Industry Survey: Security Clearances Still Slow Obtaining security clearances is getting no easier or faster, according to a survey of members of the Information Technology Association of America. “The more things change, the more they stay the same—particularly when the subject is security clearances,” said ITAA President Harris Miller. ”Despite recent process changes to create interagency reciprocity and to centralize the administration of clearance investigations, our member survey suggests that the situation is not getting better and may, in fact, be getting worse.” ITAA said 81% of survey respondents reported delays of 270 days or more in getting top-secret clearances, compared to 70% who reported the same delay last year. About three-fourths of respondents said the clearance process is either the same as last year or has gotten worse. Despite changes intended to promote greater recognition of security clearances between government agencies, 65% of respondents said they have had agencies fail to recognize a clearance issued by other agencies. ITAA surveyed 70 member companies and 27 responded. More than half the companies said they are paying a premium of 5% to 25% to hire people with existing clearances. Nine out of 10 companies said they are recruiting their competitors’ employees. The Office of Personnel Management took over responsibility for Defense Department security investigations, as well as most civilian clearances, in February. Defense accounts for about 80% of clearances. OPM said its contractors employ about 6,000 investigators, twice as many as a year ago. This year the Government Accountability Office placed the DOD security clearance program on its high-risk list of programs that are vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse. “This is a program in trouble,” GAO’s director of defense capabilities and management, Derek Stewart, told the Oversight Subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee at a June hearing. (SAA, 7/8) At that hearing a DOD official said the department had 329,000 clearance applications in the pipeline, counting military and civilian personnel and contractors. Kathy Dillaman, deputy associate director of OPM’s Center for Federal Investigative Services in Boyers, PA, told the subcommittee her agency’s goal is to complete any investigation identified as “Priority” in 35 days or less and to process 80% of all others within 120 days. The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act directs agencies to process most clearance applications within 90 days by next year. GAO’s Stewart said that deadline is “unrealistic.”