, for the jobs at the FPS. They also plan to highlight the jobs at career fairs throughout the country in coming months.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), who both head homeland security appropriations subcommittees, asked Chertoff last month for a status report on staffing at the FPS.

The force has 1,062 employees, down from 1,400 three years ago, according to the GAO. The federal officers oversee about 15,000 contract security guards who keep watch at federal buildings.

The decline in the police force has led to fewer patrols around buildings, delays in responding to calls and inadequate oversight of security guards, the GAO testified last month at a House subcommittee hearing chaired by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

The FPS is financed through fees paid by tenants of federal buildings, and Chertoff said the force's security fees will go up to pay for the larger staff. "Our success in implementing and sustaining this higher level of staffing is dependent on our customers' ability to pay the increase," he wrote.

Chertoff also said the FPS "has been aggressive in reforming the way it conducts business." It has provided additional training to employees to provide for more timely building security assessments and, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has trained more than 400 employees in contracting procedures so that they can monitor security guard contracts, he said.

The U.S. Postal Service will launch its 31-digit "intelligent mail" bar-code system in May 2009 rather than January.

The bar code will permit business customers -- advertisers, catalogue and credit card companies -- to track their mail, from the drop-off at a post office to delivery at a home or office. It also will permit the Postal Service to check whether mail is being delivered on time.

The plan for intelligent mail was outlined in a Federal Register notice this year, and comments from mail users "were thoughtful and thorough," Postmaster General John E. Potter said in a Feb. 29 letter to companies and others. The comments "also raised a number of implementation concerns that we need to address," he added.

"Many of you told us that January 2009 was too soon," Potter wrote.

He said the Postal Service would publish another proposal for intelligent mail this month and invited mail users to study the proposed rules and provide more feedback.