DHS Says It Will Cut Contractors, Save Money Contractors outnumber federal employees in the Department of Homeland Security, but Secretary Janet Napolitano said she is working to reduce the contractor workforce. The department said it employs about 200,000 contractor personnel, compared with 188,000 federal workers, not counting uniformed members of the Coast Guard. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-CT, chairman of the homeland security committee, called the numbers “shocking and unacceptable.” In a letter to Napolitano, Lieberman and the committee’s ranking Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, wrote, “The sheer number of DHS contractors currently on board again raises the question of whether DHS itself is in charge of its programs and policies, or whether it inappropriately has ceded core decisions to contractors,” Napolitano responded at a Feb. 24 hearing: “I think the number illustrates a problem, or an issue we have to work on.” She said there was no choice but to rely on contractors when the department was created on short notice in 2003. While she has begun an initiative to cut back the use of contractors, the secretary said the slow and cumbersome federal hiring process stands in the way. The department has been given direct-hire authority to add up to 1,000 cybersecurity specialists over the next three years, bypassing normal procedures. Napolitano agreed with Sen. Lieberman’s statement that federal employees would generally be cheaper than contractors. The market research firm Input estimates that, government-wide, contractors outnumber federal employees by about 4-1. DHS inspector general Richard Skinner questioned the department’s oversight of contractors. In a report, the IG cited 23 contracts that were terminated for default, but the department did not review whether the contractors should be suspended or debarred. In 21 of those cases, DHS officials made no record of why the contracts were terminated, raising the risk that poorly performing companies could be awarded future work. The IG recommended that all contractors whose contracts were terminated be reviewed for possible suspension or debarment. DHS officials said they have taken steps to do that.