DHS officials grilled on vacancies in high-level jobs

Lingering senior-level job vacancies at Homeland Security Department agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration and two bureaus involved in border control are worrisome, lawmakers told witnesses at a hearing Thursday.

"Recruitment is probably our highest priority right now," K. Gregg Prillaman, DHS' chief human capital officer, told members of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Management, Integration and Oversight.

But FEMA has failed to fill senior-level jobs, according to a memorandum the subcommittee released late Thursday. Subcommittee member Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., whose district was hit by Hurricane Katrina, said with just two weeks left before this year's storm season begins, the agency must beef up its ranks.

"When I see only 73 percent of FEMA employees on board, I'm concerned," he said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and TSA also are listed in the memo as still having senior-level vacancies.

"We have a very real problem in DHS with retention, recruitment and morale," said subcommittee chairman Mike Rogers, R.-Ala. "The number of vacancies is a growing problem." At the hearing, lawmakers also raised concerns about DHS' ability to conduct thorough security checks of individual contractors. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., said Shirlington Limousines, with which the department signed deals only to see the contractor become engulfed in the "Duke" Cunningham scandal, was run by a man "with a 62-page rap sheet" and multiple convictions. Pascrell and other subcommittee members expressed concern about the department's lack of knowledge about this.

The department had conducted background checks of the company's drivers, said Dwight Williams, director of DHS' Office of Security.

This is the second time in recent weeks DHS officials have been grilled by legislators; Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, told DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff in a memo sent in late April that the department must announce how many jobs FEMA still has open. Davis' staff is still processing the results of that request.

DHS officials maintained that the situation will improve.

"My sense is DHS will be better during the next three years than it was in the last three years," Prillaman said.