NTEU President Calls for House Appropriators to Boost CBP Port Officer Spending in FY18 Spending Bill
National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) National President Anthony Reardon on July 17 called out the House Appropriations Committee for omitting any new money from its fiscal year 2018 Homeland Security funding bill to address CBP staffing shortages at U.S. ports of entry. In a letter (here) to committee chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., which also was copied to ranking member Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., Reardon urged the committee to boost funding for CBP officers and agriculture specialists to curb staffing shortages at ports of entry. “Despite the fact that CBP has been chronically understaffed at the ports for years, the FY 2018 Homeland Security Appropriations bill includes no new funding to address CBP’s current frontline staffing shortages at the ports of entry,” Reardon said. “The current CBP Officer shortage is staggering.” There is a long-standing vacancy rate of 1,400 funded CBP port officers, and CBP’s analytic workload staffing model states that another 2,100 must be funded and hired to meet FY17 staffing needs, meaning CBP is running an officer staffing shortage of 3,500, he said.
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NTEU is asking the committee to boost funding for CBP’s Office of Field Operations, especially its Operations and Support budget. Reardon's letter claimed that the U.S. can potentially gain 1,000 private-sector jobs for every 33 CBP officers hired, and said more than 50 million Americans work for companies engaged in international trade and travel. “Understaffed ports lead to long delays in passenger and commercial lanes as travelers and cargo wait to enter the U.S.,” Reardon wrote. “These delays result in real losses to the U.S. economy. Trade and travel-related job creation, border security, and mitigating wait times at the ports of entry require adequate CBP staffing at the ports of entry.” The full committee is scheduled to mark up the legislation on July 18 (here), after it was passed by the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee on July 12 (see 1707120042). A committee spokeswoman said she's unaware of any plans to introduce an amendment during the July 18 markup to boost CBP officer funding.