Members of an independent review panel that reviewed security lapses and morale issues at the U.S. Secret Service reported that training for agents and uniformed officers fell far below standards for large metropolitan police forces or federal agencies that have protective missions.
Danielle Gray, a litigation partner at O’Melveny & Myers and a member of the independent panel, said Thursday that the average Secret Service agent trained roughly 46 hours in fiscal year 2013, and the average uniformed division officer trained a paltry 25 minutes.
Those training levels compared to police departments and federal agencies with protective divisions that dedicate anywhere from 5 percent to 25 percent of their time to training.
“I think we all are in agreement that the levels are unacceptably low,” Gray told the House Oversight and Government Reform panel during a hearing.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson formed the four-person panel in response to a string of security failures and morale issues last year, including a knife-carrying fence-jumper who managed to penetrate the ceremonial heart of the White House before the agents could wrestle him to the ground.
The panel interviewed hundreds of Secret Service employees and officials, reviewed thousands of documents and talked to hundreds of officials and experts inside of government and out. The panel’s report, submitted Dec. 15, concluded that the agency was “starving for leadership” and stretched too thin and needed more resources and training.
The panel recommends that the agency’s budget be expanded to immediately hire at least 85 agents and 200 officers.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the chairman of the Oversight Committee and top critic of the Secret Service after the security failings last year, provided a detailed chart of the reductions in training classes that have occurred from 2008 to 2013.
In 2008, according to the chart, there were eight special agent basic classes and seven uniformed division basic classes. By 2011, that number had dwindled to five for six, respectively, and by 2013 each division received just one training class.
In his opening statement, Chaffetz said Congress still needs to know why the Secret Service has “one of the lowest levels of employee morale in all of federal government.”
