"Appropriations Morass Leaves TSA in a Fog"

Monday, October 7, 2002

Appropriations Morass Leaves TSA in a Fog
Stymied by stopgaps, House-Senate disparities, security agency has to
wait and see what to spend 
BY DAVID BOND
Aviation Week & Space Technology


Last week's markup of a Fiscal 2003 Transportation Dept. appropriations
bill for House floor action confirms that the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) is in for a rocky, uncertain autumn. 

Once Fiscal 2003 dawned Oct. 1 with no approved appropriations, the
federal government began operating under a congressional continuing
resolution that permits business as usual but bars major initiatives.
Rival House and Senate transportation appropriations bills were ready
but not scheduled for floor votes. As the House Appropriations Committee
put the finishing touches on its bill, Transportation Subcommittee
Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) speculated that eventually Congress may
give up trying to pass the usual 13 individual appropriations bills and
shift instead to an omnibus bill, lumping together all agencies for
which work is incomplete. As of last week, that would include the entire
federal government. 

Continuing resolutions work well for agencies with stable programs and
steady funding. The FAA fits this description. Its budget request for
2003 is only 2.1% higher than what Congress approved for 2002. The House
and Senate appropriations committees' recommendations for the new year
exceed the request by small amounts and are within $13 million of each
other (see table). So under continuing resolutions and whatever its
appropriation turns out to be, the FAA's situation seems manageable. 

The TSA's doesn't. It is trying to grow fast to satisfy two big
fourth-quarter-2002 congressional deadlines--Nov. 19 for passenger
screening at all commercial airports to be conducted entirely by federal
employees, and Dec. 31 for screening of all checked baggage by
explosives detection systems (EDSs) or other means. The TSA told
Congress last month it would need special provisions in a continuing
resolution to continue its rapid buildup (AW&ST Sept. 16, p. 52), and as
Fiscal 2003 began it hadn't gotten them. TSA chief James Loy imposed a
hiring freeze Sept. 25 (AW&ST Sept. 30, p. 23). 

The prospects for the TSA's eventual appropriation are cloudy at best.
In the reports on their separate bills, the House and Senate
appropriations committees made clear how unhappy they are about how the
TSA has handled its first year. Both acknowledged that deadlines
mandated by Congress in last November's aviation security
legislation--"overly ambitious," according to the House
committee--caused part of the agency's problems. But not all. The
deadlines "cannot account for even a fraction of the missteps and
mistakes made by the agency this year," the House Appropriations
Committee said. 

More important to the TSA's operations, the House committee recast much
of the agency's budget plan in ways that the Senate committee didn't.
The House panel recommended more money, $5.146 billion versus $4.95
billion, and its proposed cutback is $200 million, less than 4% of the
request. But that $200 million comprises about $950 million in cuts
offset by $750 million in add-ons, all of which would channel the TSA
buildup in new directions. 

The House Appropriations Committee's TSA remake starts with the 45,000
ceiling on personnel, imposed during the summer in the Fiscal 2002
emergency supplemental appropriations act and continued in the
committee's Fiscal 2003 recommendation. The TSA has planned for more
than 67,000 employees, saying a 45,000 limit would prevent it from
screening all baggage. But the House panel, "adamant" about cuts, said
that the agency's approach to baggage screening is wrong, and that it
can reduce staffing plans in several ways:

More than 15,000 jobs planned for passenger screening--4,241 hand
wanders, 3,407 shoe and bin runners, 3,248 exit lane monitors, 1,430
ticket checkers, 1,405 queue coordinators and 1,405 customer service
representatives--are "unnecessary or highly questionable." Replacement
of obsolete magnetometers at airport passenger checkpoints, planned this
fall, will reduce false alarms and, with them, personnel needs. 

The planned baggage-screening workforce of 21,500 can be cut back
dramatically if Congress puts off the Dec. 31 deadline, by as much as
one year, so the TSA can buy more EDSs and fewer explosive trace
detection (ETD) systems, which are slower and require more personnel.
The TSA is naive to think it can hire a lot of ETD screeners in the
short term, and later lay off thousands of them when it replaces the
ETDs with EDSs. 

The TSA can reduce budget as well as staffing needs by paying state and
local governments to provide law enforcement officers at airports
instead of hiring its own. 

Plans for about 3,000 management, administrative and support personnel
can be reduced. Legal, human resources and training positions at
airports can be shaved. And the TSA should defer hiring some of its
planned 880 headquarters workers until it finds out how much help it can
get from staffers of the prospective Homeland Security Dept. 

Although the law requires federal screeners, it doesn't require federal
exit lane monitors, shoe and bin runners, queue coordinators or customer
service representatives. The TSA should consider contracting out these
jobs at lower pay, removing them from the 45,000 cap.

Beyond this, the TSA plans for nearly 11,000 of its 54,400 screeners to
be part-time or seasonal employees. They would not be subject to the
cap. 

Reducing planned baggage-screening personnel depends on relaxing the
Dec. 31 deadline, something the TSA is unwilling to do on anything but a
case-by-case basis. The TSA believes only 30 to 40 of the nation's 429
commercial airports cannot make the deadline. It wants to tailor
extensions to specific problems at airports that need more time,
bringing all the others in by Dec. 31. 

By contrast, the House Appropriations Committee considers the current
plan "folly." It is "clear," the committee said, that "many large
airports have no hope of meeting this deadline, and doing so would
create chaos in the lobbies of major airports and legitimate security
concerns due to the creation of long, stagnant lines." 

The committee recommended a $200-million cut from the $1.3 billion
proposed for baggage screeners, balanced by a buildup from the $50
million proposed for EDSs. A $225-million increase in the appropriation,
plus a $176.7-million transfer from FAA funds, would make $451.7 million
available to buy EDSs "or other systems with high throughput rates, with
a focus on installing these systems in-line [with baggage operations] at
airports." Reflecting the increase in in-line EDS installations, the
committee recommended $275 million for airport modifications. The Senate
Appropriations Committee also added airport funds, saying it was
"dismayed" that the TSA hadn't done so. 

Both appropriations committees vented their frustrations at trying to
deal with the TSA during its startup. The Senate panel accused the TSA
of "arrogance and disregard of the public's views," and its House
counterpart said the agency was "seemingly unable to make crisp
decisions . . . present firm budget estimates in a timely fashion [and]
work cooperatively with the nation's airports." Both committees said
they expect improvements now that the administration has replaced the
original TSA chief, John Magaw, with Loy. The House committee said an
"attitude adjustment appears to be underway at this time." 
 
Attached Graphic:

TSA, FAA Fiscal 2003 Appropriations Scorecard

fiscal.jpg