A recent audit report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) shows that the agency's problems with security contractors for its headquarters in the Baltimore region continue. The agency had been using USProtect but that company shut down after two former executives of that company were convicted of tax evasion, bribery and concealment of material information. A Vice President of USProtect became President of Paragon Systems which got a new contract for Social Security's headquarters security. Paragon hired many of the same personnel who had worked for USProtect. OIG's audit of Paragon's work shows serious deficiencies. Here is an excerpt:
The OIG report has drawn the attention of the Federal Times.
One wonders whether Social Security would be better off with federal employees providing security.
Our audit work determined that Paragon was not complying with certain terms of the contract. We found guards were not following post orders as stated in the contract, and supervisors were not providing sufficient post inspection checks. There were excessive errors and discrepancies on the forms used to track post hours worked and account for firearms. These errors and discrepancies could indicate that posts were unattended. Our observations noted several instances where guards did not check the identification of people entering buildings; guards were gathered at posts involved in personal conversations and not focused on post duties; roving guards were not providing foot patrol; and guards were not following operating procedures for x-ray scanners and hand-held wand metal detectors.The OIG report makes it clear that Social Security was already well aware that there were problems with Paragon.
The OIG report has drawn the attention of the Federal Times.
One wonders whether Social Security would be better off with federal employees providing security.
2 comments:
If all the Republican demands for contracting out would stop and if most of the already contracted services would be "in sourced" the budget woes could be reduced significantly.
Private contractors are always cost plus (that is how they make their money).
They have incredible profit margins (that is why contracting is such a competitive arena).
Because they are cost plus and strive for high profit margins, their services are sub par because the employees they hire do not have a vested interest in performing their job correctly.
Federal government costs have skyrocketed since Regan started all this contracting out nonsense. Just look at the numbers. As contracting out rose in prevalence, the government's cost of doing business grew exponentially.
Recently retired from a DDS - 40 years. Astonishing to see the clamor to inherit the mantle of Ronald Reagan . He did the most he could to destroy significant parts of Social Security particularly disability. The most public assault was the targeted and accelerated continuing disability investigation (now called reviews) which resulted in the 1984 amendments. I represented a very large state and told senior SSA officials that unless they very specifically changed the implementing regs my state would not resume conducting CDIs. I have a whole litany of other instances but Reagan was no friend to the vast majority of my fellow citizens.
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