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New background check system under fire by Congress
House lawmakers issued a barrage of questions Thursday on authority, timeline and funding needed to scrap the Office of Personnel Management's Federal Investigative Service in favor of a new entity called the National Background Investigations Bureau.
The Obama administration unveiled a plan last month that would stand up NBIB, a program overseen by OPM with the IT system and data housed and secured by the Defense Department.
Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were concerned that the governance structure is overly confusing. The NBIB lead will be appointed by and report to OPM Acting Director Beth Cobert.
"The investigative operations will be housed at OPM," Cobert told the committee. "I will be accountable."
Meanwhile, DoD Chief Information Officer Terry Halvorsen will oversee the technical aspects of the program and serve as the "senior accountable official in charge of building the system," he said.
While DoD is in charge of "the technical decisions," the cross-agency group of leaders have worked well together, said Halvorsen during a Feb. 25 hearing.
"I assure you, I don't expect any problems to come up," said Halvorsen.
While Defense will be the biggest customer of the NBIB due to the high level of security clearances at DoD, Halvorsen did not think it would be wise for DoD to handle background investigations internally in a system separate from civilian agencies. Alternately, he did not recommend placing oversight of NBIB squarely under the DoD and cutting out OPM entirely, because there should be a consistent background check process across government.
Lawmakers noted that splitting the NBIB between DoD and OPM would fragment oversight, with DoD's office of inspector general only reviewing the technical aspects of NBIB and OPM's OIG reviewing other program management areas.
During the hearing, Cobert shared an aggressive timeline for the program. By mid-March, OPM plans to have an interagency transition team in place. By October 2016, NBIB should have initial operating capability and a director to lead the bureau.
But much of the IT infrastructure and security of the system likely won't come until very late 2016 or 2017, noted the panel of administration officials. The president's fiscal 2017 budget request to Congress supported NBIB but, should the proposal pass, that funding wouldn't hit until Oct. 1 at the earliest.
During a briefing on DoD's budget request, Defense officials noted that about $100 million per year will go toward that program. However, because the department is handling background checks "as a service," it will recoup much of the cost.
The actual fees – how much to charge agencies for what services and the management of payments – will be handled by OPM, however.
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