By Calvin Biesecker
Proposed budget increases in FY ’10 related to administrative and management functions of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will help unify the department and consolidate its information technology (IT) infrastructure, which eventually will result in savings within a few years, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress yesterday.
“With respect to how management looks, really what we are doing is now building the ribs of the department,” Napolitano told the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee. “This department was put together in a hurry. Now we are in the process of creating one Department of Homeland Security. So we have moved money that previously had been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) and some of the components into one headquarters.”
Napolitano said the increased management funding will help consolidate the locations of the various DHS components. She also said that $200 million to consolidate IT infrastructure is money that had “been spread out all over the department” and now will be “in one place and will be more efficient.”
DHS’ FY ’10 budget request sent to Congress last week would boost funding for headquarters management and operations by 40 percent to over $900 million (Defense Daily, May 8). Part of the increase, $32 million, will also go toward boosting the staff that oversees the $14 billion in programs that DHS acquires through contracts with private firms.
Napolitano said that in some cases DHS is basically holding the line on manpower levels, notably the increase of the Border Patrol to 20,000 agents and the number of officers at CBP, to sustain levels already mandated by Congress. Referring to CBP, she said that increases in technology spending to support the existing manpower “makes them much more effective for the man hours the do have on the border.”
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking member on the committee, lauded the proposed increase for acquisition oversight.
“This should help decrease the all too frequent cost and schedule overruns on major acquisition programs,” Lieberman said at a later hearing with Napolitano on the DHS budget request.
The top line DHS budget proposed for next year is $55.1 billion, 5 percent higher than the current budget, while the discretionary budget is $42.7 billion, 6 percent higher than the current funding. The discretionary budget is what the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will mark-up later this year.
Lieberman said the proposed increases show the Obama administration’s emphasis on homeland security. However, he questioned why White House budget documents released this week show planned FY ’11 discretionary budget for DHS declining to $42 billion followed by further declines of about $400 million to $500 annually for the next several years.
“I’m concerned about that long-term budget projection because I suspect the needs of the department will increase, not decrease,” Lieberman said.
Napolitano said these declines would be made up by increased fees, names aviation security fees collected by the Transportation Security Administration, and higher fees collected by the United States Citizen and Immigration Service. She also said the out-year budget conforms to President Obama’s commitment to avoid costs and achieve savings and still accomplish missions. This is the reason why DHS has begun an Efficiency Review Initiative, she said.
“We’ll watch that,” Lieberman said. “We’ll monitor that. That’s part of our responsibility to make sure we’re not diminishing the effectiveness of the department because we’re not funding it enough.”
Congress in the past has rejected the aviation security passenger fee increases.