The White House budget proposal for fiscal 2009 would provide $500 million for an additional 2,200 Border Patrol agents and 539 Customs and Border Patrol officers.
The chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., offered praise for funds in the White House proposal for 1,000 new detention beds and the additional agents, but said he was concerned with DHS management regarding the development and deployment of large scale border security procurement programs such as SBInet and USVISIT.
The White House estimates that the increases would bring the total number of agents close to 20,000.
However, an additional 539 CBP officers is far short of the agency’s staffing model and a general consensus that emerged at a recent Senate hearing on CBP human capital in November that the agency needs several thousand more officers manning its posts.
Field office managers have told GAO that staffing shortages have affected their ability to carry out anti-terrorism programs and created other vulnerabilities in the inspections process.
It said the agency recognizes that officer attrition has impaired its ability to attain budgeted staffing levels and is in the process of developing a strategy to help curb attrition.
Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, said at the November hearing that CBP is losing officers at some ports faster than it can hire replacements, leading to a vicious cycle in which understaffing creates problems that lead to turnover, and high turnover in turn makes it difficult to address staff shortages.
The president of the National Treasury Employees Union called the proposed 539 new CBP officers "completely inadequate." She said staffing shortages are contributing to declining morale among CBP employees and causing workers to leave.
The chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., also said the request for 539 new officers was "far fewer than necessary to address security lapses cited by" GAO.
