|
Panel tackles staffing, pensions in police departments |
|
By Kelly McCormack
|
|
Posted: 05/01/07 08:38 PM [ET] |
Members of the House Appropriations Committee’s legislative branch panel yesterday vowed to address security concerns and benefits structures after hearing testimony from legislative branch employees and police officers from three forces.
Alvin Hardwick, chairman of the Government Printing Office (GPO) police labor union, provided the most shocking testimony.
The GPO force has been operating with 27 officers rather than the called-for 65, putting the force under considerable strain, according to Hardwick. At times, there are no officers available to monitor the GPO’s front entrance, no sworn officers to guard the passport division or an insufficient number of officers to guard U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) hazmat trucks stored at the agency, he said. The GPO force has not been fully staffed in six or seven years.
“Our numbers are critically short,” said Hardwick, adding that GPO officers have been told to call 911 for backup from the Metropolitan Police Department.
The GPO, which determines how much money to allocate its force, has hired security guards to protect the passport division.
Panel chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) expressed her distress.
“We have no sworn officers guarding passports?” she prodded, adding, “It blows my mind” that there were 2 million passports at the GPO last month and only security guards for protection.
“At the very least, we should not have security guards guarding [passports]. I can only imagine what terrorists would do with that information,” she continued. “You’re not people playing police officers, you’re real police officers. It shocks me. This is at the top of the to-do list.”
Hardwick asked Congress to fund up to 65 officers and give GPO police the same pay as Capitol Police officers, who earn 25 percent more, Hardwick said.
Capitol Police also raised security concerns before the panel, when the chairman of the USCP labor committee, Andy Maybo, urged the panel to fund a new communications system. He called the current one, which is more than 20 years old, a “security concern.”
Maybo said that anyone could buy a scanner for “less than $100 and listen to everything we have to say.”
Though previously Wasserman Schultz has held off on allocating $35 million for new radios, she said the USCP has almost completed tracking its inventory, and she likely would include language in the next version of the Iraq emergency supplemental for new radios.
“I am comfortable that they have moved forward,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Ranking member Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), who pressed for new radios immediately, was pleased to hear that money for radios might be included in the bill.
“I want to say how encouraged I am that we might consider radios in the rewrite,” Wamp said.
Maybo also told the panel that compensation packages offered by other law enforcement agencies are “considerably better” than the USCP’s. Additionally, after 30 years on the force, a Capitol Police officer would receive only a 44 percent pension.
Officers on other forces around the country can retire with a 75 to 90 percent pension following the same amount of service.
Wasserman Schultz and Wamp vowed to investigate.
A delayed merger of the Library of Congress’s (LoC) police force and the USCP was a topic of concern for Michael Hutchins, chairman of the LoC Fraternal Order of Police.
“As a result of the extensive delay in the implementation of the proposed merger, our careers have been placed in a state of suspense,” Hutchins told the panel. “We desire a merger to occur. It is a logical and practical goal. However, again we emphasize the hope that it will be accomplished in a fair and equitable manner.”
Hutchins asked that all LoC officers meeting the USCP age and years-of-service requirements be transferred laterally into the USCP, and all remaining officers, regardless of age or tenure, be retained as police officers.
The LoC force has a physical requirement to maintain employment. About 10 of the force’s older officers do not meet USCP age requirements.
Hutchins said that delays could be attributed to differences in pensions, training — although officers already have undergone some of the training — and equipment. He noted that New York City merged tens of thousands of officers in two years.
“We need a dialogue to move this thing [forward],” Hutchins said. “We need the seamless security here.”
Wasserman Schultz said she would talk to Capitol Police Chief Phillip Morse about the merger and find out why he has not met with the LoC union.
Other witnesses at the hearing included: the Library of Congress Professional Guild, the Congressional Research Employees Association, the National Federation of the Blind, GPO Joint Council of Unions, the American Association of Law Libraries and the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians. The Capitol Power Plant tunnel workers are set to have a separate hearing in early June. |
