The ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the report shows a need for reforming the program, which has been one of the points of contention between Republicans seeking to privatize more screening functions and Democrats and unions seeking to keep them in-house.
The report “shows that TSA has failed to accurately and precisely document the factors considered prior to approving applications for allowing airports to transition federal screener jobs to contractor work,” Thompson said.
He also said the agency must follow through in developing “a consistent and reliable model for conducting cost assessments,” and called on TSA to “fully document all factors considered when outsourcing federal security jobs.”
Thompson’s “Contract Screener Reform and Accountability Act,” HR-1455, introduced in April would make many changes to the program and attempt to improve oversight and accountability.
Provisions in the bill would prohibit subcontracting of screening services, require a monitoring system to be implemented for each contractor, require covert testing where private screeners are used, require contractors to offer right of first refusal to existing federal personnel, and require contractors to provide information on retention rates and supervisory personnel and details on any adverse employment actions.
