In July 2016, the House Homeland Security Committee released a scathing report on misconduct at the Transportation Security Administration (325kb PDF).
TSA data shows that misconduct has grown over time—both before and after a watchdog investigation. For example, in 2013, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that misconduct by TSA employees increased by almost 27% from fiscal year 2010 to 2012, and that TSA did not have the processes in place to adequately address it.1 GAO recommended that TSA establish a process to review misconduct cases to ensure that airport-level staff complied with existing policies, issue guidance describing the process for recording misconduct data, track cycle times for investigating and adjudicating misconduct, and reconcile completed investigations with adjudication decisions. GAO also reported that Transportation Security Officers (TSO) engaging in misconduct raised security concerns because those were the very employees charged with helping to ensure the security of the nation’s aviation system. GAO concluded that it was imperative for TSA to effectively manage instances of employee misconduct and take steps to mitigate future occurrences. Although TSA implemented these recommendations, recent TSA data shows that misconduct continued to grow by almost 29% from fiscal year 2013 to 2015.
And it isn’t just poorly paid, low-level employees at the TSA who are engaging in corruption and misconduct.
Our investigation found that senior management officials at TSA have also allegedly been involved in serious misconduct and abuse of internal policies, indicating that misconduct occurs at all levels of TSA. Specifically, numerous individuals came forward to the Committee alleging that senior TSA officials used the practice of directed reassignments, or mandated employee transfers around the country, as, in some cases, retaliation for employees elevating security concerns. This practice poses significant security risks where senior leaders ignore possible vulnerabilities, while also potentially presenting significant costs to taxpayers because TSA covers the expenses of those forced to relocate. This behavior erodes employees’ confidence in an organization that has struggled with improving employee morale and wastes taxpayer dollars.
Surprisingly — or maybe not so much — as the number of misconduct allegations against TSA employees has increased over the past several years, the number of investigations opened has declined (as well as the number of investigations closed). In 2015, TSA investigated only 4 percent of total allegations made against its personnel. According to the House Committee report,
TSA is also not systematically reviewing the data on misconduct allegations that airport level staff enter into TSA’s national database to identify trends, which limits TSA’s ability to identify necessary policy changes to address misconduct. In fact, based on our interviews with TSA personnel, it was not clear whether TSA had reviewed the data contained in its misconduct database until the Committee requested this information.
The report concluded with several recommendations for TSA to address misconduct issues:
- Identify a senior executive to be responsible for overseeing the misconduct process.
- Direct the Chief Human Capital Officer to coordinate with the Department’s Chief Human Capital Officer to identify and develop strategies for best addressing employee misconduct.
- Identify a senior executive to conduct spot checks or random inspections of disciplinary and non-disciplinary actions taken.
- Direct the Office of Security Operations to ensure that local level managers are appropriately adjudicating misconduct according to the Table of Offenses and Penalties.
- Direct the Office of Human Capital to:
- Holistically and systematically review misconduct allegation data.
- Explicitly include all acceptable disciplinary, non-disciplinary, and adverse actions that may be administered for misconduct in the Table of Offenses and Penalties.
- Properly align misconduct policies with those generated by DHS’s Management Directorate.
- Develop and implement strategies for addressing attendance and leave issues nationwide.
- Incorporate addressing misconduct into FSD performance evaluations.
- Provide clearer job descriptions on employment announcements so that appropriately qualified candidates apply for positions.
- Develop and deliver training and on-the-job resources for supervisors to appropriately address performance and misconduct issues, including increasing the emphasis placed on ethics and integrity in basic training.
- Develop and implement a process for identifying and quickly addressing repeat offenders.
- Provide clear guidance to all TSA employees on how to report misconduct.
- Develop a strategy to address the root causes of misconduct with specific outcomes to assess performance.
- Make misconduct information readily available to Congress and, as appropriate, to TSA personnel and the public.