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LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 2 p.m., in room SD-138, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (chairman)
presiding.
Present: Senators Campbell, Stevens, and Durbin.
U.S. SENATE
Office of the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper
STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM H. PICKLE, SERGEANT AT ARMS
ACCOMPANIED BY:
KEITH KENNEDY, DEPUTY SERGEANT AT ARMS
CHRIS DEY, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL
Senator Campbell. The subcommittee will come to order. We
meet this afternoon to take testimony from Senate Sergeant at
Arms Bill Pickle, and the Capitol Police Board, currently
chaired by House Sergeant at Arms Bill Livingood and the Chief
of Police Terrance Gainer.
We will first hear from the Sergeant at Arms. Mr. Pickle is
accompanied by the Deputy Sergeant at Arms, Keith Kennedy, and
his Chief Financial Officer, Chris Dey, along with a team of
others. We welcome you here today.
The Sergeant at Arms' budget request totals $187 million, a
3 percent increase over last year. This modest overall increase
reflects the final year of funding for several major projects
in fiscal year 2004, such as the recording studio project and
the digital technology migration project. Your salary budget,
as I understand it, would increase about 10 percent over fiscal
year 2004.
Following the Sergeant at Arms, we will take testimony on
the Capitol Police budget. The Capitol Police request totals
$291.6 million and total of 2,361 staff, which is a large
increase, 33 percent over the fiscal year 2004 appropriation.
That one will be a little tougher to deal with.
In addition to the Capitol Police's own appropriation, $40
million is included in the Architect's budget for the Capitol
Police buildings and grounds, including a new firing range and
an off-site delivery facility.
We will need to make some tough choices this year, as all
of us know, but I look forward to hearing your testimony. I
might tell you that I did read your testimony so you do not
need to read it again to me. I can read most of the words, and
if you will abbreviate that would be fine with me. I'd like to
turn it to a ranking member, Senator Durbin.
SENATOR DURBIN'S STATEMENT
Senator Durbin. Thank you very much, Senator Campbell. I
ask that my entire statement be made part of the record.
Senator Campbell. We will put it in the record.
Senator Durbin. And I'd like to commend Mr. Pickle; he did
an excellent job with a very, very difficult assignment on the
computer theft which we experienced in the Senate Judiciary
Committee. I thought you demonstrated professionalism, non-
partisanship, just what we expect from you.
Mr. Pickle. Thank you.
Senator Durbin. I commend you for that and all of those who
worked with you. It was an exceptional effort with a very, very
difficult assignment. I'll be asking a few questions about that
when I get the opportunity.
PREPARED STATEMENT
Chief Gainer, good to see you again, along with the Capitol
Police. And thank you and all of the men and women who serve us
so well, put their lives on the line every day for us here at
the Capitol.
Chief Gainer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Richard J. Durbin
Mr. Chairman, thank you for scheduling today's budget
oversight hearing on the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the U.S.
Capitol Police Board.
First of all, I want to thank our witnesses, Mr. Pickle,
Mr. Livingood, and Chief Gainer for joining us today to review
your fiscal year 2005 budget requests.
Mr. Pickle, last November when I discovered that some
documents stored on my Judiciary Committee staff's computers
were taken from them and published in the Wall Street Journal,
I asked you to begin a Sergeant at Arms investigation into the
potential security breach. You did so almost immediately. Your
staff--including Capitol Police--worked around the clock to
secure the committee's computer servers to preserve the
evidence and interviewed dozens of staff.
I want to commend you for the professional and expeditious
way that you have handled the investigation, and your
willingness, as demonstrated in the report, to follow the facts
wherever they led you.
However, during your investigation, you came to realize
that all of the Senate committees' systems were set up in
essentially the same way, with similar vulnerabilities in
place. I hope that very aggressive steps are being taken to
assure that this does not happen again.
On another note Mr. Pickle, I had the opportunity to meet
with Greg Hanson of your staff last week to discuss the
technology available to us here in the Senate. It was very
informative and I appreciated his updating me on this issue. As
you know, I'm concerned that we are behind the House when it
comes to technology. With the increased use of the internet,
our constituents are able to get in touch with us much more
quickly and easily. In my office, we receive close to a million
emails a year. We need to be able to come up with a system that
allows us to respond to this volume of email in a timely
matter.
In this regard, I noticed in your fiscal year 2005 request
that you are asking for $10.3 million for three-year funding
for purchase of computer equipment. I'd like to hear a little
more about that.
I hope you will address the current status of the perimeter
security upgrades. I'm interested to know if this project is on
schedule and on budget.
I'd also like to hear about the status of the proposed Mail
Processing Facility/Warehouse and whether a site has been
selected to house this facility.
I hope you will talk a little bit about the security
upgrades for our state offices and when we can expect to see
these upgrades occur.
Overall your request of $186.6 million, or 3.1 percent,
seems quite reasonable. We all know how difficult this year is
going to be in terms of funding.
I read in your testimony that there are plans in place to
distribute emergency supply kits to all Senate offices. I hope
you will talk a little about the contents of these kits and
when our offices will be receiving them.
Chief Gainer, welcome. It is good to see you again. I see
that your fiscal year 2005 budget request is $291.6 million, an
increase of 33 percent. I'm glad that you have provided us with
a detailed prioritization of your request. I know that this
will come in handy a little later on when we start to make some
decisions with regard to funding.
There have been several organizational changes made at the
Capitol Police since our last hearing. I hope you will describe
for the subcommittee the changes you have made, why you have
made them and how they relate to particular goals or objectives
in your strategic plan.
I noted in your statement that in January your department
started a Diversity Training Program. I hope you will tell us
more about this training and when you expect it to be complete.
I have noticed on many occasions that the lines to get into
the Dirksen and Hart Buildings are quite lengthy. It seems
there should be a better way to get both staff and visitors
through security and into the buildings without them having to
wait in such long lines.
I hope you will update us on the progress of procuring an
off-site delivery facility. I understand that you might co-
locate this facility with the Sergeant-at-Arms' Mail Processing
Facility.
I understand that the Capitol Police and FLETC are working
together on a solution that would allow the Capitol Police to
have adequate use of the firing range in Cheltenham, Maryland,
thus eliminating the need to procure one of your own. I hope
you will elaborate on that for the subcommittee.
I am interested in your thoughts on the idea of a security
fence around the Capitol and office buildings.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Senator Campbell. Mr. Pickle, why don't you go ahead.
SUMMARY STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. PICKLE
Mr. Pickle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
those kind words, Senator. We appreciate that.
Mr. Chairman, actually, some of your remarks stole my
thunder here. I had some informal remarks to make but I'm going
to cut right through most of them. I'd like to submit a formal
statement for the record.
Senator Campbell. It will be included in the record.
Mr. Pickle. And what I would like to affirm is we are
asking for about a 3.1 percent increase in our budget. It is
modest but it is important that we get this funding to complete
some of the many programs and security enhancements that we
have begun with the approval and the support of this committee
over the previous years. As you mentioned, some of them are
very important to us. The security upgrades for Members'
offices, the alternate computing facility, the computer network
security and in particular the secure mail and package
processing protocols in our warehouse are very important to us
this year for all the obvious reasons.
Last year, when I testified before this committee, I made
the statement that I was very honored and pleased to have been
elected as the 37th Senate Sergeant at Arms. I also discussed
with the committee that my goals, and indeed the entire
Sergeant at Arms' Office, our goals are to provide the very
best customer service we could here to the Senate, as well as
the very best security and emergency preparedness. And what we
hoped to do last year was to meld and use or leverage
technology to do even a better job and be as efficient and as
effective as we possibly could. Well, this year our goals
remain the same; we've come a long way but we have a lot more
to do. Security continues to be paramount, as it has since the
anthrax scare of 2001.
We have had a very challenging year, as Senator Durbin
said; we had something occur that is rather unprecedented for
the Sergeant at Arms Office to participate in and that was the
matter of improper access to the Judiciary Committee computers.
It was unprecedented in the sense that we are not staffed to
conduct such an investigation. While the Sergeant at Arms is
the chief law enforcement officer of the Senate, he really does
not have the operational personnel or resources to do this. But
thankfully we had the Capitol Police; we also went to the
United States Secret Service and with the support of this
committee, which was involved with us when we talked about the
funding that would be needed to do the work, we completed the
investigation. And I too am very proud of our staff. I think
what it shows is that we are a very diverse organization, we
have some very talented people, and I'm just so proud of the
work that they did in this area.
The other challenge we had this year was the ricin attack
on February 3, 2004. Now, this was the second attack that's
occurred here in the past 3 years. The anthrax scare of 2001
shut down a Senate building for several months. Fortunately,
this time, because of the response of the Capitol Police and
the Sergeant at Arms Office of Emergency Preparedness, along
with our colleagues and the other entities here, we were able
to get the Senate office buildings back up and running within 5
days. Now, as much as I'd like to take some credit for that, I
think credit really belongs to my predecessor, Al Lenhardt, the
former Sergeant at Arms. Al was confronted shortly after he
arrived here with the anthrax attack and because of his efforts
we have in place a very sound architecture and many sound
security protocols that allowed us to be very successful in
dealing with this ricin attack. I think the fact that it was
only 5 days speaks well for the preparations of this body. It
also speaks well for this committee which has supported us as
well as the Rules Committee which was there to help out.
I know I'm dwelling only on security and technology, but
finally I want to close by making just a comment. We have over
800 people here in the Sergeant at Arms Office, and when you
look at the Sergeant at Arms Office, my analogy is the Senate
is like a small city or mid-size corporation. We have about
8,000 people who work here on the Senate side, and on any given
day we have many thousands more who are tourists, guests,
official visitors, so we have all the components of a city
here. I think we have several dozen different little businesses
within our office. The people who do the work and who make this
place run, day in and day out, and who are invisible to all of
us are the ones who really need to be thanked for their hard
efforts this year. And I'm talking about people such as our
facilities maintenance people who keep the Capitol clean, and
it's always spotless in the morning when you come in; our
furniture makers who make sure all the furniture and woodwork
we have is just topnotch, and our communications people, who
comprise most of our staff. These people do the job day in and
day out, and I'm just so proud of them.
PREPARED STATEMENT
With that, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to dispense with
anything else. And I'll just be happy to take questions. Thank
you.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of William H. Pickle
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting
me to testify before the Committee on Appropriations. I am pleased to
come before you today to report on the progress the Office of the
Sergeant at Arms (SAA) has made over the past year and our plans to
enhance the capabilities of the Senate in the coming year.
The SAA respectfully requests for fiscal year 2005 a total budget
of $186,701,000, which is an increase of $5,669,000 or 3.1 percent over
the fiscal year 2004 budget. This increase will enable the office to
maintain the significant improvements and level of service we provided
the Senate community over the past year.
This fiscal year 2005 budget request will fund the completion and
support of several initiatives that are already in progress, including
security upgrades for Members' state offices, the Alternate Computing
Facility (ACF), enhanced communication services, secure mail and
package processing protocols, and computer network security.
Last year I testified before this Committee and identified two
priorities: (1) ensuring the United States Senate is as secure as
possible and prepared for any emergency; and (2) accomplishing this
goal through outstanding service and support, including the enhanced
use of technology. The work of this office over the past year has been
guided by these priorities.
In addition to the projects the SAA had planned to undertake and
invest in this past year, we faced unique challenges requiring that
resources be used to meet immediate, unanticipated needs. The ricin
incident and the Judiciary Committee's request to conduct an internal
investigation are two examples of such challenges. This testimony will
detail later the work of the SAA staff in responding to the ricin
incident.
The Committee on the Judiciary's request for the Sergeant at Arms
to conduct an internal investigation into whether there was
unauthorized access to the Committee's computer system was
unprecedented. We were able to respond quickly to this request and to
assemble an investigative team that included trained investigators
detailed from the U.S. Secret Service and outside forensic experts. The
sensitive nature of this matter required almost full-time involvement
of several of our senior managers. The investigation and forensic
analysis took almost four months and required a significant amount of
personnel and financial resources.
In our response to the ricin incident and the investigation for the
Judiciary Committee, we met the needs of the Senate and accomplished
the tasks set before us. In the past year we have also moved forward in
a number of crucial areas.
An outstanding senior management team led the efforts of the SAA's
dedicated staff over the past year. This team consists of Deputy
Sergeant at Arms J. Keith Kennedy, Assistant Sergeant at Arms for
Security and Emergency Preparedness Chuck Kaylor, Assistant Sergeant at
Arms for Police Operations Al Concordia, Assistant Sergeant at Arms for
Operations and Administrative Assistant Rick Edwards, General Counsel
Lynne Halbrooks, and Assistant Sergeant at Arms and Chief Information
Officer J. Greg Hanson. This team has worked to develop and implement a
comprehensive approach to Senate projects. The many accomplishments set
forth in this testimony would not have been possible without their
leadership and commitment.
This testimony highlights some of our achievements over the past
year, and demonstrates how we plan to build on our accomplishments and
to protect the Senate's interests. Specifically, this testimony
identifies (1) the security measures we have implemented and are
working toward; (2) initiatives designed to keep the Senate at the
leading edge of technology; and, (3) highlights of the critical
operational support we offer the Senate.
A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO SECURITY AND PREPAREDNESS
I am pleased to report that in the areas of security and emergency
preparedness we expanded on the significant accomplishments of my
predecessors, and particularly on the strong foundation that Sergeant
at Arms Alfonso E. Lenhardt implemented to protect the Capitol and
Senate Office Buildings after the anthrax attack in 2001.
The Senate now has in place an overall security strategy that
establishes a layered defense based upon our understanding of threats
to the Capitol and its vulnerabilities. Over the past year, this
strategy led to updated security plans, created prevention and
protection programs, and created life-safety, emergency preparedness,
and information security programs. The strategy also led to training to
educate staff and exercises to rehearse and evaluate our plans.
The SAA has relied on the strong support of the Secretary of the
Senate, this Committee, the Committee on Rules and Administration, and
other Committees and Members to advance the Senate's security and
emergency preparedness. A comprehensive approach to these critical
subjects has required the partnership and cooperation of Senate
offices, the U.S. Capitol Police, the Attending Physician, other
legislative branch offices, as well as federal and state agencies.
Together, we have made significant progress on our security and
emergency preparedness.
Despite the substantial advances in security and emergency
preparedness since September 2001, and particularly this past year, we
cannot become complacent. The Capitol and Congress remain targets to
those wishing to cause our country harm, and the means to cause that
harm are available, varied, and growing in sophistication. We need to
be vigilant, and we need to continue our comprehensive, forward-looking
security and emergency preparedness programs.
This testimony outlines the SAA's security, emergency preparedness,
and continuity of operations and government efforts. In addition to the
initiatives set forth below, there are other steps being taken to
secure Congress and the Senate community that are not appropriate to
address in an open forum.
Vulnerabilities and Threat Assessments
Understanding the threats the Senate faces is essential to
establishing appropriate and cost-effective security programs. We work
with the U.S. Capitol Police on an aggressive approach to security that
recommends and supports ongoing security projects. We are participating
in several studies that address vulnerabilities around the Capitol
relating to land-based and airborne threats, as well as chemical,
biological, and radiological threats. The SAA also works with the U.S.
Capitol Police to provide analysis of emerging global threats, current
intelligence information, analysis of vulnerabilities, and available
countermeasures. As a result of this work, policies are being developed
in conjunction with the U.S. Capitol Police that provide high levels of
protection on Capitol Hill for Members, staff, and visitors. These
coordinated efforts with respect to vulnerability and threat assessment
include:
Vulnerability Assessments.--Since 1998, the U.S. Capitol Police
Board has conducted seven formal vulnerability assessments of the
Capitol complex. These assessments serve as the basis for many of our
protective measures. The assessments complement our work with the
National Capital Region intelligence sharing initiatives for a complete
view of the threats to the Capitol.
Command Center.--Over the past year, the U.S. Capitol Police have
established a state-of-the-art command center and campus-wide security
network that significantly improve their situational awareness. This
provides information in a number of areas, which enables the police to
better understand an event and better manage the necessary response.
SAA staff work closely with the Capitol Police at the Command Center
during emergencies.
Threat Intelligence Sharing.--The U.S. Capitol Police Board has
approved the U.S. Capitol Police participation in the Targeted Violence
Information Sharing System (TAVISS), a pilot program for sharing threat
intelligence information. Created by the U.S. Secret Service to
facilitate the sharing of threat information with twenty-seven
agencies, this program will provide timely information about threats
against Members of Congress and U.S. Government officials. Research has
shown that people who attack public officials often switch targets, so
subjects who come to the attention of one agency may be known to other
agencies.
To provide more intelligence information, the U.S. Capitol Police
have officers assigned to critical National Capital Region intelligence
collection and analysis and command centers. The U.S. Capitol Police
also have a small but highly professional intelligence staff that
collaborate with their counterparts, and participate in the national
forums that provide the situational awareness we need.
Air Security.--The U.S. Capitol Police are integrated fully in
interagency air security coordination planning for the National Capital
Region and the National Capital Region Coordination Center. This
planning integrates multi-agency assets into a protective air security
system that encompasses the Capitol. The National Capital Region Air
Security Plan focuses on countering terrorist threats from the air. The
coordination uses multi-agency capabilities that involve intelligence,
law enforcement, and Department of Defense assets. Early warning and
situational awareness has:
--Enhanced detection of potential air threats.
--Improved dissemination of inter-agency intelligence information.
--Streamlined coordination of multi-agency assets to achieve command
and control.
--Differentiated navigational errors and civil violations from
hostile intent.
The threat environment is always changing, but we have the people and
organizations in place that understand the needs of the Senate and can
provide the information necessary to ensure the continued security of
Members, staff, and visitors.
Protecting the Senate's Physical Assets
The first priority of the SAA's security strategy is to deter or
prevent an incident. Our expanding protective measures program includes
physical security measures, electronic systems, and law enforcement
activities. It continues to improve the Senate's ability to prevent
incidents. Many of the details of this program are confidential and
sensitive. However, several of the significant protective measures that
have been implemented are set forth below.
Enhanced Perimeter Security Plan.--The first phase of the perimeter
security plan, proposed in 1998, was completed in 2002. The Enhanced
Perimeter Security Plan, developed after September 2001, is now being
implemented. The Enhanced Perimeter Security Plan features pop-up
barriers and bollards, hardened police kiosks, improved security at
vehicle access checkpoints, increased U.S. Capitol Police roving
patrols, and other enhancements. It also includes improved screening
procedures for visitors entering the Senate Office Buildings and the
Capitol. The Capitol Police Board is working to establish more
comprehensive and visible identification protocols to manage visitors
better, particularly in the Capitol.
Capitol Visitor Center.--The Capitol Visitor Center remains an
important focus of our security program. In 2000, almost three million
people visited the Capitol and during peak season over 18,000 people
visited the Capitol each day. In addition, delivery vehicles move tons
of equipment, food, and other material into and out of the Capitol
every day. These deliveries are essential to Congressional operations,
but they also create risks to the Capitol complex. The Capitol Visitor
Center will improve our ability to screen everything and everyone
coming into the Capitol, and will enhance the public's access and
experience while visiting the Capitol.
The Visitor Center will include a remote delivery-vehicle screening
facility for all deliveries to the Capitol. The facility will make it
easier to deliver goods to the Capitol and safer to accept those goods.
The design incorporates blast-resistant features and systems that will
minimize the risk of airborne hazards within the Capitol Visitor Center
and the Capitol.
Once the Visitor Center is completed, the public will have just as
much access to the Capitol, only through fewer access points. There
will be enhanced screening and control of everyone and everything that
enters the building. Screening will take place in the Visitor Center
instead of near the Capitol doors, and, because of the design of the
access points, the screening will make it easier to isolate and remove
individuals who pose a security threat.
Parking and Traffic Management.--Construction of the Capitol
Visitor Center, the implementation of the Perimeter Security Plan, and
other construction activities have created parking and traffic
management challenges.
To address the parking challenges, we made use of our existing
resources and created 359 parking spaces proximate to the Capitol and
Senate Office Buildings. This saved lease expenses of $1 million
annually, or approximately $2 million to date. The parking is secure,
near the Capitol, and convenient for Senators and staff.
Because the traffic that flows past the Senate Office Buildings and
the Capitol directly affects the security of the Senate, the SAA staff
worked with the Architect of the Capitol, the U.S. Capitol Police, and
the District of Columbia's Department of Transportation to ensure the
safety of Members, staff and visitors to the Senate and simultaneously
minimize the traffic impact of construction projects. Much of the
construction is limited to nights, weekends, and off-peak hours to
reduce the impact on traffic. The direction of one-way traffic is
shifted to accommodate commuting in the morning and evenings. U.S.
Capitol Police officers are stationed at major intersections to
maintain traffic control and pedestrian safety.
State Office Security.--While many of the recent security efforts
focus on Capitol Hill, Members' state offices continue to be a focus
for the SAA. During the past year and a half, SAA staff have conducted
comprehensive, on-site security assessments of the 430 state offices.
Besides completing assessments of existing offices, a system has been
implemented to assess each newly-established office.
The assessments provide the SAA an understanding of each state
office's security needs and enable us to make recommendations, help the
state office prioritize its needs and, ultimately, improve security.
Each Member's Washington, D.C., office has the results of their state
office assessments and the SAA's recommendations. We are working with
each office to determine how to proceed to implement appropriate
physical security upgrades.
This state office security project involves physical modifications
to offices, installation of physical security systems in offices, and
staff training. It is ongoing and multi-year, and the initial focus has
been on state offices in commercial spaces. The Federal Protective
Service and the Federal Marshals have been consulted regarding Members'
offices in federal and court buildings.
Emergency Preparedness
To enhance the Senate's emergency preparedness, the SAA is
addressing all aspects of preparing for, learning about, and responding
to emergencies. Over the past year, the SAA has established
notification systems, conducted training, and provided emergency
response equipment and resources. SAA staff has also worked closely
with the Architect of the Capitol and the U.S. Capitol Police to test
and, where necessary, upgrade the alarms, emergency equipment, and
notification systems in every Senate Office Building.
The Senate continues to improve evacuation and assembly area
accountability procedures by regularly conducting evacuation drills.
The SAA has also worked with Senate offices to update the procedures
for evacuating mobility-impaired staff and visitors. This outreach to
our special needs community will continue next year.
To maintain the focus on life-safety and emergency procedures, the
SAA meets weekly with the U.S. Capitol Police, the Superintendent of
the Senate, and the Capitol Fire Marshal to review life-safety programs
and issues. This has resulted in better emergency equipment access to
the Capitol Plaza and closer involvement by the Washington, D.C., Fire
Department during evacuation drills. The SAA also is engaged with the
National Capital Region's emergency management experts through a number
of high-level interagency and intergovernmental committees and work
groups that expand the National Capital Region's preparedness.
Highlights of the SAA's efforts to better prepare the Senate
community for an emergency include:
Alert and Notification Systems.--In the past two years, the Senate
provided BlackBerry devices and updated electronic pagers to Senators
and key staff. The number of BlackBerry devices in use at the Senate
continues to expand. Every office has a Senate ``Group Alert''
telephone system and approximately 1,000 telephones throughout the
Senate are connected to the System.
Last year, wireless annunciators were added as a component of the
emergency notification system. These wireless devices have been placed
in every office. The U.S. Capitol Police use the annunciators to
provide audible alerts of an incident, instructions on appropriate
action, and additional information as an event unfolds. Annunciators
supplement the Group Alert telephone system, the building fire alarms,
the public address system, and other emergency notification devices.
The SAA is in the process of testing a newly installed, more
capable automatic voice and text notification system that supplements
the existing U.S. Capitol Police Dialogic system. Once this system is
fully operational, it will be able to automatically call and send text
alerts to predesignated individuals more quickly than in the past.
Training.--Over the past year, the SAA created and delivered
training courses that cover a wide range of emergency preparedness
issues. There have been 172 training sessions providing life-safety
information to over 5,700 individuals. This training included: in-
office sessions tailored to the emergency preparedness needs of each
office, new staff and intern orientations that review emergency systems
and procedures for all new staff, monthly emergency preparedness
updates, and off-site training on the use of fire extinguishers.
Special topic seminars were conducted by SAA staff on evacuating
Washington, D.C., evacuating people with disabilities, and sheltering
in place. Training was also conducted for U.S. Capitol Police officers
and Senate office personnel regarding evacuation procedures for
mobility-impaired staff members. And, in coordination with the U.S.
Capitol Police, the SAA helped train 6,770 individuals about the proper
use of escape hoods. This training gives every participant the chance
to don a training hood.
Emergency Equipment.--Almost 19,000 escape hoods, which provide
protection against airborne hazards, are deployed in Senate offices and
at cache sites throughout the Capitol and in Senate Office Buildings.
Last year, hoods were distributed to every office. This year, escape
hood cache locations were established in restaurants, hallways, near
elevators, in the Capitol, and other public areas. These cache
locations are quickly accessible to staff and visitors. This past year
the SAA conducted the first full inventory of all the escape hoods
issued to offices. Over the next year, options will be evaluated for
replacing the escape hoods in anticipation of replacing the current
hoods at the end of their shelf life in fiscal year 2006.
Last fall, in consultation with Senate offices, the SAA developed
an emergency supplies kit that will be useful to offices in any
emergency. The SAA plans to issue the kits and provide training to the
Office Emergency Coordinators this spring.
Continuity of Operations and Government
This past year the SAA and the Secretary of the Senate developed
and published the Senate Continuity of Operations and Continuity of
Government Planning Guide that provides strategic guidance and a
framework for developing comprehensive, integrated Senate Continuity of
Operations and Continuity of Government plans. The SAA and Secretary of
the Senate worked closely with all affected legislative branch agencies
to ensure the plans, which are part of each office's emergency plan,
are supportable and coordinated. Other initiatives the SAA has been,
and will continue to be, involved in that are designed to meet the need
for strong continuity of operations and continuity of government
planning include:
Senate Office Planning.--The SAA participates in the review and
update of the Senate's Continuity of Operations plans each Congress.
Most Member and Committee offices now have their own Continuity of
Operations plans in place. They have established alternate operating
sites, have laptops and other equipment for these sites, and have
backed up their essential data and other records so the sites are ready
to use. Many offices activated their plans during the ricin incident
and are now improving those plans. The SAA will continue to help
offices prepare, review, and update their internal plans and
procedures.
The SAA's Continuity of Operations planning support was extended to
state offices this past year through a Web-based planning software
application. The application helps Members' state offices create their
plans, and enables Members' Administrative Managers to oversee those
plans to ensure they fit within the office's overall office Continuity
of Operations plan.
Briefing Centers and Alternate Chamber.--The Senate has established
Briefing Centers and Alternate Chamber locations for use in emergency
circumstances. Over the past year, the SAA continued to enhance its
ability to support these locations, as well as Member office and
Committee operations. During this time, two Briefing Centers were
completed. The Centers provide temporary, protected locations where the
Senate can account for membership; where Leadership, Senate Officers,
and the U.S. Capitol Police can communicate with Senators; and where
communications capabilities are available to Senators. A third Briefing
Center is nearing completion.
Two years ago, a primary Alternate Chamber was established on
Capitol Hill. Final modifications to that facility were made this past
year and it is fully operational. A secondary Alternate Chamber
location has also been selected off Capitol Hill. This facility is
available now and final modifications are being made. Work to establish
a second Alternate Chamber site off Capitol Hill will continue this
upcoming year.
Exercise of Emergency Plans.--This past year was the second full
year of an active program that ensures that we regularly rehearse and
evaluate all aspects of our emergency plans. The SAA's exercise program
focuses on evaluating new facilities and capabilities as they become
available. In the first year, the ability to activate, relocate to, and
operate out of our primary Briefing Center and the Capitol Hill
Alternate Chamber location was tested.
This past year, exercises were conducted for using a second
Briefing Center location and the off-site Alternate Chamber. These
exercises included tabletop reviews of all aspects of the plans and
procedures, and full exercises of the facilities. They included the
U.S. Capitol Police Command Center and the Sergeant at Arms and
Secretary of the Senate's Emergency Operation Center. The exercises
also tested the transportation to each facility, support of each
facility, and communications between the facility and the Command and
Operation Centers. The program exercises life-safety responses as well
as emergency operations. A similar protective measures exercise of the
Senate Chamber was also conducted recently.
This upcoming year, the operations of the Emergency Operations
Center will be exercised and a tabletop exercise of the Alternate
Computing Facility will be conducted. In addition, quarterly evacuation
drills and monthly tests of the emergency communications systems will
continue.
The Ricin Incident
The discovery of ricin in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on
February 2, 2004, brought to test the emergency planning work done by
the Senate in the last two years. The response was a collaborative
effort. SAA staff worked with the U.S. Capitol Police, the Committee on
Rules and Administration, the Office of the Secretary, the Office of
the Attending Physician, and numerous other agencies and organizations,
to support Senate operations even though all three Senate Office
Buildings were closed.
The closure of the Senate Office Buildings required the activation
of the SAA Continuity of Operations plan to support Senate, Member, and
Committee operations. In cooperation with the Secretary of the Senate
and Committee for Rules and Administration, the SAA established limited
alternate space and services for Member and Committee operations. By
the morning of February 4, 2004, space and operating capabilities were
available for all Member and Committee offices that needed it. Offices
were able to borrow equipment they needed from the SAA. Information
hotlines and backup systems worked well under the circumstances.
Assistance was also provided to Member offices to transfer their
telephones to other offices to ensure constituents' calls were
answered.
The support of the Committee on Appropriations was instrumental in
implementing the systems and processes that helped the Senate respond
successfully to this ricin event. Because redundant technology was
available, the Senate offices were able to continue to conduct business
even when they were unable to access their offices.
The feedback we received during and after the response to the
incident will help improve our response to future incidents. Of primary
concern is the need to improve notification processes and procedures.
This incident demonstrated that a solid technical infrastructure is in
place to ensure timely notifications, but the processes and procedures
need improvement. We will continue to work with the U.S. Capitol Police
and the Senate community to ensure effective notification in the event
of an emergency.
Following the ricin incident, it was necessary to implement new
mail processing procedures. Over two years ago, the Legislative Branch
Mail Task Force (consisting of representatives from the scientific and
medical communities, the United States Postal Service, security
experts, and agencies within the legislative branch) established a mail
processing system to treat and test all mail coming into the Congress.
The discovery of ricin in the Majority Leader's office in February
mandated the need for additional protective measures in our mail
processing. Science advisors and the Legislative Branch Mail Task Force
recommended that envelopes and packages be opened, examined, and tested
for contaminants at an off-site location. With the approval of the
Senate Leadership, these new mail processing protocols were quickly
implemented.
Overall, the response to the ricin incident is encouraging. The
Senate Office Buildings were reopened within 5 days. The response truly
was a team effort and demonstrated the importance of preparing for
emergencies to ensure continuity of operations.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
This past year has seen significant advances in the area of
information technology in the Senate. The addition of a Chief
Information Officer to the SAA management team has facilitated the
development and delivery of a technology vision, a strategy, and
solutions to support the Senate and enhance its security.
The Senate's information technology infrastructure is used to
complement other security efforts. Information technology is crucial to
security in the Senate and to the Senate's ability to accomplish its
day-to-day activities. With a strong emphasis on providing advanced
technology capabilities and outstanding customer support to the Senate,
the SAA is adopting a comprehensive approach to delivering technology
solutions and services. This approach focuses on evaluating and
implementing effective technology to help the Senate conduct its
business.
The SAA is developing an information technology strategy that will
be implemented in the coming year. The strategy will address the
Senate's need for mobility, flexibility, and redundancy in information
and telecommunications systems and will specifically address the
requirements that:
--Members and staffs need to be informed and have the ability to
track current events in near real-time.
--Members and staffs need to be secure to carry out their duties
under any circumstances.
--Members and staffs need to be able to communicate among themselves
and with constituents and the public.
--Members and staffs need to be able to operate and maintain
Washington, D.C., and state offices.
--Members and staffs must be able to collect, analyze, manipulate,
and present information.
The strategy will include a plan and a technology roadmap for the
next two years. The plan and roadmap will provide guidance to the
Senate on its technology decisions, and a framework for making those
decisions. In conjunction with this strategy, significant work will
continue this coming year on information technology initiatives
relating to security, emerging technology, and customer service.
Several of these critical initiatives are set forth below.
Security Initiatives
The Alternate Computing Facility (ACF).--This year, the Alternate
Computing Facility was added as a major addition to the Senate's
operational capability. Much of the alternate computing facility
infrastructure is complete, including facility fit-out, network
infrastructure, network operating center, and central computing room
facilities. The facility will soon be ready to house backup servers for
interested Members and Committees. A fiber optic ring is now complete
in both directions providing fully redundant connectivity between the
ACF and Capitol Hill. A state-of-the-art storage area network at the
ACF receives up to 15 terabytes of data daily from the Capitol Hill
central computing facilities. The mainframe and server hardware,
telephone equipment, enterprise fax server equipment, and all
associated networks are in place and are being tested. Currently,
installation of a fully redundant set of primary domain controllers to
support the Senate e-mail system is almost complete. The next step is
to complete installation and testing of all the software and
applications running on the hardware infrastructure, upgrade the power
infrastructure, and complete plans to purchase the facility.
Contingency Communications.--The SAA's contingency communications
program involves a number of major multi-year projects. Last year the
Senate's mobile recording studio became operational. Other mobile
communications assets will be delivered over the next few months. We
are working to complete communication systems that integrate
communications across our emergency facilities. Combined, these
projects provide a significant increase in the Senate's ability to
continue to operate under any circumstance.
Telecommunications Improvement and In-building Wireless
Infrastructure.--To enhance security, emergency preparedness, and
customer service, a comprehensive telecommunications improvement plan
is being implemented. Wireless devices, including cellular telephones
and personal digital assistants (such as BlackBerry devices), have
become critical telecommunication infrastructure components supporting
daily Senate operations and emergency notification activities. The in-
building wireless initiative will provide a Senate-owned wireless
infrastructure integrating services from all cellular telephone
carriers, BlackBerry devices, and wireless local area networks (LANs).
Due to this innovative approach, which will lease infrastructure
bandwidth back to the cellular telecommunications carriers, this
program will pay for itself in less than five years while providing
full cellular, BlackBerry, and wireless LAN connectivity across the
entire Senate campus. In addition to the in-building wireless
initiative, an analysis of telecommunications requirements is being
conducted that will lead to a complete overhaul of our voice and data
networks and services over the next several years. The first task in
the analysis phase of this large project is already underway.
Deployable Communications Assets.--Mobility and flexibility are
fundamental to successful continuity of operations and continuity of
government planning and execution. The goal of this office is to make
it possible for Members and their staffs to communicate and process
data from almost anywhere at any time if they have to relocate. A
variety of technologies and capabilities is being developed to provide
mobility and flexibility options. Two state-of-the-art communications
vehicles are being deployed that will allow us to establish the
Senate's information infrastructure almost anywhere. Satellite, radio,
and local area network and wide area network facilities currently are
being integrated in each of these communications vehicles with full
operational capability planned for later this year. Next year's
Continuity of Operations and Continuity of Government exercises will
incorporate these vehicles.
Emergency Operations Coordination Prototype.--To support security
and emergency operations, we are working with the U.S. Capitol Police
to develop a prototype emergency operations coordination system that
will enable officers to update and track individuals electronically
during a Capitol Hill evacuation operation. This system, which features
tablet PC technology and back-end databases with full reporting
capability, is currently in prototype, and will be fully operational
later this year.
Information Technology Security: Defense-in-Depth.--During this
past year, there has been a steep increase in cyber threats, as hostile
entities attempt to attack our systems with viruses, worms, and denial-
of-service attacks. The Senate's infrastructure and data are protected
by continuously upgrading our defense-in-depth capability. The defense-
in-depth approach includes multiple layers of defense that protect the
Senate's information infrastructure at all levels, from the inside out.
It includes an enterprise anti-virus program.
We expect to extend the enterprise anti-virus program to all 12,000
Senate desktop and laptop computers by the end of next year. To date,
this software has been installed on 5,000 Senate computers, protecting
them from viruses, worms, and denial-of-service attacks.
These security efforts have paid off; the Senate has not been
successfully intruded upon from the outside and we have seen only
minimal effects from the most aggressive virus and worm attacks. We are
now working with office system administrators, who are responsible for
the security of their office local area networks, to improve the
Senate's overall security posture and enhance our ability to defend
against intrusions.
Next year, as part of a comprehensive network infrastructure
upgrade, it will be necessary to evaluate and upgrade the information
security infrastructure in the Senate switched network by upgrading
routers and firewalls. Increased intrusion detection systems, software
tools, and services will complete the defense-in-depth approach to
information infrastructure.
Information Technology Security: Policies, Practices, Training, and
Tools.--An effective approach to information security goes beyond
upgrading the information security infrastructure to include evaluating
and applying best practices and information security and assurance
hardware and software tools, and providing information security
training for employees. Through the Information Security Policies and
Practices Working Group, we are working with Members' technology staffs
and the Committee on Rules and Administration to examine and improve
information security practices across the Senate. Because of the
increasing number of attacks the Senate faces, the SAA is also
evaluating and upgrading the skills of our own information security
staff.
Emerging Technologies Initiatives
One major theme that has been embraced in the Senate's information
technology strategy is to identify ways that new and emerging
technologies can support the Senate's priorities. We are already moving
forward on this effort by analyzing trends to discern which emerging
technologies will be most applicable in the Senate environment. Once
promising technologies are identified, the SAA will work with
interested Senate offices to pilot or prototype the technologies and
prove the concepts. Following successful pilots, the technologies can
be rolled out Senate wide.
New Technology and Innovation.--To elevate technology awareness,
expose the Senate to the future of technology, and spur innovation, the
SAA is sponsoring emerging technology events. The first Senate Emerging
Technologies Conference, held in February 2004, brought experts from
industry to the Senate to discuss emerging wireless technologies,
telecommunications trends, knowledge management, and collaboration
tools. The conference was followed by a technology fair highlighting
low-cost applications that we could implement at the Senate in the near
future. More emerging technology events are being planned for fiscal
year 2005.
Process Improvement.--The Sergeant at Arms is creating an
organization to focus on process improvement and innovation from the
perspective of customer service and security. This year, the
organization will perform top-down and bottom-up analyses of
technology-related business processes. It will look for opportunities
to innovate and will implement ways to make the Senate's technology and
business processes more efficient and effective. The group will
document, analyze, and improve processes such as technology project
management, requests for assistance, and the Senate's systems
development life-cycle.
Technology Infusion.--To move emerging technologies into the Senate
environment quickly, the Office of the Sergeant at Arms is
collaborating with Senate offices to develop prototype applications,
consisting of subsets of target functionality. Two such prototypes
currently under development are the Office Emergency Coordinator
tracking system and a knowledge management prototype. The approach is
to think big, start small, and scale quickly.
Customer Service Initiatives
This office is paying special attention to how well it meets the
Senate's technology needs. This effort requires the evaluation and
analysis of all aspects of our information technology solutions and
technology infusion and delivery programs. A survey was conducted last
year that measured customers' satisfaction with technology. The survey
revealed that Members and their staffs want more and better information
about technology programs, a faster process for infusing new
technologies, and an emphasis on looking ``over the bow'' toward
emerging technologies and how the Senate can take advantage of these
technologies in the next three years.
Customer Service, Satisfaction, and Communications.--The first step
taken by the SAA to improve customer service, satisfaction, and
communications was to implement an extensive customer outreach program
that enables us to understand the Senate's requirements better. This
program features communications through monthly information technology
newsletters, quarterly project status reporting to Senate offices,
participation in the Majority Leader's Information Technology Working
Group, joint monthly project and policy meetings with the Committee on
Rules and Administration and the Senate System Administrators
Association leadership, and participation in a Hill-Wide Information
Technology Group. We are also emphasizing customer service by enforcing
stringent service-level agreements with our technology Help Desk
contractor. This program has been extremely successful with sustained
performance levels meeting or exceeding the service-level agreement
(greater than 95 percent based on customer satisfaction surveys) for
the past eight months.
Business Applications.--Based on input and feedback from users, it
was determined that many of the business software applications
supporting Members and their staffs needed to be updated. The Senate
Information Services program will be modernized to provide more
information from various news sources in near real-time and more
comprehensive analysis of that information. The financial management
systems that support the Secretary of the Senate's Disbursing Office
are also being modernized and made Web-capable. We are also exploring
new correspondence tracking and management systems and have added to
the list of available application offerings.
Intelligence over the Net-Web Services.--One major technology focus
is to move applications and processing capability to the Senate's
Intranet. Flexible Web services technologies will allow the placement
of many service-delivery applications to Webster so users can access
them with a Web browser. The goal is for the Senate Intranet to evolve
into a full capability portal providing Senate staff ``one-stop
shopping'' for common business application functionality.
Secure Remote Access Options.--In addition to moving applications
to the Web, this office is aggressively exploring alternate ways for
Senate users to gain secure remote access to Senate information
resources. In particular, biometric capabilities are being explored to
add to the secure networking options already provided.
Network Upgrades and Video Teleconferencing.--To support
flexibility, mobility, and improved customer service, we are expanding
and upgrading the Senate's information networks. Over the next year,
the Capitol Hill network infrastructure upgrade will be complete,
delivering increased communications bandwidth to the desktop to support
the applications of the future. This upgrade, already underway, will
provide 100 megabits per second (Mbps) to the desktop and one gigabit
per second (Gbps) between servers in the network. To improve
communications for Members' state offices, we continuously analyze and
adjust their wide area network connections and increase bandwidth as
required. This flexibility allows us to support sophisticated Web
services over the Internet, as well as the video teleconferencing
program that is currently underway. Under the video teleconferencing
program, a state-of-the-art video teleconferencing terminal will be
installed at each Member's Capitol Hill office and a similar terminal
at the state office of their choice.
Electronic Mail and Office Automation Applications.--The Senate
Messaging Infrastructure is almost complete, with 98 percent of all
offices migrated to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook. The Active
Directory Messaging Architecture program, the successor to the Senate
Messaging Infrastructure program, is currently in the design phase. It
will allow Member and Committee offices to have choices between central
and distributed management of their Exchange servers, a Senate global
address list, and office servers updated from Microsoft NT4 to
Microsoft Windows 2003 technology. In addition, we will continue to
expand and upgrade our BlackBerry system to supplement both the Senate
e-mail system and the emergency notification systems. Moving into the
next year, continued convergence of devices and the widespread use of
combination cell phone and BlackBerry devices are anticipated. This
office is committed to deploying systems that will allow Members more
flexibility in choosing which wireless device to use for receiving
emergency notifications and legislative alerts.
OPERATIONAL SUPPORT
While security and information technology initiatives are
necessarily at the forefront of the SAA's efforts to serve the Senate
community at this particular time in history, the core value required
to execute these initiatives successfully--a commitment to exceptional
customer service--has always been a cornerstone of the SAA's
operational support. Over the past year, we have seen significant
improvements in the operational aspects of the SAA's support to the
Senate. Some of the achievements and projects outlined below are the
result of better integrating technology into business practices; others
originated from the need to find innovative solutions to challenges
presented by the ricin incident. Regardless of the impetus for these
accomplishments, they all demonstrate the hard work and dedication of
the SAA operational staffs.
Senate Post Office.--The Senate Post Office delivered nearly 19
million safe articles of mail to the Senate community during fiscal
year 2003. It is our understanding that this was accomplished for
approximately $3 million less than the House of Representatives, which
uses an outside contractor to handle similar volume.
One of the security improvements implemented this past year was a
new package and envelope-testing site for couriers, allowing for same-
day delivery of time-sensitive items. Additionally, as set forth
previously in this testimony, the ricin incident in February led to the
adoption of new mail protocols. This was accomplished by leveraging
existing personnel and assets while improving the safety, security, and
cost effectiveness of mail delivery.
Warehouse.--The need for a modern, efficiently designed warehouse
facility and mail processing facility continues and, following the
ricin incident, has become more critical. All mail, packages, and
deliveries to the Senate must be inspected to ensure the safety of the
institution. We believe that locating a new warehouse adjacent to the
U.S. Capitol Police off-site inspection facility will yield
considerable security and operating benefits. The warehouse and mail
processing facilities, together with planned U.S. Capitol Police
initiatives, will ensure the safety and security of Senate assets and
staff. The financial benefits include eliminating an estimated $800,000
in annual recurring costs, including the outsourcing expenses for
package processing that are currently being performed by a contractor.
Current warehouse facilities are geographically dispersed,
environmentally inadequate for document and furniture storage and do
not meet the minimum requirements of the General Services
Administration. A new facility will correct these problems and enable
volume discounts for Secretary of the Senate and SAA purchases. It will
give a longer useful life to furniture and fixtures warehoused and
provide specialized storage to meet the needs of the Senate Curator and
Librarian. A new warehouse facility will ultimately benefit the whole
Senate community through increased efficiency, enhanced security, and
improved organization.
Capitol Facilities.--The Capitol Facilities staff continues to work
around the clock to ensure that the environment within the Capitol is
clean and professional. With a new management team and a fresh look at
key processes, the appearance of the Capitol has significantly
improved. Among the staff's many accomplishments this past year is its
successful relocation of the Secretary of the Senate's Capitol staff
from basement offices, which were disrupted by Capitol Visitor Center
construction, to newly developed fourth-floor office space. This move
was done without interrupting the Secretary of the Senate's ability to
support the legislative process.
Printing, Graphics, and Direct Mail.--The innovations in this
operational area resulted in substantial cost savings to its customers.
Specifically, over $1.8 million was saved through the staff's work with
Member offices on ways to address letters to ensure discounted postage
rates are received as often as possible. The amount of processed mail
that qualified for discounted postage this past year was 23 percent
higher than in fiscal year 2002.
The use of technology in this area has enhanced customer service.
Over 2.2 million documents were produced through the SAA's online
ordering service, a 427 percent increase over fiscal year 2002, when
the service was first implemented. Online ordering reduces errors and
provides convenience and labor savings by enabling Senate offices to
order printing services from their desktops.
This past year, automation also resulted in a significant increase
in the Senate's ability to archive documents. By fully automating the
process, the SAA was able to archive over two million documents for the
Senate. This represents a 218 percent increase over the previous year
with no additional staff.
Photo Studio.--The Senate Photo Studio completed its transition
from film to high-resolution digital photography and its conversion to
digital photo printing processes this past year. Photography and photo
printing services are now being performed digitally, eliminating some
chemical processes and bringing significant improvements in quality and
delivery of products to our customers.
The shift to a digital operation allows staff to view photographs
taken by the Senate Photo Studio immediately, on site. It also enables
the Studio to e-mail high-resolution images to Senate offices, and
allows offices to view images and download them. These enhancements
have been received well by customers.
Senate Recording Studio.--The Senate Recording Studio remains a
leader in the use of technology. Last year, the Recording Studio
initiated a project to upgrade and install multimedia equipment in
Committee hearing rooms, including digital signal processing, audio
systems, and broadcast quality robotic camera systems. This project
will continue this year.
The audio upgrades will improve speech intelligibility and provide
software-based systems that can be reconfigured based on an individual
Committee's needs. The upgrades also include diagnostic monitoring,
which enables staff to detect and resolve problems before the problems
become disruptive. For instance, if a Member is speaking at a
relatively low volume, the system can more effectively raise the volume
of that microphone. If a Member who is about to speak does not turn on
the microphone, the Committee clerk can remotely turn it on from a
computer. Even if the main electronics fail, a backup system will take
over within minutes. Additionally, the system provides networking that
allows the audio to be automatically routed from one hearing room to
other hearing rooms for overflow purposes.
The video upgrades will include the addition of broadcast-quality
television cameras. These cameras will be installed on robotic systems
and can be controlled remotely from the Recording Studio. The upgrades
also include cabinetry so the cameras can be concealed when not in use.
Once this project is completed, the Recording Studio will be able to
meet the demand for the broadcast of Committee hearings and
simultaneously maintain production capabilities in the television
studios.
The Senate has had the ability to search Chamber proceedings by
text and listen to audio playback from desktop computers for years. In
fact, the Senate was a pioneer in this area, and accomplished it in the
early years of computer browsers. The next major advance will be the
replacement of the audio and text browsing systems this summer with a
state-of-the-art audio/text/video browsing system. This will enable
Senate staff to search and play back Chamber proceedings and news
programming from any computer on the Senate LAN.
This system is the result of a modernization of the Senate
Recording Studio's technical plant that incorporates technology so new
that it is operational in only a handful of facilities in the country.
This new technology will enable the Recording Studio to record, edit,
and play media without ever using tape machines, while simultaneously
making the media available for online searching and streaming. In the
near future, the Recording Studio plans to add Senate hearings and
other media to the system.
Education and Training.--In 2003, the Senate's Joint Office of
Education and Training offered 694 classes, with 6,916 Senate employees
participating. Of the total number of classes offered, 309 were
technical training, with 1,730 students participating. The registration
desk handled 15,390 requests for training and documentation. An
additional 1,126 staff received coaching on various software packages
and other computer-related issues. Training was provided to almost the
entire Senate community as the new Senate Messaging Infrastructure was
implemented.
Over 350 professional development classes were offered last year
with a total attendance of 5,117 students. Managers and supervisors are
encouraged to request customized training for their offices. As a
result, the staff of the Joint Office of Education and Training worked
on more than 40 occasions with teams on issues related to team
performance, communication, and conflict resolution. Over 1,300 Senate
staff also took advantage of the 18 health events sponsored by this
office.
A ``State Training Fair,'' which was first available in March 2000,
was offered three times this past year to 134 state staff members.
Forty-two senior leaders in state offices also participated in the
first State Directors Forum. In addition, state offices continue to be
offered ``Virtual Classrooms,'' an Internet-based training library of
over 300 courses. To date, 164 state office staff, representing 59
Senators, have used the virtual classrooms.
The Joint Office of Education and Training ensures that the
training designed for Senate staff meets their needs. This upcoming
year particular attention will be paid to providing training to
increase the Senate's awareness of information technology security.
Specifically, an IT Security Awareness program for Senate staff is
being developed and a course on reviewing and configuring security
settings on Windows servers is ready for delivery. Existing computer
security classes and documentation are being revamped, and IT security
issues will be included as an integral part of our system
administration classes and other classes. System Administrators will be
able to receive training to maintain and enhance their skills,
including new, self-paced training with mentoring for those who would
benefit from more instruction and personal guidance.
Support to Other Organizations.--In addition to the support the SAA
provides the Senate, we also provide significant support to
organizations outside the Senate. In fiscal year 2003, the SAA
performed services for other organizations costing over $3 million
without reimbursement. Most of these services support the U.S. Capitol
Police and the Architect of the Capitol. However, support is also
provided on occasion to the House of Representatives, and to liaison
offices and other organizations located in the Senate Office Buildings.
These services include printing and graphics products, maintenance of
radio and network systems, telephone services (some of which are
reimbursed), and computer repair and installation.
CONCLUSION
The staff of the SAA has done tremendous work to keep the Senate
safe, secure, and operating efficiently. The accomplishments and vision
of this office would not be possible without the active, ongoing
support of this Committee and the Committee on Rules and
Administration. We thank you for your support and for the opportunity
to present this testimony and answer questions.
From security to technology to operational support, we are
dedicated to making sure that our products and services support the
Senate's mission. The appendix accompanying this testimony elaborates
the specific components of our fiscal year 2005 budget request.
______
Attachment I
Financial Plan for Fiscal Year 2005
office of the sergeant at arms--united states senate
executive summary
[Dollars in thousands]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS Fiscal Year 2005 vs.
-------------------------- Fiscal Year 2004
Fiscal Year --------------------------
Fiscal Year 2005 Percent
2004 Budget Request Amount Incr/Decr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Operations & Maintenance:
Salaries............................................... $45,789 $50,635 $4,846 10.6
Expenses............................................... $46,581 $55,585 $9,004 19.3
----------------------------------------------------
Total General Operations & Maintenance............... $92,370 $106,220 $13,850 15.0
====================================================
Mandated Allowances & Allotments........................... $56,398 $58,129 $1,731 3.1
Capital Investment......................................... $27,570 $18,062 ($9,508) -34.5
Nondiscretionary Items..................................... $4,694 $4,290 ($404) -8.6
----------------------------------------------------
TOTAL................................................ $181,032 $186,701 $5,669 3.1
====================================================
Staffing................................................... 845 860 15 1.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To ensure that we provide the highest levels and quality of
security, support services and equipment, we submit a fiscal year 2005
budget request of $186,701,000, an increase of $5,669,000 or 3.1
percent compared to fiscal year 2004. The salary budget request is
$50,635,000, an increase of $4,846,000 or 10.6 percent, and the expense
budget request is $136,066,000, an increase of $823,000 or 0.6 percent.
The staffing request is 860, an increase of 15 FTEs.
For the third consecutive year, we have increased funds for
security initiatives. The fiscal year 2005 budget request for security
is $17,698,000, an increase of $1,588,000 or 9.8 percent compared to
fiscal year 2004. The most significant aspects of the total security
request are funding security upgrades for Member state offices
($3,650,000 in expenses); the Alternate Computing Facility (ACF)
($1,172,000 in salaries for 17 FTEs and $2,166,000 in expenses);
enhanced communication services ($2,300,000 in expenses); personnel and
operating expenses requested for the Office of Security and Emergency
Preparedness ($1,074,000 in salaries for 12 FTEs and $2,166,000 in
expenses); secure mail and package processing protocols ($694,000 in
salaries for 19 FTEs and $2,165,000 in expenses); and network security
($305,000 in salaries for 4 FTEs and $1,704,000 in expenses).
We present our budget in four categories: General Operations and
Maintenance (Salaries and Expenses), Mandated Allowances and
Allotments, Capital Investment, and Nondiscretionary Items.
The general operations and maintenance salaries budget request is
$50,635,000, an increase of $4,846,000 or 10.6 percent compared to
fiscal year 2004. The salary budget increase is due to the addition of
15 FTEs, a 3.9 percent COLA, and merit funding. The additional staff
will augment our security team, improve operations, expand services,
and meet new requirements for the Senate community.
The general operations and maintenance expenses budget request for
existing and new services is $55,585,000, an increase of $9,004,000 or
19.3 percent compared to fiscal year 2004. Major factors contributing
to the increase are price adjustments and annual escalations in the IT
Support contracts, $2,583,000; increased cost of expanded intrusion
detection monitoring services and software, $1,105,000; implementation
of a new real-time news service and renegotiation of all other Senate
Information Services (SIS) contracts, $860,000; management consultants
and services required for security operations and planning and
emergency preparedness, $666,000; replacement of existing enterprise
servers, $565,000; replacement of wiring in the Capitol, $500,000;
increased hardware maintenance and licenses for the ACF, $310,000;
procurement of furnishings, carpeting, and window treatments for the
Senate wing of the Capitol, $238,000; support agreements for word
processing and virus software, $202,000; and increased mainframe
software maintenance, $181,000.
The mandated allowances and allotments budget request is
$58,129,000, an increase of $1,731,000 or 3.1 percent compared to
fiscal year 2004. Major factors contributing to the increase are
projected increases in commercial and federal office rents, $953,000,
and maintenance and monitoring of previously installed security systems
and new security installations in offices established following the
2004 elections, $906,000. A decrease of $294,000 in office equipment
purchases in Washington D.C. and state offices partially offsets these
increases.
The capital investment budget request is $18,062,000, a decrease of
$9,508,000 or 34.5 percent compared to fiscal year 2004.
Major factors contributing to this budget request are completing
the procurement of the Mail Processing Facility/Warehouse, $7,200,000;
upgrading Senate data networks and related management systems,
$2,952,000; initial design and equipment purchases for the replacement
of the Capitol Hill telephone system, $2,800,000; procurement of
furnishings and equipment for the Senate side of the Capitol Visitor's
Center (CVC), $2,500,000; workflow technology hardware and software,
$400,000; backup document archiving system at the ACF, $350,000;
emergency backup storage for Members at the ACF, $325,000; upgrading
mail processing equipment, $310,000; and testing and evaluating
telecommunications equipment and products, $250,000. Funds also are
requested for several smaller printing and video projects.
Funding is no longer required for relocation of the Recording
Studio in conjunction with the CVC Project and completion of Phases I,
II and III for the Digital Technology Migration Project, completion of
CMS projects, acquisition of the work-order system, acquisition of an
ID laser printing system, acquisition of a mail sorter, and completion
of the upgrade to the video conferencing project.
The nondiscretionary items budget request is $4,290,000, a decrease
of $404,000 or 8.6 percent compared to fiscal year 2004. Major factors
contributing to this budget request are contract maintenance for the
Financial Management Information System (FMIS), $2,700,000;
enhancements to the Legislative Information System (LIS), $1,220,000;
and requirements definition for replacement of the Senate Payroll
System, $370,000.
______
Attachment II
Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request by Department
The following is a summary of the SAA's fiscal year 2005 budget
request on an organizational basis.
[Dollars in thousands]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS Fiscal Year 2005 vs.
-------------------------- Fiscal Year 2004
Department Fiscal Year --------------------------
Fiscal Year 2005 Percent
2004 Budget Request Amount Incr/Decr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Capitol Division........................................... $10,765 $13,400 $2,635 24.5
Operations................................................. $43,473 $37,608 ($5,865) -13.5
Chief Information Officer.................................. $91,781 $99,074 $7,293 7.9
Office Support............................................. $29,230 $30,261 $1,031 3.5
Staff Offices.............................................. $5,783 $6,358 $575 9.9
----------------------------------------------------
TOTAL................................................ $181,032 $186,701 $5,669 3.1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Each department's budget is presented and analyzed in detail
beginning on the next page.
capitol division
[Dollars in thousands]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS Fiscal Year 2005 vs.
-------------------------- Fiscal Year 2004
Capitol Division Fiscal Year -------------------------
Fiscal Year 2005 Percent
2004 Budget Request Amount Incr/Decr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Operations & Maintenance:
Salaries................................................ $6,355 $7,317 $962 15.1
Expenses................................................ $1,666 $2,433 $767 46.0
---------------------------------------------------
Total General Operations & Maintenance................ $8,021 $9,750 $1,729 21.6
===================================================
Mandated Allowances & Allotments............................ $2,744 $3,650 $906 33.0
Capital Investment.......................................... $0 $0 $0 0.0
Nondiscretionary Items...................................... $0 $0 $0 0.0
---------------------------------------------------
TOTAL................................................. $10,765 $13,400 $2,635 24.5
===================================================
Staffing.................................................... 143 145 2 1.4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Capitol Division consists of the Executive Office, Media Galleries and the Office of Security and Emergency
Preparedness.
The general operations and maintenance salaries budget request is
$7,317,000, an increase of $962,000 or 15.1 percent. The salary budget
increase is due to the addition of two FTEs, an expected 3.9 percent
COLA, and merit funding for fiscal year 2005. The Office of Security
and Emergency Preparedness requires two additional FTEs to direct,
develop and monitor the processes and procedures needed to ensure
security for the Senate and to work on the Continuity of Operations
Plan.
The general operations and maintenance expenses budget request is
$2,433,000, an increase of $767,000 or 46.0 percent, primarily for
increased management consulting services for security initiatives.
The mandated allowances and allotments budget request for state
office security initiatives is $3,650,000, an increase of $906,000 or
33.0 percent. Funding is required for the maintenance and monitoring of
previously installed security systems and new security installations in
offices established following the 2004 elections and consists of three-
year funds.
OPERATIONS
[Dollars in thousands]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS Fiscal Year 2005 vs.
-------------------------- Fiscal Year 2004
Operations Fiscal Year --------------------------
Fiscal Year 2005 Percent
2004 Budget Request Amount Incr/Decr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Operations & Maintenance:
Salaries............................................... $16,349 $17,817 $1,468 9.0
Expenses............................................... $7,992 $8,816 $824 10.3
----------------------------------------------------
Total General Operations & Maintenance............... $24,341 $26,633 $2,292 9.4
====================================================
Mandated Allowances & Allotments........................... $0 $165 $165 ...........
Capital Investment......................................... $19,132 $10,810 ($8,322) -43.5
Nondiscretionary Items..................................... $0 $0 $0 0.0
----------------------------------------------------
TOTAL................................................ $43,473 $37,608 ($5,865) -13.5
====================================================
Staffing................................................... 363 364 1 0.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Operations Division consists of the Central Operations Group (Printing, Graphics and Direct Mail, Parking
Office, Director/Management, ID Office, Photo Studio, and Hair Care Services), Operations Administrative
Services, Recording Studio, Post Office, and Facilities.
The general operations and maintenance salaries budget request is
$17,817,000, an increase of $1,468,000 or 9.0 percent. The salary
budget increase is due to the addition of one FTE to provide
administrative support, an expected 3.9 percent COLA, and merit funding
for fiscal year 2005.
The general operations and maintenance expenses budget request is
$8,816,000, an increase of $824,000 or 10.3 percent. Major factors
contributing to the increase are maintenance and procurement of
furnishings, carpeting and window treatments for the Senate wing in the
Capitol building, $238,000; increased warehouse rent and operating
expenses, $120,000; software customizations and interfaces for the
work-order system purchased in fiscal year 2004, $100,000; increased
screening costs for more secure package processing, $100,000;
replacement of miscellaneous printing/mailing equipment, $90,000; and
maintenance on software and production equipment, $55,000.
The mandated allowances and allotments budget request is $165,000
to furnish Capitol offices. The capital investment budget request is
$10,810,000, a decrease of $8,322,000 or 43.5 percent.
Major factors contributing to this budget request are completion of
the procurement of the Mail Processing Facility/Warehouse, $7,200,000;
procurement of furnishings and equipment for the Senate side of the
CVC, $2,500,000; purchase of a Data Storage Server to provide emergency
archival backup services for Member offices at the ACF, $350,000;
upgrades to and replacement of outdated mailing equipment, $310,000;
replacement of an outdated color printer, $200,000; and upgrades to and
enhancement of the Photo Browser database, $200,000.
Funding is no longer required for relocation of the Recording
Studio in conjunction with the CVC Project and completion of Phases I,
II and III for the Digital Technology Migration Project, upgrades to
the Senate Chamber Audio System, acquisition of the work-order system,
acquisition of an ID laser printing system, and acquisition of a mail
sorter for the Post Office.
Funding for the Mail Processing Facility/Warehouse, $7,200,000, and
the Facilities CVC project, $2,500,000, consists of three-year funds.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
[Dollars in thousands]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS Fiscal Year 2005 vs.
-------------------------- Fiscal Year 2004
Chief Information Officer Fiscal Year --------------------------
Fiscal Year 2005 Percent
2004 Budget Request Amount Incr/Decr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Operations & Maintenance:
Salaries............................................... $16,498 $18,395 $1,897 11.5
Expenses............................................... $35,795 $43,074 $7,279 20.3
----------------------------------------------------
Total General Operations & Maintenance............... $52,293 $61,469 $9,176 17.5
====================================================
Mandated Allowances & Allotments........................... $26,356 $26,063 ($293) -1.1
Capital Investment......................................... $8,438 $7,252 ($1,186) -14.1
Nondiscretionary Items..................................... $4,694 $4,290 ($404) -8.6
----------------------------------------------------
TOTAL................................................ $91,781 $99,074 $7,293 7.9
====================================================
Staffing................................................... 249 254 5 2.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Chief Information Officer Division consists of IT Support Services, Technology Development Services,
Administrative Services, Process Management and Innovation, and Information Technology.
The general operations and maintenance salaries budget request is
$18,395,000, an increase of $1,897,000 or 11.5 percent. The salary
budget increase is due to the addition of five FTEs, an expected 3.9
percent COLA, and merit funding for fiscal year 2005. IT Support
Services requires three new FTEs to serve as network engineers to
accommodate increased workload for emergency preparedness and
telecommunication systems at alternate locations. Technology
Development Services requires one FTE to serve as a senior software
specialist to assist with maintenance and enhancements to the Contract
Administration System and other administrative systems. Administrative
Services requires one FTE to draft correspondence, proof documents, and
provide executive-level assistance to the Technical Writer, the
Assistant Sergeant at Arms for Security and Emergency Preparedness, the
Assistant Sergeant at Arms and Chief Information Officer, and Special
Projects.
The general operations and maintenance expense budget request is
$43,074,000, an increase of $7,279,000 or 20.3 percent. Major factors
contributing to this increase are price adjustments and annual
escalations in the IT support contract, $2,583,000; increased cost of
expanded intrusion detection monitoring services and software,
$1,105,000; implementation of a new real-time news service and
renegotiation of all other SIS contracts, $860,000; replacement of
existing enterprise servers, $565,000; replacement of wiring in the
Capitol, $500,000; increased hardware maintenance and licenses for the
ACF, $310,000; support agreements for word processing and anti-virus
software, $202,000; increased professional services for threat
assessments and disaster recovery improvements, $190,000; increased
mainframe software maintenance, $181,000; and additional purchases of
data communication equipment, $172,000.
The mandated allowances and allotments budget request is
$26,063,000, a decrease of $293,000 or 1.1 percent. Major factors
contributing to this budget request are voice and data communications
for Washington D.C. and state offices, $17,937,000; procurement and
maintenance of Members' constituent mail systems, $4,255,000;
procurement and maintenance of office equipment for Washington D.C. and
state offices, $3,181,000; and acquisition of the Appropriations
Analysis and Reporting System, $400,000. Reduced purchases of office
equipment, primarily photocopiers, for Washington D.C. and state
offices results in the lower budget request for fiscal year 2005.
Funding for procurement and maintenance of Members' constituent mail
systems, $4,255,000, consists of five-year funds.
The capital investment budget request is $7,252,000, a decrease of
$1,186,000 or 14.1 percent. Major factors contributing to this budget
request are upgrade of the data network, $2,952,000; initial design and
equipment purchases for the replacement of the Capitol Hill telephone
system, $2,800,000; and purchase of data storage servers to provide
emergency backup for Member offices at the ACF, $325,000. Reduced
funding needs for the Asset Management Upgrade Project as it moves into
the maintenance phase, several CMS-related projects, the Public Key
Infrastructure project, the Wireless PDA project, the Enterprise
Storage Area Network project, and the Application Server Provider
project result in the lower budget request for fiscal year 2005.
The nondiscretionary items budget request is $4,290,000, a decrease
of $404,000 or 8.6 percent. Major factors contributing to this budget
request are contract maintenance for the Financial Management
Information System (FMIS), $2,700,000; enhancements to the Legislative
Information System (LIS), $1,220,000; and requirements definition for
replacement of the Senate Payroll System, $370,000.
OFFICE SUPPORT SERVICES
[Dollars in thousands]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS Fiscal Year 2005 vs.
-------------------------- Fiscal Year 2004
Office Support Services Fiscal Year --------------------------
Fiscal Year 2005 Percent
2004 Budget Request Amount Incr/Decr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Operations & Maintenance:
Salaries............................................... $1,895 $1,995 $100 5.3
Expenses............................................... $37 $15 ($22) -59.5
----------------------------------------------------
Total General Operations & Maintenance............... $1,932 $2,010 $78 4.0
====================================================
Mandated Allowances & Allotments........................... $27,298 $28,251 $953 3.5
Capital Investment......................................... $0 $0 $0 0.0
Nondiscretionary Items..................................... $0 $0 $0 0.0
----------------------------------------------------
TOTAL................................................ $29,230 $30,261 $1,031 3.5
====================================================
Staffing................................................... 28 28 0 0.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Office Support Services Department consists of the Customer Support, Help and IT Request Processing, State
Office Liaison, and Director branches.
The general operations and maintenance salaries budget request is
$1,995,000, an increase of $100,000 or 5.3 percent. The salary budget
increase is due to an expected 3.9 percent COLA and merit funding for
fiscal year 2005.
The general operations and maintenance expenses budget request is
$15,000, a decrease of $22,000 or 59.5 percent, resulting from a
reduction in travel costs and office supplies.
The mandated allowances and allotments budget request is
$28,251,000, an increase of $953,000 or 3.5 percent, resulting from
projected increases in commercial and federal office rents. Funding to
purchase computer equipment for Members, Committees, Officers, and
Leadership, $10,315,000, consists of three-year funds.
STAFF OFFICES
[Dollars in thousands]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS Fiscal Year 2005 vs.
-------------------------- Fiscal Year 2004
Staff Offices Fiscal Year -------------------------
Fiscal Year 2005 Percent
2004 Budget Request Amount Incr/Decr
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Operations & Maintenance:
Salaries................................................ $4,692 $5,111 $419 8.9
Expenses................................................ $1,091 $1,247 $156 14.3
---------------------------------------------------
Total General Operations & Maintenance................ $5,783 $6,358 $575 9.9
===================================================
Mandated Allowances & Allotments............................ $0 $0 $0 0.0
Capital Investment.......................................... $0 $0 $0 0.0
Nondiscretionary Items...................................... $0 $0 $0 0.0
---------------------------------------------------
TOTAL................................................. $5,783 $6,358 $575 9.9
===================================================
Staffing.................................................... 68 69 1 1.5
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Staff Offices Division consists of Education and Training, Financial Management, Human Resources, and
Special Projects.
The general operations and maintenance salaries budget request is
$5,111,000, an increase of $419,000 or 8.9 percent. The salary budget
increase is due to the addition of one FTE to perform compensation and
classification duties, an expected 3.9 percent COLA, and merit funding
for fiscal year 2005.
The general operations and maintenance expenses budget request is
$1,247,000, an increase of $156,000 or 14.3 percent, primarily from
increased professional services operating expenses and purchase of
equipment and software for training programs.
EFFECT OF BUDGETARY FREEZE
Senator Campbell. Thank you, Mr. Pickle. I'm going to ask
you what I've asked everyone who's testified before this
committee this year, and that is, how would you manage if we
had a freeze, and have you prioritized your budget?
Mr. Pickle. I'd really have to study it but I would say
offhand the first thing that we would not touch would be
security and emergency preparedness. Then we would look and
prioritize, along with the committee's assistance, and work on
those areas where we could make cuts. But certainly the
security and emergency preparedness would be untouchable for
me.
STATUS OF WAREHOUSE
Senator Campbell. Good answer. Now, last year we provided
$6.3 million for design and land purchase for a new warehouse.
Your budget request for 2005 includes an additional $7.2
million for this same project. What's the status of that
warehouse project now?
Mr. Pickle. The actual design of the project is about two-
thirds complete. But this year's ricin attack has put us back a
little bit. And let me explain that. We all agree that a
warehouse is very important. We're using three very obsolete
facilities--they're spread out around the metropolitan area--
and for many, many reasons we need to replace those three
facilities with one. The ricin attack caused us to make some
very fundamental changes here on the Hill in regard to mail
processing. As you probably realize, we are now examining all
mail before it comes on campus. What we are looking to do is,
we want a partnership with the police department, and we're
looking for one footprint, or one piece of land, where we can
have separate facilities--a warehouse, a mail processing center
and the police department's off-site inspection center. We're
moving toward it, and the reality is that money that's been
appropriated is a good start, but I truly believe we're going
to need significantly more money to do this the right way.
Senator Campbell. So this $7.2 million won't be enough to
complete the project? Is that correct?
Mr. Pickle. No, it will not. It would be substantially more
than that.
Senator Campbell. Is it something that could be deferred in
view of budgetary constraints or is that considered a really
high priority?
Mr. Pickle. I think it's a high priority for several
reasons. We have personnel who are now opening this mail off-
site in very primitive conditions. We're making them safe, they
are safe.
Senator Campbell. What is a primitive condition?
Mr. Pickle. When I say primitive, we are remodeling a
current warehouse facility; it's a very close-in facility. Now,
where it's safe, and we have the negative airflow and we have
all the precautions that we're taking to make them safe, it's
just not a very efficient operation. There are several
different processes, which I won't go into here in this open
session, but there's several different processes and it is a
very, very labor-intensive process.
Senator Campbell. Well, the ricin scare was after we
provided the $6.3 million. Have you had to do design changes
that you hadn't expected?
Mr. Pickle. Yes, we have because the ricin scare forced us
to look at the way we handled mail and it's caused us to do a
re-engineering of the actual process. But the fundamental
design changes whereby walls are here and interior walls are
here, that hasn't changed too significantly.
STAFFING LEVELS
Senator Campbell. I see. Your budget also includes 15
additional staff over the fiscal year 2004 authorized level.
This committee understands that there are about 50 vacancies,
excluding patronage positions. Why do you have so many
unfulfilled positions and why are you requesting additional
ones when you haven't filled the other 50?
Mr. Pickle. Well, that was my question, too. It was my
question last year and I think it was your question last year.
And I thought I had a good answer last year and I'm going to
try to give you a better one this year. What we have found is,
we have an attrition rate of maybe 3 or 4 percent a year. We
constantly have people who are leaving for one reason or
another. We have also been given additional positions by this
committee over the last several years which we are trying very
aggressively to fill. So I guess what I'm saying is, as we hire
one person we may have one vacancy occur. But the other part of
that, and this is an important part, we have many applicants
for these positions but we still continue to insist on hiring
only the best people we can find. And if we don't find the
right person then we won't fill that person and we will
readvertise it. But I agree it's imperative that we become
fully staffed. We are not there yet and I do not think, based
on what I found out, that we are any different than any other
organization, private or governmental, whereby you ever reach
full staffing levels.
Senator Campbell. So with the 50 vacancies, are our service
levels degraded any place in particular?
Mr. Pickle. I think it's across the board but one of the
areas that we're increasing dramatically this year, and it's
not reflected in our initial budget request, is we've added 12
positions to the post office for mail handlers, and this is for
those personnel who will examine mail.
NEW TELEPHONE SYSTEM
Senator Campbell. Your budget includes $2.8 million for the
design of a new Capitol Hill telephone system. Why is that
system needed and when would funding be required for the system
itself?
Mr. Pickle. It's my understanding the last major
telecommunications upgrade took place in the late 80's. What
this $2.8 million does for us is it gives us about $800,000 to
do the actual consulting work, the research, the developmental
work, looking at the architecture we have or will need. The
other $2 million is a number that we believe will be sufficient
this year to start buying additional equipment, phone sets. But
you are right and I think where you're going, the long-term
cost will be much more but we can't----
Senator Campbell. Do you have an estimate about that long-
term cost?
Mr. Pickle. The long-term cost I do not know; we won't know
until we complete the consulting work. That's part of this
funding.
NEW MAIL HANDLING PROTOCOLS
Senator Campbell. For whatever you can say in a public
forum here, what's the status of the new mail handling
protocols? What's been put in place following the ricin
incident?
Mr. Pickle. Let me talk in general terms if I may. Mail
coming to the Senate continues to be irradiated at a postal
facility in the Northeast part of this country. It's then
delivered here to Washington where it goes to a mail examining
center. The mail is examined in a particular process. It then
goes to another center where it's actually opened, physically
opened, and each individual letter is opened and examined for
any type of substance. It's then quarantined until the tests
come back negative. It is then delivered to the Senate post
office, where the post office then delivers it to the
individual committee or Member's office. This process,
unfortunately, adds about 24 hours to the current mail delivery
process. We're looking at postmark to delivery about 8 to 10
days. Now, having said that, we still have a backlog because,
as you remember, on February 3, when we had the ricin attack,
we stopped delivery of mail for approximately 10 days here on
the Senate side. We're trying to go through all that mail that
is backed up and clean it out of the system and get it
delivered. So we still have a backlog of just under 2 weeks of
mail that hasn't been caught up with.
Senator Campbell. About 2 weeks?
Mr. Pickle. About 2 weeks' worth.
EFFECTS OF IRRADIATION
Senator Campbell. One last little question. I don't know if
this happened to all the other Senators or just me but this is
my Senate card, and it's all faded and flat. The raised
numbers, that go through the irradiation machine, they're
perfectly flat so the electronic tape, this magnetic tape on
the back still works but the front doesn't. I was told that
that's what irradiation does to them. Is that just my card or
do they all come out like that?
Mr. Pickle. No, if the irradiation level is high enough it
will, the term that's used, ``cook'' something and that heat
could, in fact, flatten those out.
Senator Campbell. Is there anything on the drawing board
that won't do that to cards?
Mr. Pickle. Well, I'm surprised that happened. We promised
about 1 year ago that we would reduce those levels considerably
so as to prevent that. But we will look into that, certainly.
Senator Campbell. Okay, I have no further questions.
Senator Durbin.
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE PROBE
Senator Durbin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Pickle, again
let me thank you and all those who helped you with the
investigation on the computer break-in, computer theft. I know
it was an extraordinary commitment on your part and the people
who worked with you, with the Capitol Police as well as the
Secret Service. I thank you for that.
Mr. Pickle. Thank you.
Senator Durbin. I'd like to ask you a few follow-up
questions. You're aware of the fact that when the Senate
Judiciary Committee finished a number of letters were sent to
the Attorney General.
Mr. Pickle. Yes, sir.
Senator Durbin. Different letters. Some of us signed both.
Mr. Pickle. Yes.
Senator Durbin. I think the message that we were sending to
the Attorney General's Office was our hope that this would be
investigated in a totally above-board, non-partisan fashion.
And your investigation was to determine whether or not there
was any criminal wrongdoing and whether this investigation
should be pursued. I'd like to ask you a few questions relevant
to that. I understand on Wednesday, March 17, you delivered a
copy of the report to the Justice Department. First of all, I
realize Attorney General Ashcroft has been out as he's
recuperating from surgery and we all wish him well in that
regard; Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey is in charge of the
Department. Did you meet with Mr. Comey with this referral?
Mr. Pickle. No, we made initial contact with Mr. Comey's
office and his designee met with us, a Mr. Chris Ray.
Senator Durbin. The Assistant Attorney for the Criminal
Division?
Mr. Pickle. Criminal, yes.
Senator Durbin. Did anyone, Mr. Ray or anyone at the
Justice Department, tell you what they intended to do with the
report?
Mr. Pickle. I believe the quote was that we intend to take
a very thorough, professional review of this and we will
contact the committee.
Senator Durbin. Did they give you any timeframe within
which they would respond to the referral?
Mr. Pickle. No, not at all.
Senator Durbin. Did you ask them for a response?
Mr. Pickle. No, we did not, sir.
Senator Durbin. Was Mr. William Ascella--I hope I'm
pronouncing it correctly--the Department's Assistant Attorney
General for Legislative Affairs, at the meeting as well?
Mr. Pickle. Yes he was.
Senator Durbin. Did you raise with him the outstanding
issue you had with the Department of Justice Legislative
Affairs Office which you referred to in your report footnote
seven, and I quote, ``As to the time of this report is being
completed, the Department of Justice still has under
consideration investigators' request to interview the employee
who Mr. Blank reported having contacts with.''
Mr. Pickle. Yes, we raised that issue.
Senator Durbin. If so, what did Mr. Ascella--I hope that's
correct--reply?
Mr. Pickle. I along with my counsel, Lynne Halbrooks, who
is with me, raised that issue along with several other issues
we thought were important but there was no comment to those.
Senator Durbin. Based on your investigation do you feel
that there is any danger if the investigation, complete
investigation of this matter is not finished in a timely
fashion?
Mr. Pickle. I'm going to look at it as a criminal
investigator would. I have no concerns that any evidence will
be destroyed but of course any investigation you get into you
want to do it in a very timely manner; memories are fresh,
documents cannot be destroyed that may not be in possession,
and people can still be located. So I would hope that it would
be investigated soon if it's going to be investigated at all.
Senator Durbin. Thank you very much, I agree with that. And
I might also add for the record that some groups continue to
buy newspaper advertising that attacks the Senators who had
their files broken into instead of going after those who were
guilty of the theft.
GAO COMPUTER SECURITY REVIEW
Let me ask you also, during your investigation you came to
realize that all of the Senate committees' systems were set up
in essentially similar ways, with similar vulnerabilities in
some places as those exploited in the Senate Judiciary
Committee. On February 20, 2004, Senators Hatch and Leahy sent
a joint letter to David Walker, Comptroller General, asking the
GAO to perform a comprehensive control study to assess the
sufficiency of our committee's computer security and to
recommend policies and practices for the committee to adopt.
Are you working with the GAO on this matter?
Mr. Pickle. We have had only a conversation over the phone
with them. They're starting to make inquiries now and they're
starting to come in and begin their review but I don't know at
what stage that is.
Senator Durbin. Do you plan on working with the GAO in this
study?
Mr. Pickle. We're going to be helpful but I want to direct
them to the committee and work with staff directors there. And
I have to be cautious about this; I want to make sure that
whatever we do does not jeopardize the evidence that we still
have in custody, the servers, the hard drives and the other
backup tapes that we seized. So it may be the GAO may take a
step back and wait for this to be complete before they come in.
Senator Durbin. So it's possible the GAO analysis and
recommendations about how to make all the computers safe on
Capitol Hill may be waiting Department of Justice action at
your investigation.
Mr. Pickle. It's possible but I think they would have to
look and actually meet with the staff directors and meet with
the systems administrators. And once they get a feel of the
architecture and what currently exists they can probably then
make that decision but I wouldn't want them to be premature and
just jump in without having a good view of that land in front
of them.
Senator Durbin. Well, I certainly hope Department of
Justice deals with this in a timely fashion to preserve
evidence and to make certain that we have a good, complete
investigation. You took it as far as you could, I understand
that, did a fine job with the Secret Service but only
Department of Justice can finish this investigation. Doing it
in a timely fashion will finally bring us to a conclusion in
that regard one way or the other and also set the stage for
looking at other computer facilities on the Hill to make
certain that they're not vulnerable to the same type of theft.
SENATE COMPUTING TECHNOLOGY
At one of the earlier hearings I expressed concern about
the technology----
Mr. Pickle. Yes.
Senator Durbin [continuing]. Available to members of the
United States Senate. Since I share a home with two Members of
the U.S. House of Representatives I often hear about the new
bells and whistles that are being added to their computer
system.
Mr. Pickle. Yes.
Senator Durbin. And I said outloud, and was quoted in the
press, that I wanted to find out why the Senate was always
behind the House and the House and Senate were always behind
the rest of the world when it came to computer technology.
Mr. Pickle. Yes.
Senator Durbin. I've learned, once again, to be careful
what you wish for because Mr. Greg Hanson of your office came
by and absolutely snowed me in a matter of hours, an hour or
so, briefing my staff about everything that he's done in a
short period of time and plans to do to make sure that the
Senate technology is the very best within the limits of our
budget. My office receives about 50,000 e-mails every week,
50,000 a week. And we have to find a way to sort through these
e-mails by source and subject and generate some replies that
are meaningful to the people who contacted us and decide which
ones we're not going to reply to, for instance, those from
outside my State. I'm wondering, the House, I understand, has a
system that's being designed to generate such an automatic
reply and sorting. Do you know if similar plans are in place
for the Senate?
Mr. Pickle. I was unaware of this sorting system or
software that they have. I have talked to Mr. Hanson since his
meeting with you and we are certainly looking at it. I think it
can be supplied on an individual basis but we're looking at
that now to see if that's not something we should offer
everyone.
Senator Durbin. One of the nightmares that Senator Campbell
and I face is to go back to our home States and have someone
say, I sent a letter to your office and I never got a reply.
Or, I sent an e-mail and I never heard from you.
Mr. Pickle. Yes.
Senator Durbin. It's one of the most depressing things that
can happen to an elected official. Now we have a mail system
that is being delayed for security reasons, obviously necessary
security reasons, and an e-mail system that is being
overwhelmed.
Mr. Pickle. Sure.
Senator Durbin. And so I live and dread that going back to
my State I'm going to run into that kind of a situation. So I
certainly encourage you and Mr. Hanson to see if there's a
timely way to deal with that issue.
Mr. Pickle. We will.
SECURITY FOR CAPITOL VISITOR CENTER
Senator Durbin. May I ask you one last question and that
is, can you tell me what conversations you've been involved in,
if any, relative to security at the new Capitol Visitor Center?
Mr. Pickle. The conversations relative to security have
been few and far between as it relates to the CVC. In other
words, we're at a stage now where most of the discussions have
to do with operational aspects of the center. Initially we did
have a number of conversations; I know the police department
participates in these discussions actively with the folks
involved in coordinating this effort. Obviously security is
paramount there; it's one of the key reasons why we have that
center. But I believe from what I heard at a meeting last week
that those needs are being addressed and we want to make sure
they are addressed.
Senator Durbin. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pickle, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Campbell. Senator when you said 50,000 e-mails a
week, I haven't been here as long as many of my colleagues but
I tell you, when I first got in office just 22 years ago there
were no e-mails. There were no cells phones, there were no
Blackberries and those days are gone forever. I often think
when I see some of my senior colleagues like Senator Stevens
who's with us today, the changes he's seen in technology, what
there was or wasn't when he got here but I guess I better not
go there.
I'll yield to Senator Stevens now for any questions.
Senator Stevens. Pocahontas had just left if that tells you
anything.
Senator Campbell. That's been awhile.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SECURITY
Senator Stevens. I really don't have any questions but I
came by, Mr. Pickle, because I think Senator Bennett has
pursued the concept of a police force for the Library of
Congress. I happen to be Chairman of the Joint Committee on the
Library of Congress. We still have some real misunderstandings
about the concept of integrating the police force, Capitol
Police Force, with the police, staff of the Library of
Congress. And I've got a bunch of questions that I was going to
ask but I think what I'm going to do instead is ask if you and
Dr. Billington would meet us, members of the subcommittee,
whoever wants to come and see if we can't work this out.
Security of the Capitol comes first but there is, really, a
history of the police force over there that they've had
different duties in the past and I think we have to work some
sort of a transition to meet their needs at the same time with
the new complex that we've got being built in terms of the new
facilities, the visitor facilities, and the connections that
will lead to the Library there. I do believe we have to
integrate the police force of Capitol Hill. I would like to
make sure that the transition is done in a way that doesn't
upset the current needs of the Library while at the same time
meeting the transitional needs of the Capitol Police. I think
that's going to be worked out in a conference with all
concerned if you're willing to do that. I know, Mr. Chairman,
you've been involved in that and of course it was initially
started by Senator Bennett. We watched it but I do get comments
from the librarian and from the Library of Congress personnel
and it's just better if we work it out on a consensus basis and
get some specifics about the transition and how we achieve the
goals both of the Capitol Police and the Library. So I hope
you'd be willing to do that sometime after Easter, just sit
down and work it out.
Mr. Pickle. Be happy to, sir. Thank you.
Senator Stevens. Thank you.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
Senator Campbell. Thank you, Bill. There may be additional
questions in writing from other members who are not here. Thank
you for your appearance.
Mr. Pickle. Thank you.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Office for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell
Question. It is our understanding that the Sergeant at Arms offers
cellular phone/BlackBerry combination devices from both Cingular and
Verizon; and that only the devices provided by Cingular have the
capability to receive the emergency alerts from your office and the
Capitol Police. Given that you offer the Verizon BlackBerry and that
most Senate cellular accounts are on the Verizon network, what is your
plan to enable the Verizon BlackBerrys to receive the emergency alerts?
Answer. Although all of the major wireless carriers offer their own
version of RIM's BlackBerry, the SAA only fully supports the original
BlackBerry 950 and 957 devices which use the Cingular nationwide
Mobitex ``data only'' network. This is because these are the only
devices that provide the alert capabilities used by the Capitol Police
and the Senate Cloakrooms.
We are aggressively exploring a device- and carrier-agnostic
solution that offers maximum flexibility and reduces our dependencies
as they relate to device manufacturers and wireless network providers.
In parallel, we have provided all carriers offering the converged
BlackBerry devices our specific console-to-device and device-to-device
broadcast messaging requirements that we rely upon for USCP Emergency
Alerts and Cloakroom Vote Alerts. We have asked them to develop similar
if not more capable solutions to meet our emergency messaging needs and
hope that all carriers will soon be able to meet our requirements.
We are currently testing a beta version of software that runs on
Cingular's converged cellular phone/BlackBerry, model 7280, and
provides the alert capabilities we currently have on the RIM BlackBerry
models 950 and 957. We expect the final version of the software to be
released in the April-June 2004 timeframe, at which time it will become
the first fully supported converged cellular phone/BlackBerry device
that receives our alerts and works with the Senate's e-mail system.
We are also expecting to receive a beta version of the device- and
carrier-agnostic solution by the end of May 2004. Since we have not
seen the solution yet, we cannot say how long it will take to bring it
into production if it meets our needs, but we are hopeful that it can
be done by the end of the summer 2004.
We also expect that the technology will continue toward the
convergence of multiple functions into a single device. Although this
is a benefit to many, you should consider the consequences of having
all of your communications capabilities on one device that relies on a
single communications path for all of your normal and emergency
communications.
Finally, to clarify an assertion in the question, we assist Members
and their staff in ordering cellular phones or cellular phone and
BlackBerry combination devices from whatever carrier they believe best
meets their needs. In addition to Cingular and Verizon, we also order
devices and service from AT&T and other cellular carriers.
Question. In the wake of the recent ricin incident, is the Senate
considering scanning and digitizing mail like the House of
Representatives is doing?
Answer. As you know, the ricin incident caused us to change our
mail inspection, sorting, and delivery processes. Now, prior to
delivery to Senate offices, we open, inspect and test, at offsite
locations, all mail addressed to the Senate. These significant changes
have made us less vulnerable to such threats in the future.
In addition to the changes we've already made, we are investigating
the possibility of digitizing mail and the ramifications on Senate
operations. The House has a pilot program which has met with some
limited success, based on low volumes of mail. As part of our always
ongoing effort to leverage technology to improve efficiency and
effectiveness at the Senate, we have implemented sophisticated document
scanning and archiving capability in our Printing Graphics & Direct
Mail (PG&DM) organization. We are currently evaluating the House
initiative along with looking at ways to utilize the technology we have
to address the problem of digitizing and distributing Senate mail.
Factors to be considered:
--The extremely high volume of Senate mail
--The impact irradiation has on document imaging legibility
--The sensitive nature of some of the Senate mail
--The importance, in some cases, of preserving and delivering paper
artifacts
--The delay that scanning and digitizing might introduce into our
mail processes--it takes about 3.5 minutes per letter and we
average 32,000 first class letters every day
--Delivery modes and media
--The potential effect of transmitting digitized mail files across
our network infrastructure
--The additional cost in terms of personnel and infrastructure
upgrades to accommodate digitizing mail
--Procedures, processes, and locations for storing paper mail
artifacts after digitization
--Privacy and security issues.
As we conduct this analysis, we will continue to explore new ways
and new technologies to make Senate mail delivery more efficient,
effective and secure.
Question. Please give us an idea of the volume of message traffic
that passes through our networks and the degree to which our website is
visited.
A Typical Monday
Web Services Statistics (Webster, Senate.gov, LIS & Senate
Newswire)--
--Total unique visits: 99,420
--Total data sent to the public: 26,074,442,795 bytes
Electronic Mail--
--Inbound: 281,795 messages
--Outbound: 163,609 messages
--TOTAL: 445,404 messages
Daily Viruses Report--
--Mail Gateway viruses found: 39,795
--Server viruses found: 3,664
Question. Please give us an idea of the number of support calls
your information systems help desk and your telecommunications services
organizations process.
Computer Support:
Computer trouble calls resolved annually--Approx. 18,000
Orders and installations annually--Approx. 4,000
Helpdesk has met or exceeded service level agreement (SLA) every
month since May 2003 (95 percent work accomplished on time and 95
percent of customer satisfaction ratings either ``very satisfactory''
or ``excellent''
Telecommunications Support (fiscal year 2003)
Capitol Exchange calls answered--1,805,818
Telecomm helpdesk (programming) telephones programmed--10,213
Telecomm Coordinators--20,189 task orders accomplished
Info Exchange--2,520,168 pages processed
Question. Why is parking around the Capitol complex at such a
premium?
Answer. Nearly 400 parking spaces have been lost since the CVC
project began. During that same period of time, Members, Offices, and
Committees have issued or requested 445 unreserved parking permits, and
the USCP has petitioned for another 400 unreserved permits to
accommodate new recruits. Currently, over 2,000 unreserved permits
exist for 1,042 unreserved parking spaces.
Historically, Members, Offices, and Committees have been allowed to
request unreserved parking permits as needed. Even when the CVC is
completed, there will be less space for parking; perhaps now is a good
time to limit the number of unreserved parking permits that each
Member, Office, and Committee can issue as has been done with the AOC
and the USCP.
The USCP has exhausted its allocation and is looking for additional
parking. A recent contract with the Fairchild Building will yield at
least 100 spaces to the USCP, and parking lots adjacent to the
Fairchild Building have been noted by the AOC.
The USCP and the Parking Office are collaborating to step up
enforcement. The AOC can help recover approximately 150 slots by
seeking work sites off of Senate parking lots. The Parking Office is
aggressively seeking ways to squeeze more spaces from existing lots and
streets, including ``short stacking'' lots when demand for parking is
high. Increased use of Metro Subsidy will help alleviate parking
pressures as well.
There has been discussion of building a garage on the Senate
campus. A garage would certainly alleviate many problems and pressures
associated with parking.
Question. What is being done to alleviate the lengthy lines to
enter Senate buildings?
Answer. Several options are under evaluation by the U.S. Capitol
Police. Those options include:
--Designating certain entrances as ``Staff Only'' entrances between
the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
--Directing visitors to locations that do not impede staff entrances.
--Providing additional officers at the Hart Building C Street
entrance to assist and conduct hand searches of staff bags.
--Exploring additional X-ray machines at locations that can support
them.
We plan to meet with the Committee on Rules and Administration to
discuss these options prior to any implementation.
CAPITOL POLICE BOARD
STATEMENT OF W. WILSON LIVINGOOD, CHAIRMAN, CAPITOL
POLICE BOARD
ACCOMPANIED BY:
HON. WILLIAM H. PICKLE, SENATE SERGEANT AT ARMS AND BOARD
MEMBER
HON. ALAN M. HANTMAN, ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL
TERRANCE W. GAINER, CHIEF, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL
Senator Campbell. We now move to panel two, the House
Sergeant at Arms, Bill Livingood, accompanied by board members
Bill Pickle and Architect of the Capitol Alan Hantman. And
Chief of Police Terrance Gainer. And as with the first panel if
you'd like to abbreviate your comments that will be fine since
we've already read your written statement. And I understand Mr.
Alan Hantman is also here, a member of the Police Force, too.
Go ahead and start, Mr. Livingood.
LOC POLICE MERGER MEETING
Senator Stevens. Mr. Chairman, could I just interrupt and
ask if I may ask questions of these gentlemen? You heard my
question to Mr. Pickle, are you willing to have such a meeting,
Chief Gainer?
Chief Gainer. Yes, Senator.
Senator Stevens. Does that meet with your approval, Mr.
Livingood?
Mr. Livingood. Yes sir.
Senator Stevens. Thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF WILSON LIVINGOOD
Mr. Livingood. Mr. Chairman and Senator Durbin, I'm honored
to appear before you today to discuss the United States Capitol
Police fiscal year 2005 budget request. The Capitol Board
members, Mr. Pickle and Mr. Hantman, are here with me and Chief
Gainer is accompanying us today.
With your permission I am just going to provide you with a
short summary of my budget request remarks and provide the
balance in my testimony for the record.
Senator Campbell. That's fine.
Mr. Livingood. World events and the continuing threat to
our security here at home have driven an increased Capitol
complex security. It is a very difficult job to maintain a
legislative complex open to the public while at the same time
ensuring the safety of the Congress, staff and visitors against
increased dangers. The news media provides daily testimony of
the terrors and political agendas of extremist groups. In
today's environment the Capitol Police walk a very fine line
and have a challenging mission--maintaining the tradition of
open Government that we revere and demand while providing the
maximum degree of safety and security. To accomplish this
mission the Chief and the Department have developed an
excellent strategic plan, one designed to meet not only the
current needs but the future needs of the Congress.
The budget before you today is a funding requirement based
on this strategic plan. We ask your support and approval in
carrying out this strategic plan which strengthens our
vigilance, resilience by augmenting abilities in assessing
threats, preventing unlawful acts, responding to incidents and
supporting the general operations of the Capitol Police.
PREPARED STATEMENT
In closing, I would like to thank the Committee for the
ongoing support of the men and women of the Capitol Police and
their continued and diligent efforts to develop a better
security plan and operations, response forces and law
enforcement capabilities. I'd also like to extend a personal
word of thanks to the men and women of the Capitol Police and
the entire Board joins me in this, in that every day they
provide the highest possible degree of professionalism,
commitment and service to the United States Congress. And I am
proud to represent them today as is the rest of the Board
before you. Thank you.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Wilson Livingood
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am honored to
appear before you today to discuss the United States Capitol Police
fiscal year 2005 budget request. Capitol Police Board members, William
Pickle, Senate Sergeant at Arms, Alan Hantman, Architect of the
Capitol, and Terrance Gainer, Chief of Police accompany me today.
Mr. Chairman, I would first like to thank the Committee for their
ongoing support of the men and women of the Capitol Police and their
continued and diligent efforts to develop better security operations,
response forces, and law enforcement capabilities.
World events and security threats here at home have driven
increased Capitol complex security. It is a difficult job to maintain a
legislative complex open to the public, while at the same time ensuring
the safety of the Congress, staff, and visitors against increased
dangers. The news media provides daily testimony of the terrors and
political agendas of extremist groups. In today's environment, the
Capitol Police walk a fine line--maintaining the tradition of open
government that we revere and demand, while providing the maximum
degree of safety and security. At times in the past year, the national
threat level has been elevated in response to the potential for
domestic terrorist activity. We have mirrored this response with our
own Capitol-specific threat levels. Indeed, the Capitol--much like the
White House--is both a working building and a monument, and therefore
currently remains at an elevated threat level. It is clear from our
history that the Capitol is a tempting target for terrorists and those
who seek to disrupt the legislative process or strike a symbolic blow
against the United States. We also know that terrorists choose targets
based on certain criteria, such as symbolism, mass casualties, and high
likelihood of success. It is our responsibility to take every prudent
precaution that we can to remove the terrorists' likelihood of success
with regard to the Capitol, the Senate and House office buildings, and
for those who work and visit within the Capitol complex.
The Chief and his staff have been very diligent this past year in
appraising the effectiveness of police operations. They have developed
an excellent strategic plan that is designed to meet the current and
future needs of Congress. The budget before you today is the funding
requirement based on this Strategic Plan. We ask your support and
approval in carrying out this plan, which strengthens our vigilance and
resilience by augmenting abilities in assessing threats, providing
effective security, preventing unlawful acts, responding to incidents,
and supporting the general operations of the Capitol Police. We cannot
undo an incident like a suicide or truck bombing as seen abroad, and
should act responsibly to prevent these incidents. Related to the issue
of sufficient force strength and sufficient police facilities, recent
Capitol Police growth and requested staffing levels have and will
strain facility requirements; we ask for your continued support in
solving these issues.
In prior appropriations, this Committee funded, and the Capitol
Police are putting into action, a Hazardous Materials Response Team.
Most recently, this forethought and action paid off. I would like to
publicly commend the Chief and his dedicated staff for a stellar job in
handling the ricin incident. The Capitol Police trained, prepared, and
were ready for this type of incident. Being prepared requires gathering
intelligence, training, and adapting operations commensurate with
needs. For example, the discovery of ricin in Senate mail has prompted
a complete review of all mail protocols for both the Senate and the
House. We are constantly reviewing and enhancing existing emergency
plans, protocols and procedures. Regarding preparations, there is a
renewed focus on training. In the past year, Congressional staffs have
been introduced to the protocols relating to evacuation and shelter in
place procedures, as well continued practice with the escape hoods.
The Capitol Police are to be applauded for their efforts since we
last met. Preparing for incidents and preempting threats has been a
crucial focus under the Chief's leadership, and so the Department is
constantly assessing its abilities and strengthening its skills. Recent
Capitol Police accomplishments include: an in depth analysis of
staffing, the development of a new strategic plan, core infrastructure
systems replacement, an increase in employee training, better morale,
and continued implementation of hazardous materials response
capabilities. The Department's infrastructure is being shored up with
an inside-out-approach that is challenging the whole of the
organization to perform at a higher level.
This transformation effort, which includes additional operational
and administrative staffing resources and new security and information
systems, is a thoughtful multi-year undertaking extending into the 2005
fiscal year and relies on the budget request before you today. This
budget ties the planning and transformational efforts of the Department
to the requested means necessary to support this effort. Every line
item in this budget is purpose-built to support one of the four major
goals of the Department and the supporting strategic objectives. This
is a tightly engineered budget, formulated with the best efforts of
many highly trained men and women dedicated to the mission of the
Department to protect Congress, its Members, staff, visitors and, in
whole, the Legislative process from harm or interruption.
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the Capitol Police Board, I would like
to thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today, and for
your consideration of this budget request. Every day, the men and women
of the U.S. Capitol Police face a huge challenge: to provide the
maximum degree of safety and security while allowing the Capitol,
Senate and House Office Buildings to remain open and accessible to the
general public. And every day they succeed. I am honored to be
associated with the men and women of the U.S. Capitol Police.
Chief Gainer will address more specific operations and plans for
the coming fiscal year.
Senator Campbell. Thank you, Mr. Livingood. Chief Gainer.
STATEMENT OF CHIEF TERRANCE W. GAINER
Chief Gainer. Thank you Senator, and I too will submit my
testimony for the record and summarize it.
I'd like to put a little context to our budget request and
reiterate what the chairman just mentioned, that the fight
against terrorism led by the United States and its coalition
partners continues. We know through speeches, tapes and other
terrorist propaganda the leadership of Al Queda has stated
their intent to strike another blow on America. This rhetoric
and their actions has given some insight into potential
targets. The United States Capitol and all it stands for is
clearly one of those targets.
It is human nature to be optimistic but recent events have
reinforced what intelligence has discovered over the years,
that terrorist organizations have the means and methods to
strike whenever and wherever. Intelligence and security experts
both inside and outside government have stated that the United
States Capitol remains a primary target. It is not really a
question of if but a question of when we could expect a strike.
What is known is that vehicle bombs, suicide bombers and
improvised explosive devices are the weapons of choice and easy
to execute.
We have not limited our preventive measures to these
traditional threats. As you know, 9/11 introduced a new method
and means of carrying out an attack, since then we have
increased our intelligence capability and the Department has
personnel detailed to other Federal agencies to further
facilitate that capability. We have people at Homeland
Security, FBI, State Department, CIA, as well as some local
departments. We have undertaken a number of projects to
continue emergency outreach and notification. While many of you
know of the emergency annunciators you may not know that we
have over 3,600 of these units deployed through the entire
Capitol system. In addition, we have developed a project to
deploy a complex-wide public address system. This project will
provide the critical means to send out emergency notifications
to all public spaces, evacuation and assembly areas, parking
garages and other areas. We expect this project to be completed
in December of this year; we're on target to reach that
objective.
We are, however, vulnerable around this Capitol. As the
committee is aware, there have been a number of studies done
over the years; they have all commented on our openness to the
largest vulnerability, in particular there have been five
studies by various security experts that have recommended the
installation of a fence around the Capitol square. Even a
recent staffing analysis conducted by the General Accounting
Office in February 2004, included the installation of a fence,
as a recommended option. This latest recommendation goes a step
further and recommends a fence around all the office buildings,
and I quote from that report. ``An aesthetically pleasing
perimeter security fence could be constructed around the
Capitol Building grounds. This would markedly increase security
within and around the Capitol Building, Members, staff and
visitors.'' The recommendation of a fence has been discussed
for many years and was originally proposed in a 1985 document
called the ``Whip's Plan''. While the decision on the fence
will not be decided here, the impact from the lack of it is
felt every day and is shown in the numbers of required
personnel in our budget. We are constantly required to increase
the use of manpower and technology to keep this legislative
branch safe and secure while ensuring continuous operations
during these evolving threats, as well as maintaining an open
and free Capitol.
It is the men and women of this Department who selflessly
provide the first line of defense to protect this institution.
Most Federal agencies have layers of defense to prevent
attacks. The success of a terrorist attack on one of our
buildings, once initiated, will be deterred by that officer
standing at the entrance of the building. While the use of
technology aids in detection and deterrence, it was a police
officer that prevented Russell Weston from continuing through
the Capitol. And it was police officers who first responded to
both the anthrax and ricin.
Accordingly, our budget request of $291.6 million
represents a reasonable, necessary and balanced plan to
directly assess the threats of today and proposes the use of
resources to ensure the protection of the Congress, its
Members, staff and visitors in the process. The implementation
of our strategic plan, which this budget supports, is a prudent
plan to help ensure the safety of our Capitol. The budget
request represents a 33 percent increase over the fiscal year
2004 net appropriation. It's a lot. However, when the $12.7
million from the fiscal year 2003 supplemental, which as
directed by the committees was used to support fiscal year 2004
operational needs is taken into consideration, the requested
increase is $59.1 million or 25 percent and is still
significant.
This increase provides $12.7 million for 6 months' funding
for 213 sworn and 155 civilian additional positions. In the
personnel area $5.5 million is requested for a sworn pay scale
adjustment; $3.3 million for a 6-month annualization of the 75
civilian positions provided in fiscal year 2004 and $12.2
million for the cost of living adjustments, rate increases and
health benefits.
Other significant increases include $3.1 million for the
Inauguration; $8.1 million for the replacement of escape hoods;
$3 million for a new accounting system; $2.7 million for
security at the new legislative branch alternate computer
facility and $1.8 million for wireless data interoperability
infrastructure. But I need to point out this is not just a wish
list of our managers. We have a zero-base budget process.
Originally, the general expense requests totaled over $100
million, which were reduced by some 40 percent to the $59.9
million included in this budget.
As with any organization we realize there is always room
for improvement. We will continue to strive to strengthen and
augment our prevention and response capabilities, to review the
current environment, to improve the coordination with our
congressional community, to emphasize training of all our
employees and to have substantially filled all authorized
civilian positions by the end of this fiscal year, and to make
progress with our business systems' modernizations.
And finally, although facilities are the responsibilities
of the Architect of the Capitol they certainly are critical to
our operations. In February 2004 the Architect of the Capitol
leased approximately 100,000 square feet of space at 499 South
Capitol Street SE, the Fairchild Building, as an interim space
solution. This facility will go a long way to alleviate our
space constraints at our headquarters building when we move in
there.
As the Chief of the Capitol Police I take great pride in
the many years of service that this Department has provided to
the Congress. Building on that legacy, we at the Capitol Police
look forward to continuing to safeguard the Congress, its staff
and visitors. And we look forward to working with the Congress
and this committee to see what we can do with our budget.
PREPARED STATEMENT
And finally, Senator, I might say on behalf of the men and
women, as we wind toward the conclusion of your particular
career, thank you for your support of the men and women of the
Capitol Police. Your kindness to our officers and the people
who support them is well recognized. Your help in getting our
Harleys is lauded by all those riders and now the horses that
recently visited our Capitol and will be out galloping come
this May, we definitely owe a debt of gratitude to you. Thank
you.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Terrance W. Gainer
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am honored to
appear before you today to discuss the United States Capitol Police
fiscal year 2005 budget request.
I would like to thank the Committee for their continued support of
the Capitol Police and our efforts to provide world-class security and
law enforcement services to the Congress. As the foremost symbol of
American representative democracy, the Congress, its Members,
employees, visitors, as well as public buildings and operations are a
highly visible target for individuals and organizations intent on
causing harm to the United States and disrupting the legislative
operations of our government. We are the first line of defense and we
take our job very seriously.
Expansion, as well as consistently fine tuning how we currently
operate, is imperative to ensuring that we continue to provide the
safest and most secure environment to enable Congress to fulfill its
Constitutional responsibilities, and to protect those who work and
visit the Capitol complex. We face a daunting task, and a high
workload.
During fiscal year 2003, the Uniformed Services Bureau greeted and
screened over 7.4 million staff and visitors, the K-9 unit conducted
more than 40,000 explosive detection sweeps, the offsite delivery
center conducted 19,081 vehicle and cargo inspections, the Construction
Security Division conducted 85,870 vehicle inspections in calendar year
2003, we made 553 misdemeanor and felony arrests and 982 traffic
arrests, 87 weapons and contraband items were confiscated, and the
Hazardous Devices section conducted over 2,000 bomb searches and
responded to over 430 suspicious package calls. Our specialized units
also responded to the recent Ricin incident. The Department used our
Hazardous Incident Response Division teams and our recently specially
trained officers for the initial response. This incident quickly grew
to include numerous federal and military agencies involved in the
resolution. The Department's incident management team seamlessly joined
our federal partners to successfully manage this biological threat. Our
capabilities in this area have greatly improved since the 2001 Anthrax
attack.
The fight against terrorism led by the United States and its
coalition partners continues. Recent events in Europe, Russia,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and specifically the Madrid bombings
illustrate that the global war on terrorism has not diminished. As the
leader of this endeavor, the United States is the number one target of
al-Qa'ida, its surrogates, and other Islamic radicals. In speeches,
tapes and other terrorist propaganda, the leadership of al-Qa'ida has
stated their intent to strike another blow on our homeland. This
rhetoric and their actions, have given some insight into potential
targets. The United States Capitol and all it stands for, is clearly
one of those targets.
It is human nature to be optimistic, but recent events have
reinforced what intelligence information has told us for years, that
terrorist organizations have the means and the methods to strike
whenever and wherever. Intelligence and Security experts both inside
and outside government have stated the U.S. Capitol remains a primary
target. It is really not a question of if, but when the United States
Capitol Police will again be called to respond to another terrorist
attack. What is known is that vehicle bombs, homicide bombers, and
improvised explosive devices are the weapons of choice and easy to
execute. The Department continues to take unprecedented steps to
counter these threats and is considered a leader in many areas among
federal and private institutions.
For example, we recently developed and distributed a comprehensive
procedure for officers responding to a homicide bomber. One of the
first in the nation to address this threat, we have developed with
support from this Committee, a design for a comprehensive Truck
Interdiction Program. This project will use the latest, leading edge
technology to detect and interdict a threat before it reaches our
doorstep. We have deployed the latest in explosive detection equipment
at all our buildings and have increased the number of our K-9 explosive
teams.
But we have not limited our preventive measures to just traditional
threats. As you well know, 9/11 introduced a new method and means of
carrying out an attack. We have increased out Intelligence capability
and the Department has personnel detailed to other federal agencies to
further enhance that capability. The Capitol Police has personnel
working as liaisons at major operations centers and have partnerships
with the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and others. Because of
all these enhancements, the Capitol Police is able to respond to
potential threats in a real-time manner.
But we have not solely focused our notification efforts internally.
We have taken a number of steps to provide information to the
Congressional Community. The recent Ricin incident illustrated the
benefit of having a fully functioning Capitol Police Command Center.
The newly upgraded Center provided operational workspace for the
Capitol Police Incident Command, as well as response elements from the
Executive Branch, the Senate, the House, the Architect of the Capitol,
the Sergeant at Arms Offices, the Office of the Attending Physician and
many others. Those that remember our capabilities after 9/11 and the
Anthrax attack saw a drastic change in our capabilities, which were
fully used during this incident.
We have undertaken a number of projects to continue emergency
outreach and notification. While many of you now know of the emergency
annunciators, you may not know that there are over 3,600 of these units
deployed and the entire system is maintained and operated by the United
States Capitol Police. In addition, we developed a project to deploy a
complex wide Public Address System. This project will provide the
critical means to send out emergency notifications to all public
spaces, evacuation assembly areas, parking garages and other areas. We
expect that this project will be completed by December 2004. We are on
target to meet this objective.
As the Committee is aware, there have been a number of studies done
over the years. They all have all commented that our openness is the
largest vulnerability. In particular, there have been five studies by
various security experts that have recommended the installation of a
fence around Capitol Square. Even a recent staffing analysis, conducted
by the General Accounting Office in February 2004 included the
recommendation of the installation of a fence. This latest
recommendation goes a step further and recommends a fence around the
office buildings as well. And I quote ``An aesthetically pleasing
perimeter security fence could be constructed around the Capitol
Building grounds. This would markedly increase security within and
around the Capitol Building Members, staff, and visitors.''
The recommendation of the fence has been discussed for many years
and was originally proposed in a 1985 document called the Whip's Plan.
While the decision of the fence will not be decided here, the impact
from the lack of it is felt everyday and is shown in the numbers of
required personnel and our budget. We are constantly required to
increase the use of manpower and technology to keep the Legislative
Branch, safe, secure, and while ensuring continuous operations during
these evolving threats, as well as maintaining an open and free
Capitol.
It is the men and women of this Police Department who selflessly
provide the first line of defense to protect this institution. Most
federal agencies have layers of defense to prevent attacks. The success
of a terrorist attack at one of our buildings, once initiated, will be
determined by that officer standing at the entrance of the building.
While the use of technology aids in detection and deterrence, it was a
police officer that prevented Russell Weston from continuing through
the Capitol; and it was police officers that first responded to both
the Anthrax and Ricin attacks.
With any organization, we can and need to make improvements, and we
actively engage in self-assessments and critical reviews at the
conclusion of each project and incident to determine what went right
and what can be improved and to incorporate those lessons learned into
the fabric of our operations. This mechanism allows us to gauge our
success in a positive manner. For example, we are implementing a
process of self-testing where random, unannounced contraband will be
introduced to test our detection and response capabilities. This self-
assessment program, and the proper use of results, will strengthen our
portals and provide a safer environment for all who work and visit the
Capitol complex.
We work very closely with the Sergeants at Arms and with leadership
of both the House and the Senate to ensure that the security of the
Congress is appropriately managed. The ability of the U.S. Congress to
meet its constitutional responsibilities is intertwined with the
ability of the Capitol Police to meets its mission. The Capitol Police
is ready and willing to meet the challenge this changing environment
poses to the structure of our operations, and we recognize continuous
improvement and flexibility are key to maintaining our professional
edge. The USCP is a stronger and better-organized agency than it was
the last time we met. We have completed a new five-year strategic plan,
a performance plan, an annual report and have completed an in-house
staffing analysis to provide a road map for improvements and practical
strategies for achievement of our mission and goals. The staffing
analysis provides a basis for discussion of our manpower needs and
continues to be reviewed by the General Accounting Office (GAO).
Accordingly, we used the staffing analysis as the basis of our fiscal
year 2005 personnel request. However, the GAO review and our ability to
stand up to their scrutiny will provide this Committee, and our other
oversight committees, with information with which to make decisions. I
welcome the review and input we are receiving related to this effort.
We welcome the input of our stakeholders and appreciate the input
of the GAO. We worked closely with the GAO in developing our new
strategic plan. The mission, vision, values, and goals established in
the strategic plan serves as a management tool to guide the USCP as we
carry out our mission each day and continue preparing for the future.
We have linked both our staffing request and all of our general expense
items to the strategic plan. In addition, performance appraisals for 30
of our top managers are directly tied to the strategic plan that has
become a working document in the Department as Lieutenants and above
and civilian equivalents recently underwent training to ensure an
understanding of the function and effect of the strategic plan.
Our budget request of $291.6 million represents a reasonable,
necessary and balanced plan to directly address the threats of today
and proposes the use of resources to ensure the protection of Congress,
its Members, staff, visitors, and the legislative process into the
future. The implementation of the USCP strategic plan, which this
budget supports, is a prudent plan to help ensure the safety of the
Capitol community and the uninterrupted continuation of Congressional
operations.
The budget request of $291.6 million represents a 33 percent
increase over the fiscal year 2004 net appropriation. However, when the
$12.7 million from the fiscal year 2003 supplemental, which as directed
by the Committees was used to support fiscal year 2004 operational
needs, is taken into consideration the requested increase is $59.1
million or 25 percent. This increase provides $12.7 million for six
months' funding for 213 sworn and 155 civilian additional positions. In
the personnel area, $5.5 million is requested for a sworn pay scale
adjustment, $3.3 million for the six-month annualization of the 75
civilian positions provided in fiscal year 2004, and $12.2 million for
the COLA adjustments, and within grade, and health benefit increases.
Other significant increases include $3.1 million for the Inauguration,
$8.1 million for the replacement of escape hoods, $3 million for a new
accounting system, $2.7 million for security at the new Legislative
Branch alternate computer facility, and $1.8 for wireless data
interoperability infrastructure.
Mr. Chairman, I want you to know that we are aware of the funding
constraints that this Committee may face. In that light, we have
developed a detailed prioritization of the entire budget request. We
will, of course, work with the Committee to meet any funding challenges
the Committee faces and to assure that the most critical resources we
require are provided to ensure the protection of the Congress and the
legislative processes. I should point out that our budget request is
not a ``wish list'' of our managers. We internally reviewed general
expense requests that totaled over $100.4 million and reduced that
amount by $40.5 million to the $59.9 million included in the fiscal
year 2005 budget request.
As with any organization, we realize there is always room for
improvement. We will continue to strive to strengthen and augment both
our prevention and response capabilities. We continue to review the
current environment, our policies and practices, and the resources and
tools available to the USCP to ensure that the level of Congressional
protection is the best it can be. We continue to improve the
coordination within our Congressional community and with other law
enforcement entities. We are continuing to emphasize training of all of
our employees. In fiscal year 2003, USCP employees participated in over
136,000 hours of training.
Training continues to be integral to the U.S. Capitol Police. This
past January marked the beginning of our new Diversity Training
Program. All Department employees will receive 8 hours of training
designed by specialists in Diversity issues. The feedback on this
training has been overwhelmingly positive.
On that note, I would like to report on the Department's effort to
recruit under-represented groups. In fiscal year 2004, the Office of
Human Resources initiated a targeted recruiting campaign that focuses
on recruiting activities in under-represented groups, while maintaining
our posture in the female and African-American arenas. These activities
include job fairs, educational institutions, professional
organizations, and publications that will result in an increase in our
targeted candidate pools. OHR has received input from several
congressional offices/groups in this endeavor.
I would like to point out that per Department of Justice
statistics, in June 2002, the USCP had the second highest percentage of
black police officers of all federal law enforcement. We recently
promoted approximately 40 supervisors to the rank of sergeant and
lieutenant. This group of supervisors reflects a very diverse group of
individuals who will lead the Department into the future.
We continue to make progress on our administrative and support
side. We got off to a slow start on hiring the additional civilian
staff that has been recently provided. To get this back on track, a new
Human Resources director was hired in August 2003. Since that time, we
have made a concerted effort to assess existing staff competencies and
reposition them accordingly as well as hire experienced and seasoned
individuals into key leadership positions. We have also procured
significant contract support to ``jump-start'' work in functional areas
identified by GAO as requiring improvement such as policy development,
workforce planning, performance management, and time and attendance
systems. In order to ensure that we keep our improvement efforts on
track, we have linked key HR activities to the agency's strategic plan
and developed corresponding performance measures.
We are committed to having substantially filled all authorized
civilian positions by September 30, 2004. We are developing an internal
Investment Review Board (IRB) process to review and prioritize major
resource requirements. In our Information Technology area, we continue
to make progress with our business systems modernization. We are in the
process of hiring an Information Security Officer and have contracted
for an IT Security Assessment to ensure the appropriate security of our
systems.
Although facilities are the responsibility of the Architect of the
Capitol (AOC), they are critical to our operations. In February 2004,
the AOC leased approximately 100,000 square feet of space at 499 South
Capitol Street S.E. as an interim space solution. This facility will go
a long way to alleviate space constraints at our Headquarters building.
Most of our administrative functions and the Capitol and House
Divisions will be housed in the new facility. I would like to thank the
Architect for his continued support, and go on record that I fully
support the funding he has included in his budget for the acquisition
of a new off-site delivery facility and for the maintenance of our
existing facilities. Again, we will work with the Committee and the AOC
on what our most urgent priorities are, and what can realistically be
funded within the limited resources available to the Committee.
Whether it is effective communications, effective incident
response, effective staffing strengths, or simply effective operations,
we value being the best. The men and women of the Capitol Police are
talented, motivated, and engaged professionals who take great heart in
protecting this Congress.
As Chief of the Capitol Police I take great pride in the many years
of service this Department has provided to the Congress. Building on
that legacy, we at the USCP look forward to continuing to safeguard the
Congress, staff, and visitors to the Capitol complex during these
challenging times. And we look forward to working with the Congress and
particularly this Committee.
I thank you for your time and am ready to address any questions you
may have.
SECURITY FENCE
Senator Campbell. Thank you, Chief. I'm just leaving here,
I'm not finishing a career. I'm going to climb a few mountains
somewhere else. I've enjoyed working you, the Capitol Police
and Bill with your Department, too. I look forward to coming
back someday though and hope there's somebody that's going to
really take a particular personal interest in the Capitol
Police as it has been mine. Maybe you have to have been a
policeman or a sheriff's deputy to have that kind of an
interest. I don't know, but it was right when I first got here
I wanted to make that one of my priorities and finally I was in
a position where I could help a little bit.
Let me ask you a few questions, here. First of all, you
mentioned this fence. I tell you, I think most Americans would
just rebel at the thought of their Capitol being fenced.
There's got to be, in this high-tech way we operate now,
methods of doing things without a big ugly fence around this
place. I know that in some cases there are types of bushes and
plants and things that can be planted that are just almost
impregnable. I mean, you almost can't get through them. My wife
has rose bushes around our house and if we don't trim them back
every year you can't even get through the front door of our
house, for obvious reasons; you just cut yourself to ribbons
with those thorns. So I hope whoever's making the decisions on
that thinks of some more aesthetically pleasing way of
surrounding this place rather than a wall or a fence. I think
that really flies in the face of what Americans want in their
Capitol. You know the openness that we've always expected of
our Capitol sends such a wonderful message to the world, we
have to find that balance, between security and not looking
like we're in a siege or something. And I know that there are
brighter minds than mine working on that or will be working on
that but I hope they think about that.
BUDGET FREEZE
We've been asking all the agencies and you heard me ask the
one that was on the table before you about what happens if we
cannot provide a lot of the money that they're asking for and
your significant increase includes 358 additional staff. If we
cannot reach that and we have to freeze your budget at last
year's level, do you have your budget prioritized to the
absolute must-haves and the things that could slide for a year
and things of that nature?
Chief Gainer. Senator, we sure do but to freeze at the
number last year would dramatically require the reduction in
force of sworn personnel.
OVERTIME HOURS
Senator Campbell. What are the shifts that the officers are
working now? During the big anthrax scare and some other times
they were working literally every day and 12-hour days and
longer. What's the normal shifts they're putting in now?
Chief Gainer. As a rule they're on an 8-hour schedule. But
I also should say a large portion of the Department probably
works another 8-hour day, one of their days off. So almost
everyone is working some amount of overtime and fortunately
they volunteer for it, as a rule.
Senator Campbell. You manage to staff enough just with
volunteers, too? Have you had to force any officers to work the
days off?
Chief Gainer. On occasion, Senator, there are probably some
unhappy families.
STAFFING JUSTIFICATION
Senator Campbell. You're requesting a total of 2,361 staff
for fiscal year 2005, consistent with your staffing analysis
put together last year. At the request of Congress the General
Accounting Office has contracted for an analysis of the Capitol
Police staffing plans. That contractor in its February report
indicated that there was insufficient justification, such as a
shortage of workload data, for roughly 300 new positions, of
which 186 would be in the Uniformed Service Bureau. What is
your reaction to that analysis?
Chief Gainer. Well, we worked very closely with the GAO and
their contractor, SAIC, who did that report for them. And I
think overall it's a mixed reaction. They used a red, yellow,
green light system. There were quite a few of the positions
where they felt that we provided sufficient justification and
information for them to make a decision, and then there were
relatively few red lights, to use their parlance, where they
felt there was not the justification or sufficient support. In
the area of their yellow lights there were quite a few; we
supplied them additional information, we're responding to their
report in writing and we're working with the Board to further
clarify what justification is needed.
HIRING OF FISCAL YEAR 2004 NEW CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES
Senator Campbell. We provided 75 additional civilian
employees last year. What's the status of those employees that
we did provide for? They've all been hired?
Chief Gainer. They have not all been hired. But what we did
do, about 6 months ago, was promote a new Director of Human
Resources and she has retooled Human Resources substantially.
Human Resources, along with our finance folks, have identified
the bottlenecks to that hiring process and we believe we are on
track to have all the hirings done for 2004 and also from
carryover from 2003 by the end of the fiscal year.
FAIRCHILD BUILDING LEASE
Senator Campbell. A lease was recently signed by the
Architect of the Capitol for several floors of the Fairchild
Building for the Capitol Police. Does that accommodate your
space needs?
Chief Gainer. Not totally. Right now we occupy probably
just under 200,000 square feet and that is largely
insufficient. The master plan called for some 500,000 square
feet. What the Fairchild Building provides us is about 101,000
square feet and it will go a long way to easing the pressure in
our headquarters building, the Senate and House office
buildings as well as the Capitol. It may very well free up some
space in the Capitol Visitor Center. But I think the bottom
line, Senator, I should point out, we see that Fairchild
100,000 square feet as very, very temporary and not a long-term
solution to the needs of the Department.
FIRING RANGE
Senator Campbell. I see. And you requested funding through
the Architect for a firing range. You do the training now over
there way down in the bowels of the Rayburn Building somewhere.
Chief Gainer. We do.
Senator Campbell. I understand. Well, if we are unable to
provide those funds is that where they'll continue training,
where they are now?
Chief Gainer. Well, that will be part of it but that again
is not enough. The Congress was very good, especially then to
the Department of the Treasury and now Homeland Security, in
securing a large facility at Cheltenham, Maryland, where a
large firing facility was designed and built. Unfortunately,
when that was designed and conceived only some 20 agencies were
going to use it; with the recomposition of Homeland Security 70
plus agencies are now going to use it. So we're all kind of
scrambling to see what piece of that we can get. We have met
with the Board and Senate staff, Homeland Security personnel to
see if we can work out a solution where we would have some
rights of priority at that facility. If that works out then the
absolute need for a range on-base would not be necessary.
LOC POLICE MERGER
Senator Campbell. I see. I believe, like Senator Stevens,
that we're at an impasse between the Library of Congress
objectives and the Capitol Police too, and I'm sorry you
haven't been able to get that all together and in sync. But I
just wanted to identify myself, associate myself with his
comments that I look forward to trying to work this difference
of opinion out about how we merge one department with the other
one. So I just wanted to tell you that.
Chief Gainer. Thank you.
MOUNTED HORSE UNIT
Senator Campbell. You mentioned the mounted unit. Are they
are on the grounds now?
Chief Gainer. Actually, they paid a visit to us just last
week and I have to tell you they were mobbed by people wanting
to get pictures with them. They're still in their training.
Senator Campbell. I'd like to say ``I told you so.''
Chief Gainer. Yes sir. They graduate April 16 and we hope
maybe that your schedule will permit you to be part of that. We
have eight officers and two sergeants in that school; we've
lost a couple through riding mishaps and they decided not to
continue riding. We have the equipment, we're in the midst of
buying the horses.
Senator Campbell. Did somebody tell them they're supposed
to get back on when they fall off?
Chief Gainer. Actually, they did right away but the next
day they decided not to get back on.
Senator Campbell. Oh, they shouldn't have been there in the
first place if they decided not to get back on. And they're
stabled with the Park Service horses down on the Mall?
Chief Gainer. That's what we're working on.
Senator Campbell. That's not where they are now, however?
Chief Gainer. Right now, Senator, they're still at the Rock
Creek training stable.
Senator Campbell. I see.
Chief Gainer. We're working out the agreement to determine
at which stable they will be.
Senator Campbell. So they're just training them and they
brought them down?
Chief Gainer. Right. We do have three vehicles and three
trailers. But one of the concerns is with the World War II
monument opening up and whether the Park Police will retain
that stable on the Mall is being discussed.
Senator Campbell. Is the Park Service Mounted Unit doing
some of the training of these officers?
Chief Gainer. They're conducting the training, it's all
under their direction and their authority, their expertise.
TRAINING HOURS
Senator Campbell. This is a broader training question--your
in-service training is about 80 hours a year, is that correct?
Chief Gainer. It is. And in fact, we really probably exceed
that now with all the specialized training. Last year we
collectively trained for about 200,000 hours.
Senator Campbell. How much training do those mounted
patrolmen go through?
Chief Gainer. That's a 10-week program.
Senator Campbell. Ten weeks. Okay, thanks. Senator Durbin.
ESCAPE HOOD REPLACEMENT
Senator Durbin. Chief Gainer, can you or somebody on the
Board explain escape hood replacement costs of $8 million.
Chief Gainer. Yes. When the hoods were purchased they
appeared to have a 4-year shelf life. We're hoping that's still
the case. But what we've seen with the escape hoods is that
they're very difficult to put on; and it is impossible to
communicate with them on. So, we and others, have been working
with the authorities to see if there's a better hood to be made
available. The hope is that there would be; the National
Certification Group is looking at different hoods. We hope that
if a new hood becomes available it will be easier for adults
and children to wear. If that's the case, we've made the
preliminary decision rather than replace the current hoods,
which have a 4-year life, or 3 years left now, rather than
doing that piecemeal and give someone an older, less viable
escape hood we would convert all to new escape hoods. If
there's not a new one discovered then we probably only need to
replace a quarter of those and we would not need the full $8.1
million.
Senator Durbin. What was the original cost of the escape
hoods?
Chief Gainer. The total cost? Excuse me. We purchased
45,000.
Chief Gainer. We purchased 45,000 for about $4.7 million.
But the price of them has gone up.
Senator Durbin. Obviously.
Chief Gainer. Yes sir. We're anticipating getting higher
quality hoods.
Senator Durbin. What's to tell us that 1 year after we
purchase these we've decided we shouldn't have purchased them
and $4.7 million may have been wasted? What have we learned?
Chief Gainer. Well, that was the best product at the time.
And it was essential, I think, given the facts that everybody
was dealing with that we purchase something. Actually, even if
there was a better hood, in theory you could use these for the
next 4 years if one trains on them. Most of the staffs of both
the House and the Senate, have been excellent on training with
the existing hoods. Some others have been a little bit more
reticent to come to the training.
Senator Durbin. I resemble that remark.
Chief Gainer. But it is difficult to put on and impossible
to communicate with it on.
Senator Durbin. That may be a blessing with some elected
officials. Let me--well, it's a concern. I don't know how I
explain this at home, that we bought 45,000 for $4 million plus
and 1 year later, even though they have 3 years of life left in
them we've decided to junk them and to spend two times as much
to replace them. If technology is moving that fast to justify
it I suppose that's the argument but it appears that a decision
was made and it's being countermanded within 1 year and I'll
bet you that when the first $4 million was justified it was for
a 4-year hood. So that's what we're going to be faced with so
it seems like a pretty dramatic reversal in a short period.
Chief Gainer. But it's really still under analysis,
Senator, so there's no final decision at all.
FENCE
Senator Durbin. Let me say a word about this fence. I agree
with Senator Campbell completely. I've been around here long
enough and I think he has too to have seen some dramatic and
depressing changes in terms of life on Capitol Hill that
reflect the reality of threat. And I can recall the bombing in
the Senate corridor when I was just a brand new Member of the
House of Representatives; I heard it in my apartment just a
block or two away. And we started changing things the next
morning and they've never really stopped; 9/11, of course, was
the major catalyst of change here. I for one hope that we don't
move toward a security fence as I envision it. To call
something an aesthetically pleasing security fence, it's a
little hard for me to understand where they're coming from with
this. And is it not true that we're investing substantial sums
of money on Capitol Hill--maybe this goes to the Architect--for
the construction of these bollards and other things,
acknowledging that traffic would be within this complex? Is
this going to be another escape hood, where we'll say, well,
now we're going to build the multi-million dollar fence, we
probably shouldn't have built the bollards because there won't
be that much traffic within the perimeter of the fence. I don't
know who can answer that, but is anybody considering that
aspect?
Chief Gainer. Well just, from my perspective, Senator,
they're not incompatible. I guess all I'm suggesting, both here
and in the House, and I did this in consultation with the
Board, was to at least renew the discussion about this. I think
it became most clear to me as we see the different bombings
that are happening around the world. We have done a lot toward
standoff on trucks and we've done a substantial amount for
standoff on vehicles but unfortunately we see the suicide
bombers, whether it's in England, Ireland, Israel, Palestine,
Jordan, there are people bringing those packages and it is our
concern that those small-type of explosives, which will only
injure scores rather than the 9/11 type, is still a real
danger. Frankly, as I listen to the 9/11 Committee, in their
analysis, I just thought it was appropriate that we talk about
this again because heaven forbid if something happens here on
the Hill. Who knows what would have happened if 1 year before
9/11 someone would have come in and said maybe we ought to seal
all the doors on airplanes. I know it seems bizarre, it doesn't
look good, but I think we need to lay it out and decide whether
we want to accept the risk or not.
Senator Durbin. I think it's entirely appropriate that you
raised the issue. But I'm struggling with the concept that says
we will have a perimeter fence to limit access to the Capitol
Hill area, and that means that we'll have fewer Capitol Hill
police, for example, who have to worry about access points;
there will be fewer access points with such a perimeter fence
and yet we can still justify the bollards for traffic that's
going to pass through this secure area? I think those two
things are inconsistent. Either a perimeter fence limits access
and the bollards then become redundant or unnecessary or it
doesn't limit access and you ask why you have it. So I need to
work with you on that to understand this a little better.
Chief Gainer. I know we're just a long way from even
touching on this, but if you can envision how the White House
is, where there are bollards along Pennsylvania Avenue and the
bordering streets and then the fence. The fence is really
designed less for vehicles and more for people. Unlike the
White House, the vision for this is where we would have
sufficient openings and officers, so the access for people
would be freeflowing. Then we would know anybody inside the
perimeter of the Capitol would be completely bomb-free,
weapons-free and then they'd have complete access to the entire
Capitol.
Senator Durbin. I guess my misunderstanding was I thought
initially they'd said that the fence would be outside of the
office building area.
Chief Gainer. That was one of the suggestions. Now again,
it was at least one of the suggestions, you're correct.
Senator Durbin. Before we get into all the details which
would be a long discussion, I would just weigh in with Senator
Campbell. I just hope that we don't reach that point where
we're fencing off the Capitol area. I want to try to find some
way to achieve security. Short of that, if it becomes a
necessity then frankly we have to accept it.
SWORN PERSONNEL REQUESTED
May I ask you this. The 1,800 sworn personnel, 1,805, if
I'm not mistaken that has been a goal for several years, that
the Capitol Police would reach that level of sworn personnel.
Chief Gainer. Approximately, yes.
Senator Durbin. Yes. And so the last several hundred that
you're asking for this year, 200 or whatever it happens to be,
is in pursuit of that goal that we set a number of years ago.
Is that correct?
Chief Gainer. Correct.
RECRUITING OFFICERS
Senator Durbin. There was a time not too long ago when I
asked either you or your predecessor how many applications need
to be taken before you find someone who can be qualified to
serve as a Capitol policeman? What is the current ratio, do you
know?
Chief Gainer. It's about 1 out of 10 and sometimes it goes
1 out of 18. We do have some great candidates who are applying
and maybe the job market helps us in that regard, but it's
about 1 in 10.
Senator Durbin. And what are the major reasons why
applicants are not accepted?
Chief Gainer. It is more a matter of being best qualified,
it's really not that people are unqualified, it is in fact they
are less qualified. We do the written test, the psychological
and the background.
Senator Durbin. Drug test?
Chief Gainer. Yes sir. And a polygraph.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
Senator Durbin. I see. I have some questions for the record
but thank you very much, Chief.
Chief Gainer. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Campbell. I have no further questions. There may be
some written ones by other committee members. But I just want
to say in parting it's been terrific working with both of you.
Thank you.
Chief Gainer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Pickle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell
Question. In 2001, the Capitol Police developed a plan to remedy
administrative deficiencies identified by the GAO. In January GAO
completed its semi-annual review of the status of these issues. GAO
found that ``the overall pace of progress on USCP's strategic
initiatives continues to be limited.'' Areas such as developing
procurement policies and procedures, implementing a performance
management system, and improving workforce planning were among the
deficiencies noticed. Can you describe briefly how you will meet the
milestones the Department itself set forth in 2001 to improve USCP
administrative functions? How many new personnel are needed to
implement these milestones? What is the status of hiring a new Chief
Administrative Officer--a position that has been vacant for about
three-quarters of a year?
Answer. Mr. Anthony Stamilio was selected for the CAO position and
reported for work on May 4, 2004.
Significant progress has been made in administrative operations
since the creation of the CAO in 2001. As reported by GAO in their
semi-annual reviews of our administrative operations the following
achievements have been made:
--Completed a strategic plan for fiscal years 2004 through 2008 for
the Department, including departmental goals, objectives, and
associated performance measures.
--We have stabilized and are making significant improvements in
financial management, including the development and
implementation of policies and procedures to control and guide
the appropriate use of funds. We have requested the
consolidation of our Salaries and General Expense
appropriations and have requested funding for a new accounting
system to continue the progress we have initiated.
--We have implemented a zero based budget approach for all Department
operations to ensure budget requests are appropriately
developed and justified each year.
--We have developed an IT systems architecture as a road map for the
deployment of technology within the Department and have
replaced and are in the process of replacing a significant
number of antiquated systems throughout the Department as well
as leveraging opportunities for systems augmentation and
development for new operational and administrative
capabilities.
--Hired contract and additional staff, including a new Director and
senior staff in the Human Resources area to tackle the backlog
of filling positions and policy development.
Areas that require additional work:
--The GAO has identified the employment of critical administrative
staffing with the right mix of skills and competencies as the
number one impediment to the USCP achieving its administrative
goals.
--Other areas for improvement include further development and
implementation of policies and procedures, completion of an IT
acquisition strategy, implementation of a competency based
performance management system, as well as developing a robust
workforce planning capability.
We acknowledge that excessive operational demands and significant
staffing shortages continue to consume critical administrative
resources and impeded or slow progress toward reaching strategic goals
and initiatives.
We also understand the decisions reached as part of the planning
process needed to drive the focus of daily operations.
Question. The recent SAIC report identified several areas in USCP
that had poor management practices, while in other areas it found
``best practices'' in managing work and resources. Why does this
management imbalance exist in USCP and what is top management doing to
increase the management capabilities of those areas deemed deficient?
Answer. The focus of the SAIC analysis was not to conduct a review
of management practices and management of work but rather the
methodology utilized in the USCP developed Staffing Analysis. Based on
the review of the USCP methodology, SAIC determined that there were
pockets of best practices in the organization. For example the Office
of Information Systems (OIS) and Security Services Bureau were cited as
a ``best practices'' because they utilized processes to depict workload
and mapped workload to FTE requirements based on benchmarking,
historical data, and/or subject matter expertise. While these areas
were determined to be best practices, other areas were not able to
document workload due to lack of data or lack of experience to create
workload data (i.e., work had not previously been accomplished and
workload data was not available). However, SAIC did indicate, ``most
offices under the Chief Administrative Officer are not positioned to
operate as fully functioning support organizations.'' SAIC went on to
state, ``most deficiencies have been recognized and steps are being
taken to address them.'' The USCP has initiated the process to contract
with outside consultants to review selected operations, within fiscal
constraints. Areas included in the current review processes include
training services, internal affairs, budget, accounting, and selected
areas of protective services.
Question. USCP asked for a considerable number of additional
positions in the Comprehensive Staffing Analysis, yet SAIC could not
validate the assumptions and criteria used by USCP for most of these
positions. What is USCP doing to increase the assurance that the fiscal
year 2005 positions can be justified and validated?
Answer. SAIC's task was to review the methodology used to develop
the USCP staffing needs. SAIC reviewed each position and provided a
stoplight (red, yellow, green) indication as to whether appropriate
supporting information was available to support the new positions. They
did not perform workload analyses or comment on the need for the
positions, but rather the level of supporting information they
reviewed.
While the USCP does concur with many parts of the SAIC evaluation,
there are also several areas where the USCP does not agree with SAIC's
findings. The inability of SAIC to fully validate the justifications of
several positions, where the USCP thought it had strong justifications,
is where most disagreements exist. The following outlines where some of
the validation issues occurred:
--In several cases Bureaus/Offices were asked by SAIC to produce
workload data in order to validate justifications. Such
workload data was sometimes not available, or not as thorough
as one would like it, primarily due to the fact that there has
not been sufficient staff necessary to collect workload
information, or because current systems are not able to capture
the necessary data. In many offices the current staffing levels
are only sufficient to perform the minimum requirements of the
office, not allowing for the additional time necessary to
collect workload data, manually if it is not available
automatically.
--SAIC asked for outside staffing studies to confirm what Bureaus/
Offices were telling them in terms of the need for additional
staff. While the USCP acknowledges that such studies are very
useful tools, and were used when available in putting together
the Comprehensive Staffing Analysis, the Department has not had
studies done on all areas of the Department, in large part due
to costs associated with having such studies performed.
--In some instances Bureaus/Offices thought the information provided
to SAIC logically showed the need for additional staff, while
SAIC would not validate, or would only partially validate the
request.
--SAIC was unable to validate a majority of personnel requests for
administrative staff, stating that this was due to the lack of
sufficient analysis of current and projected workloads. The
Department is aware that there has been a great need for more
administrative staff to alleviate higher-level staff from
having to undertake administrative duties. To validate the
staffing requests, SAIC stated that an in-depth workload
analysis would need to be performed, thereby enabling accurate
manpower requests. Once again, as stated above such studies are
very costly.
--In the last GAO report reviewing progress being made in the areas
under the USCP's Chief Administrative Officer, several
references were made about the great need that the USCP had in
the management/administrative areas for additional staff. The
SAIC report on the other hand, could not fully validate many of
the justifications presented for additional staff in those same
areas, and which the Department believes are obvious staffing
needs.
In addition to the additional information provided to both SAIC and
GAO, the USCP has initiated the process of contracting with outside
consultants to review selected operations, within fiscal constraints.
Areas included in the current review process include training services,
internal affairs, budget, accounting and selected areas of protective
services.
Question. You have requested $5.7 million for a ``sworn pay scale
adjustment.'' What is this and what are the implications if we are
unable to fund this initiative?
Answer. The sworn pay scale adjustment rectifies inequities between
grade and step levels in the sworn pay scale as a result of prior year
adjustments to selected portions of the pay scale without appropriate
consideration of the impact these adjustments had on the pay scale as a
whole.
At the direction of the Appropriations Committees, a study was
completed that recommended a correction of the current inequities. The
study determined that it would cost $11.4 million in fiscal year 2005
to implement the proposed pay schedule on October 1, 2004. The $5.7
million included in the fiscal year 2005 request would provide for an
April 1, 2004 implementation. An additional $5.9 million (includes
estimated 3.5 percent January 2006 COLA) would be required in fiscal
year 2006 for the annualization of the adjustments.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Richard J. Durbin
Question. What are the long term capital costs required for the
Capitol Police?
Answer. Excluding facilities related items, most of the USCP
capital costs relate to the replacement of systems or equipment such as
vehicles, X-ray, magnetometers and cameras. The cyclical replacement
costs of these capital items are included on an ongoing basis in our
annual requests.
In the area of information systems modernization, the USCP
currently operates a set of administrative systems including personnel,
time and attendance, scheduling and inventory control. These mainframe
systems are a heterogeneous collection of legacy mainframe software
applications and commercial off-the-shelf software applications. The
legacy systems are costly to operate and difficult to maintain. The
infrastructure has been managed and developed on an as-needed basis,
often tied to specific applications.
USCP has developed an Enterprise Architecture and IT Strategic Plan
consistent with the modernization effort started in fiscal year 2001.
These efforts target web-enabled, integrated applications running on
one or more enterprise servers to include back-up servers soon to be
located at the Alternate Computer Center (ACF).
The modernization effort project is large and enterprise-wide in
scope. As such, there are multiple phases with multiple subprojects
that are coupled together. Users have both functional and non-
functional requirements that cross the enterprise IT Architecture,
requiring close coordination and project management of multiple teams.
The Office of Information Systems (OIS) created a Business Systems
Modernization Office (BSMO). The BSMO mission is to provide technical,
functional, managerial, and planning IT support to the USCP in the
development of an Enterprise Architecture (EA), development of a
Transition Plan as well as oversight of the ongoing implementation
efforts.
Phase 1 of the modernization effort provided for the implementation
of Administrative systems. Time and Attendance, Personnel, Scheduling,
Training and Fleet Management, as well as a Case Management System for
Internal Affairs have been completed. All Law Enforcement Systems have
been brought up to the same relational data base level.
Phase 2 will encompass the implementation of an Asset Management
System integrated to the Financial Management System to include budget.
A Data Warehouse and Operational Data Store has been designed and
implementation is to take place in early fiscal year 2005.
Phase 3 will occur in fiscal year 2006 and provide for an Executive
Information System (EIS) to assist in the recovery and use of data and
information as necessary.
One significant item that is on the horizon is the replacement of
the radio systems. A new digital radio system, which will be used by
the USCP and other Legislative Branch entities, is roughly, and
preliminarily, estimated at $30 million. A contract is being negotiated
with the Navy Aviation Systems Command to assess and make
recommendations for the radio communications system upgrades. This
study will include firmer estimated costs for their proposed
recommendations. Over the past several years, we have been working
closely with the Architect of the Capitol in the development of a
facilities master plan for the USCP. The potential cost of new
facilities and the cost of facility renovation are best addressed by
the Architect of the Capitol.
Question. Chief Gainer, could you please explain why you need $8.1
million for replacement of escape hoods?
Answer. When the current escape hoods were purchased they were the
best on the market. However, the current masks are difficult to put on
and it is impossible to communicate when they are donned. In October
2003, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
published national standards for escape hoods, and all further testing
and approval will be accomplished against those standards. At this
time, several companies have submitted escape hoods to NIOSH for
testing under the new standards and product approvals are expected to
occur during the second half of 2004. Approved escape hoods are
expected to be available for purchase in 2005. It is anticipated that
the escape hoods that meet the new standards will be easier for adults
and children to wear and will solve the communications issue. If as
anticipated new masks are on the market in 2005 that meet the NIOSH
standards, a preliminary decision was made to replace all the escape
hoods rather that doing it in a piecemeal fashion and give someone an
older, less viable hood. The cost of replacing all 45,000 escape hoods
is estimated to be $8.1 million.
Question. What training requirements are not being met at the FLETC
facility at Cheltenham?
Answer. The USCP is currently conducting follow-on basic and in-
service training at the FLETC facility at Cheltenham, Maryland. We are
also negotiating a MOA with the FLETC to utilize the firearms range for
re-certifications, and will utilize the driving range when it is
complete this fall. Some of our long distance rifle training needs,
which are best conducted in an outside environment, will not be met at
the Cheltenham facility. Also, basic recruit training, which is
conducted by the FLETC in Georgia, was never intended to move to
Cheltenham and will not be relocated to the Cheltenham facility. We
continue to work with FLETC regarding issues on availability of the
facilities as well as funding requirements, and we expect to have a
Memorandum of Agreement finalized soon. We have also been working with
the Appropriations Committees regarding the resolution of the issues.
Question. What is the cost for building a separate firing range for
the Capitol Police?
Answer. The Architect of the Capitol's budget request contains $12
million for the design and construction of a 36-point 50-yard
underground firing range. As conceived, the range would be co-located
and built with the Off-site Delivery Facility. If the scheduling
requirements, addressed in the above question, for all USCP firearms
training and re-certification can be accommodated by the FLETC, the
USCP will not require the facility requested by the AOC. However, if
the facility availability issues are not worked out, the construction
of a new firing range is critical to the operations of the USCP.
Question. It was my understanding that the Capitol Police have free
use of the firing range at Cheltenham. Why do you need a separate
firing range?
Answer. Our primary issue regarding the use of FLETC firing range
at Cheltenham is one of access and accommodating our needs for firearms
training and re-certification. As indicated above, the original
partnership with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) on
the new training facility in Cheltenham, Maryland included 26 agencies.
With the creation of Department of Homeland Security and subsequent
merger with Treasury/FLETC, the facility now serves 70 plus agencies
but the size of the range has not grown proportionally. If our training
needs cannot be met by the FLETC, the construction of a new firing
range is critical to our operations.
FLETC has indicated that it is expecting a reimbursement for firing
range use by all federal agencies and we have included funds for this
purpose in our fiscal year 2005 budget request.
Question. What are the costs associated with the Capitol Police
having access to the Cheltenham facility? Are theses costs being
covered by the Capitol Police or by the Department of Homeland
Security?
Answer. Although we are still working with the FLETC on access and
reimbursement issues, based on reimbursement cost rates FLETC provided
in the Fall of 2003, we estimated it will cost the USCP $1,032,000 in
fiscal year 2005 to cover all firearms training. This amount is
included in our fiscal year 2005 budget request. However, we now
understand that FLETC may be lowering their rates. A Memorandum of
Agreement (MOA) between the USCP and FLETC is being negotiated and it
should be completed soon. This MOA will spell out who will pay for what
cost and when cost will begin being paid by the USCP. In addition to
the firing range reimbursements, these costs will include the
operational and maintenance costs of Building 31, the primary training
facility that we occupy, and any other resources utilized by the USCP
at the Cheltenham facility. The FLETC has estimated the cost to be
$281,400 for fiscal year 2004. FLETC will also expect reimbursement for
the driving range when it opens and a daily per person user fee,
currently set at $5, for the use of their other facilities at
Cheltenham. We do anticipate reimbursing the FLETC for the operational
and maintenance, driving range and other facility usage fees.
Question. What is the status of filling the vacancy of the Chief
Administrative Officer?
Answer. Mr. Anthony Stamilio was selected for the CAO position and
reported for work on May 4, 2004.
Question. What are your priorities for improving administrative
operations of the Capitol Police?
Answer. Our first priority is to fill all the vacant civilian
positions including the 75 new positions that were provided in fiscal
year 2004. We have hired outside consultants to jumpstart our hiring
and human resources operations. We are committed to having
substantially all these positions filled by the end of the fiscal year.
As part of our strategic planning effort we have developed performance
plans and measures to continue the improvement of our administrative
operations. We continue to move forward with our information technology
systems modernization related to law enforcement databases and
administrative systems as well as modernizing human resources and
continuing with improvements with financial management operations.
Question. We recently received SAIC's evaluation of your
Comprehensive Staffing Analysis. It seems that the Capitol Police could
benefit from the development of a comprehensive manpower plan that
would determine the number and kinds of positions, both existing and
new, needed to meet the requirements identified in the threat and
vulnerability assessments as well as the strategic plan. Are there any
efforts underway to undertake the preparation of such a plan? What
would be required to produce a manpower plan that would clearly relate
manpower requirements to a congressionally approved strategic plan that
clearly ties to threat and vulnerabilities?
Answer. One of the priorities of the new CAO is to take a strategic
view of human capital management. Based on GAO recommendations, we are
currently exploring the benefits and processes of strategic human
capital planning, synchronized with the USCP Strategic Plan. The threat
environment, evolving tactics and technology will drive requirements
for future manpower adjustments. Our tentative plan is to assess
functional slices of the organization in light of the above ``drivers''
to determine the manner in which the organization will operate in the
future. The manpower requirements, to include numbers and skill sets
will evolve from this analysis. Initial assessments should begin in
fiscal year 2005.
Question. Do you feel that a perimeter security fence is a good
idea? Do you think it should include both the Capitol and the office
buildings?
Answer. All of our major security surveys (Secret Service, DTRA,
SAIC) since 1983 have raised the issue of a perimeter fence to enhance
Capitol Complex security. Strictly from a security standpoint, we agree
that a fence is a good idea. Based on the current environment and
events that are happening around the world, we believe that the
perimeter security fence issue should be revisited and that here should
be a discussion on its merits and whether we want to accept the risks
as they exist today. This discussion should include a perimeter
security fence around the Capitol and the office buildings. We realize
that other factors, including perceived openness and cost, need to be a
part of this discussion. The resolution of this issue is directly
related to the manpower requirements of the USCP.
Question. Are you working on a plan to ease staff entry into the
Senate buildings? I have noticed on many occasions that the lines are
out the doors and on the sidewalks at many of the Hart and Dirksen
Building entrances.
Answer. We have recently made several changes to reduce the line at
entrances to the Senate buildings. We are designating several entrances
as ``staff only'' until 10:00 a.m. and outside officers are directing
visitors to lower volume entrances. We will continue to monitor the
situation and make adjustments are needed.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator Campbell. If there is nothing further, the
subcommittee will next meet at 11 a.m., Thursday, April 8 to
hear from the Secretary of the Senate and the Architect of the
Capitol.
[Whereupon, at 3 p.m., Wednesday, March 31, the
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene at 11 a.m., Thursday,
April 8.]