Policy leaders offer advice for tackling security clearance backlog

Public policy experts on Tuesday offered Congress recommendations for tackling the government's security clearance backlog, which has left hundreds of thousands of federal and contract employees in limbo for months, and in some cases years.

Officials told the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management that a single database of clearance information is needed, and a security clearance granted by one agency should be accepted at all other agencies.

Congress is considering overhauling security clearance procedures in response to proposals made by the 9/11 commission. The commission said a single federal agency should be responsible for providing and maintaining security clearances and for ensuring uniform clearance standards, including maintaining a single database of clearance information.

"More than 480,000 employees and contractors are currently waiting for their security clearance to be completed, and the clearance process routinely takes more than a year," the Partnership for Public Service said in written testimony submitted to the panel. "One possible solution for accelerating the process is to charge one federal agency with performing and maintaining security clearances."

The Information Technology Association of America, however, disagrees with designating one agency with sole responsibility for providing and maintaining clearances, said Doug Wagoner, chairman of ITAA's Security Clearance Task Group.

He said that a single agency would get bogged down in bureaucracy trying to handle security clearances across the government. Instead, ITAA supports the creation of a security clearance "czar," or an individual who would manage clearance processes and set common standards across agencies. Wagoner said it might make sense if that individual were a deputy to a national intelligence director.

The major concern with one agency handling all security clearances, according to Wagoner, is evident with problems the Office of Personnel Management is facing.

"The demand for background checks exceeds our capacity," Stephen Benowitz, OPM's associate director for human resources products and services, told the House Government Reform Committee last month. "We believe the process is one that needs improvement."

The Government Accountability Office also issued a report Tuesday outlining problems with security clearance procedures.

"Regardless of the decision about whether or not to consolidate investigative and adjudicative functions governmentwide, existing impediments -- such as the lack of a governmentwide database of clearance information -- hinder efforts to provide timely, high-quality clearance determinations," according to the report (GAO-04-1084T).

For example, GAO found that requests requiring Top Secret clearances for industry personnel working for the Defense Department grew from 17 percent to 27 percent from 1995 to 2003. According to the Pentagon, though, processing Top Secret clearances takes 16 times the investigative effort and 6 times the adjudicative effort as it does to process Secret clearances.

GAO also reported that Defense and OPM need about 8,000 full-time-equivalent investigative personnel to eliminate the backlog. In February, however, GAO estimated that the agencies have about 4,200 full-time-equivalents.