The same measure also raises concerns about personnel programs at several Justice Department sub-agencies. For the Bureau of Prisons, the report notes that in response to the growing prison population Congress provided an additional $160 million above the budget request for fiscal year 2009. However, "BOP used those additional funds to meet the basic operational needs of its facilities, and plans no net increase in staffing in fiscal year 2009 to begin to address its understaffing problem. The Committee is extremely concerned that the proposed budget for fiscal year 2010 would once again not permit BOP to manage the basic operational needs of its prisons.
"It is particularly concerning that the BOP budget justification describes as `program increases’ a number of inflationary cost increases that should be considered budget adjustments required to meet BOP’s basic operational needs. In addition, while the BOP budget proposes funding increases to activate two new prisons and to hire a significant number of new correctional officers, the Committee is not convinced that BOP will actually be able to carry out those proposals while its basic operational needs continue to be underfunded. If additional salaries and expenses funding is required to meet BOP’s operating needs during fiscal year 2010, the Committee fully expects the Department to propose a reprogramming of funds from outside BOP to meet those needs."
Also, it said, the FBI "has proposed extremely aggressive hiring goals for both 2009, in which more than 2,200 positions will need to be filled, and 2010, in which the FBI proposes adding 1,389 new positions while simultaneously managing attrition that can also be expected to exceed 1,000 positions. The Committee is skeptical of the FBI’s ability to meet these hiring goals, as they exceed what the Bureau was capable of achieving in 2008 (when direct-funded on-board positions only increased by 928 and vacancies increased by 174)."
Further, it said, the FBI is carrying at least 450 "hollow" positions, for which funds were appropriated but subsequently diverted by the FBI for other purposes. The report requires the FBI to provide Congress with a hiring plan meeting certain criteria.
