The Federal Protective Service, charged with protecting
thousands of federal facilities, faces a number of significant
challenges now that it has been transferred from the General
Services Administration to the Department of Homeland Security,
the General Accountability Office has said.
It said the challenges relate to FPS’s expanding mission,
increased responsibility, unresolved issues about how it will
be funded in the future, and the transfer of FPS mission-support
functions to the new agency.
FPS is responsible for securing about 8,800 GSA
government-occupied facilities, has plans to take on additional
DHS facilities, and also may seek authority to protect other
federal facilities, according to GAO-04-537.
It said FPS has also begun to support efforts to apprehend
foreign nationals suspected of illegal activity, but it does
not have a transformation strategy to address its increasing
mission and other challenges.
There is also some confusion as to whether FPS will begin
billing agencies on its own for its protection services.
Under GSA, it was funded with such payments that were included
in agency rent, but DHS says FPS does not have the authority
to bill agencies directly. GSA says it does, according to GAO.
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