Statement of Joseph Moravec, Public Buildings Service
November 1, 2001
Good morning Mr. Chairman, and
members of the Committee. I am Joseph
Moravec, Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss
improving security in GSA-owned and leased facilities.
In addition to our own initiatives,
H.R. 307 was introduced January 30, 2001, to provide for the reform of the
Federal Protective Service, and to enhance the safety of Federal employees, the
public and children enrolled in childcare facilities located in facilities
under GSA control.
Former PBS Commissioner Robert
Peck addressed H.R. 809, the predecessor to H.R. 307, on September 28, 2000
during a hearing in the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public
Buildings and Emergency Management. A
significant proposal in H.R. 809, the establishment of the FPS as a separate
service from the PBS, did not have support from GSA nor the Senate. The principal reason we at GSA continue to
oppose H.R. 307's proposal to make FPS a separate service within our Agency is
that it would divorce security from other Federal facility functions when the
opposite needs to be done. Security
needs to be tightly integrated into decisions about the location, design and
operation of Federal facilities.
Divorcing FPS would create an organizational barrier between protection
experts and the PBS asset managers, planners, project managers and facility
managers who set PBS budgets and policies for our inventory as a whole and who
oversee the daily operations in our facilities.
The security we provide is financed
out of rent revenues collected by PBS from our tenants who look directly to PBS
for responses to their security needs.
A separate GSA security service would lead to confusion about who is
responsible for what in GSA's security efforts. It is also contrary to agency efforts to present our customers
with a seamless GSA, capable of offering more integrated workplace solutions.
Following the September 2000
testimony by Commissioner Peck, the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure
Subcommittee recommended the establishment of direct line authority within
PBS. The Administrator subsequently
approved and issued GSA Orders ADM 5440.548 and ADM 5450.137, effective
November 17, 2000, that reorganized the FPS and reassigned the reporting
authority of FPS Regional Directors from the PBS Assistant Regional
Administrators to the FPS Assistant Commissioner in the Central Office.
Under direct line authority, PBS
has made substantial strides in fulfilling our mission to reduce the threat to
Federal facilities under GSA control nationwide. The FPS budget, personnel actions and operational focus have been
centralized to yield results better than that which could be obtained by
establishing a separate competing service.
All FPS Regional Directors now report to the FPS Assistant Commissioner
in the Central Office. The FPS Assistant Commissioner reports to the PBS
Commissioner who reports to the Administrator.
Leading the Federal Protective
Service is Acting Assistant Commissioner Richard Yamamoto. Mr. Yamamoto is a graduate of the FBI
National Academy with over 20 years law enforcement experience in the U.S.
Army. He also spent seven years
coordinating joint Federal, State, and local law enforcement activities through
the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Program at the Office of
National Drug Control Policy.
Mr. Yamamoto exemplifies
the core competencies we desire of all our operational management personnel
within FPS. Not only does Mr. Yamamoto
possess extensive law enforcement and security skills, he also has been
designated as a certified protection professional -- one of the premier
accomplishments in the field of security.
Within FPS, we are developing and requiring both law enforcement and
security core competencies for all of our operational managers. While many of our current managers have
Federal, military or local police training and experience, those who do not
have law enforcement training will be sent to the Leadership Academy Law
Enforcement Course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in
Glynco, Georgia, to attain these necessary skills. This course provides the same essential core elements of the
courses taught in the FPS Mixed Basic Police Training Program with identical examinations
and standards including the full firearm qualification course and test.
Specifically addressing the
proposal in H.R. 307 that there be at least 730 full-time equivalent FPS Police
Officers, we believe that FTE levels should be based not on an arbitrary number
set forth in legislation, but rather on the threat that may vary from time to
time. FPS regularly conducts individual facility security surveys and Regional
Threat Assessments to determine the threat to Federal facilities. FTE requirements are based upon these threat
assessments. Currently, our planning
anticipates that current levels should be adjusted for FY02 and FY03 to enable
FPS to achieve a more desirable mix of operational personnel. The FY03 FTE targets have been constructed
to support an anticipated need for 408 Federal Protective Police Officers and
323 Law Enforcement and Security Officers, for a total of 731 uniformed
positions. Specifically, we are
increasing the number of our criminal investigators and uniformed Law Enforcement
Security Officers (LESO) who have both law enforcement and security
competencies.
FPS has made great strides in
reducing the threat to Federal facilities, tenants, visitors and their
property. We are actively implementing
many initiatives to identify and decrease threats through individual facility
security assessments and the Regional Threat Assessment Program. Relying on this information, we have refined
our requirements, coordinated more effectively with other law enforcement
agencies, improved our training, and positioned ourselves to measure our
expected outcome of reducing the threat.
We at GSA have no more important
responsibility than providing for the security of the tenants and visitors in
our facilities and are continually striving to enhance our protection
services. I thank the Committee for
this opportunity to discuss our promising new security initiatives at GSA
facilities. This concludes my prepared
statement. I am pleased to answer any questions you should have.