The time it takes the federal government to complete security clearances has gone down from one year to just 37 days for 90 percent of investigations, OPM director John Berry told the Senate government management oversight subcommittee recently.
Berry told the panel that to date OPM has eliminated a backlog of more than half a million pending background investigations inherited from DoD in 2005. Since then the time it takes to conduct a top-secret clearance has dropped from over a year to 72 days, he said.
Under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, federal background investigations were transferred to OPM, and a mandate was set requiring 90 percent of investigations to be completed within an average of 40 calendar days.
OPM will carry out over two million investigations this year, and it said it is using investigators and resources more efficiently and effectively.
It also said nearly one million law enforcement agency record checks previously conducted manually each year by field staff have been converted to centralized automated records checks, and OPM has sent over 600,000 investigations electronically this year to agencies, eliminating mail and handling time between OPM and its customers.
