e, the liberian people. i'm a liberian native. they didn't believe that ebola was real. and that caused a spike in the disease. so i'm interested in hearing about their approach now moving forward. i'm also glad you touched on the regional capacity building. because ultimately that's absolutely important for the region. but my specific question is the economic community of west african states mandates that all of its a member nations at some point must have a disaster management organization that overseas disaster management for the country. we were moving towards that progress in liberia. how will this experience in liberia contribute to the establishment of that entity that have will take responsibility for disasters in the country. >> let's take one other additional ghe the back there. we'll come back to you in a moment. yes, sir? >> hi name is charles sharp, i'm

with the black emergency managers association. i think she summed it up in terms of disaster management, in terms of the emergency management network. guinea liberia sierra leone for the west african nations that needs to be established. i think your ims system was outstanding, setting that up, the coordination with stakeholders involved and that's going to be a key to rebuilding your health care structures especially from the community level level. i want to commend you for all the work you've done. one other thing with dr. lacy that he mentioned with the response to that and usually response worldwide is how are volunteers getting reimbursed and paid? i think you're leading towards that. i met with him at georgetown and we discussed that. i didn't talk to you yesterday at the world bank but you mentioned that those plans you have in place, you're at that stage to build the liberian national emergency management system or agency. that's all i want to say.

>> thank you. why don't we come back to tolbert and do a second round i promise. >> thank you. and thank you. these are very, very critical and important questions that you all raised and i'm happy to touch on them. and the issue of post-ebola lessons learned. i believe very strongly one of the lessons learned that we need to take into rebuilding health care systems is the issue of ibc. that's the prevention and control. we need to have infection prevention and com champions in all of our health care facilities. we need to have the ppes in place, that's gloves, make sure that we train every health care worker to use the infection prevention control materials, that's the lesson learned.

i know very well that the number of health care workers that died in liberia did not die because they were providing services in the etus, they died from our normal health care facilities clinics that they were giving services and these are real top special is specialist positions, some of them that died in our major hospital so infection prevention control is very very key in our health care facilities. and then a lesson learned, that we need to improve and take over is the issue of surveillance system, we need to build a realtime surveillance system that would track every single outbreak every single infectious disease every single disease of epidemic potential in our health care system. human resources for health. there were a lot of health care

workers that were trained in the ebola response. we used community health volunteers that provided by services active case finders how can we put these people to work for us in the normal health care facilities. and resource mobilization is key. as one of the lessons learned going forward to the post-ebola era we spend millions of dollars during the emergency, during the emergency phase of the ebola outbreak. these resources will need to have very, very concrete support for the health care system. that can look at the critical blocks of our health care system. and if we do that supporting the national resilient health system plan before ebola we had a ten-year national health plan. before ebola we had an essential

package of health services. we had a road map for the reduction of mortality. these are all great, great plans that we need to have resources to support. so those are the lessons that we need to move forward. for human resources, we spoke about that. i think to have training training is key. we need to train more health care workers we need an exchange of realtime trainers, physicians that have the skills to go in our medical institutions. we did lose some of our professors that were teaching at the medical school. so some of the foreign medical teams, right now we're using some of them in our health care facilities. we need to get more to train our professional health care workers, provide them not only

post-ebola but train them over the year as a long-term plan for liberia to have that kind of care of health care workers in place. behavior of people is critical. people died from the virus from the very beginning because of denial. but we learned the hard way, our citizens learned the hard way a lot of people lost their lives before we realized that. this disease is associated with behavior behavior touching people, playing with dead bodies. so by the time they got to know in that community ownership got into the process we began to turn and bend the curve so committee, ownership community engagement is very good. the disaster preparedness network actually spoke about we're all working on that before the ebola process with the u.s.

department of defense through our ministry of defense, our ministry of internal affairs we're trying to get a regional disaster network. pandemic preparedness plan. i think that's very much necessary and critical. ebola has a lot of survivors that we need to concentrate on. the thinking was that ebola disease is 90% case fatality rate. but the liberian situation we had like 50% case fatality rate. so a lot of persons that got infected from the virus did survive. we have 1,400 survivors in liberia, including -- we also have 3,000 plus orphans that the ebola disease created.

these kids need our support. they need our blessing, they need our social as people of a civilized world to take care of them. these orphans need our care. >> do they face stigma? the survivors. >> oh, of course. a second time we had to create a camp for them where we had to put some of them and gave them that social support because some of them lost both parents they lost their aunties, they lost their brothers and so the government was providing support for some of them. and they face very many stigmas. one of president sirleaf's goal is to ensure that they can go to the same school like any other child being an ebola orphan doesn't mean that should be sent to another school so we're

raising resources and trying to get international support partnership, all sorts of support for these orphans, 3,000 of them. >> thank you. there's a hand down if we could get a microphone down here. >> i'm with the essential intelligence agency. can you talk about the income of liberia's middle-class? what do they live on? >> and then behind. >> i'm have johns hopkins and we're very proud of you at hopkins. >> thank you. >> you mentioned and many people have mentioned the weak health system and, of course, there was a civil war and you mentioned also the capacity building initiative after the war, the basic package. i'm sure you reflected and it would be really interesting to hear your insights on digging down, on what were the most

specific impacts of the war and the health care building initiative that gave the possibilities to respond as you have? what were the strengths that were built into the experience and conversely what were the weaknesses that were revealed from the civil war and then the health care building initiative? >> thank you. could you just hand the microphone right behind and next to you? we'll take the two of you. >> thank you for this presentation. i am with the international crisis group. i have two questions. the first one is regarding your role during the acute crisis phase. do you have any comments on the control measures such as the role of security forces and also how did the imf and the ministry of health adjust in october and november after being excluded from the initial planning talks

in acura. >> can you repeat that one? >> the second question? >> the accra one. how the ims and the ministry of health adjusted after being excluded from the initial planning talks. >> this was in the first week of october? >> yes. >> when they had the planning talks in accra and the governments were excluded. >> we had tony banbury here last week and he walked us through and that was a very interesting sort of moment in the evolution. yes, right here. we'll come back for another round. yes. >> hi, i'm katie brownwater, i'm with the department. i'm working on a suite of biosurveillance programs. i was wondering as the outbreak started what did you find was the best method for disseminating information on the outbreak outbreak, not only to health care workers and professionals but to the general public? and how do you plan to continue

providing information as we approach zero human cases? >> thank you why don't we come back to you, tolbert? >> okay, as to the last one, we used multiple channels of communication. we did not use one channel. at one point we were using radio communication going on the radio, ebola is this ebola is that, this is how you prevent it. but at some point we needed other communication, so ipc was also great. we had two ipc. you had ipc for interpersonal communication. so with the multiple communication channels ipc played a critical role. you cannot go on the radio if somebody lost their loved one from ebola and say you are a contact, you have to remain quarantined for 21 days so that you get the follow-up. you need to go to them first of all, show your solidarity give

psycho social support to them. so ipc was very, very much critical in the communication camp. and when communities after they got the information they did find their own tax forces so there were tax forces all around the place from one community to another community and people were going from house to house telling others about what the disease is and all that. so multiple communication channels printings of flyers getting information to health care workers printing of posters, community engagement town hall meetings, focus group discussions, all of those took place. but what is critical is the community ownership is very very much critical. once the community knew that this is a very contagious disease they can turn the tide by themselves. there were times that the

community had to put their own roadblocks if you got in a testla cab or a commercial bus the community would come out and quarantine you. so the community self-quarantined because they got the information. you got sick, they would call an ambulance very quickly to get you to the health facilities. so that community ownership was also critical in the information campaign. security quarantine did not work well. it wasn't one of the strategies of those dealing with the process in liberia we had lessons learned, what worked and what didn't work. security quarantine didn't work very well so we had to change our strategy. community quarantine did work to say, okay we the community will take the initiative, we don't have to be policed by military we don't have to be police bid security personnel, we can

understand and then when they themselves got engaged, when they themselves owned the situation then we started to see great, great level of improvement. the other situation they were planning a u.n. agency because what we did was when the planning meeting was over whatsoever was developed in accra, in liberia we worked with the crisis manager, mr. peter graf and his boss mr. tony banbury who i know very very well because we worked together. we were able to own our plan as a country so we did work together strategized together changed some of the indicators playing there accra and made it a liberian-owned plan and that was endorsed by our president's advisory council meeting. the president of liberia chair a council called the presidential

ebola council chaired by madam president and that plan was presented to the president and we were able to adopt that plan with our own liberian base and contacts in liberia. with the strength in the system, the ebola did expose the weakness of our health system. we thought we were doing the right things we thought we had a strong system. it was not as strong but coming from war with all of the efforts that we made, getting our supply chain system try to improve, training a lot of medical doctors, training nurses, trying to also look autoall of the building blocks of our health care system.

but when ebola started we knew it exposed our health care system. so there's a lot of work to do with the health care system. but what was also the strength was that there were a lot of trained people that knew what to do. so when the ebola crisis started, we did not wait for the international community to come before we start. we already started dealing with the situation even before the international help came in september we did work with our people and that also helped in dealing with the situation. >> thank you. let's -- we've got a lot of hands up. let's start in the back over on this side here in the back row. there's two gentlemen there. >> hi, i'm from global communities. thank you very much for coming. and you've been a great partner of ours during the implementation of the response. and i wanted to ask about the

mix of implementation approaches of the response, one being implementers that are coordinated by the ims and by the government and then the other with support being given directly to the government to implement itself. it's something that we thought was really interesting, how that was very mixed in its approaches and i wanted to get your thoughts on effectiveness on both sides of the clinical and non-clinical side of the response. >> thank you. could you just in front of you -- yes. there. >> hello mr. minister. my name is gerry martin, i'm the director of a new aid program called preparedness and response and we're focused on looking at emerging pandemic threats originating in zoonotic diseases

and of course ebola is a zoonotic disease. post-ebola, what approach do you see being taken to -- for preparedness and response for diseases that may be of unknown origin and what lessons have you learned from the ebola outbreak? >> just hand it to the woman next to you there, please. >> erin taylor from georgetown. i wonder if you could talk about how women and children were uniquely impacted and what planning you're thinking about relating to women and children going forward. >> thank you and hand it right to paul in front of you. >> my name is paul lemur, i'm a retired foreign service officer with u.s. aid. i have a couple questions you might have insight on. one is the response in liberia

seems to have been different than the response in guinea particularly on community social mobilization and communication and so forth and i'm wondering if you can -- you must have had some experience with guinea as well. without criticizing if you can tell us how it was that you were able to be more effective in your community mobilization efforts than maybe other countries that we've heard about were. the second question is in terms of the u.s. response, which i think we're all proud of we have seen some reporting here in the u.s., some criticism saying -- not criticism but saying that it was late and i'm just wondering if you can comment a little bit on that from your perspective on the ground. was it late? wasn't it late? >> thanks, paul. that woman just to your thank you. >> thank you so much. i'm with the corporate council on africa and i was wondering if you could speak a little bit to the private sector response both

in terms of ngo nonprofit and more especially business sector, how did they respond? what type of partnerships have you seen? and what would you like to see from the private sector moving forward to build a stronger health system? >> thank you. let's come up here. and then we'll come back to you tolbert. >> hello thank you so much for your time and perspective this morning. >> please identify yourself. >> i'm christine, i work at the national institute of health. and i was wondering if you could speak a little bit more upon the psychological remnants of the scare of ebola in your community and the stigmatization of orphans that you mentioned and if you could speak more upon the experience of batting the fear and anxiety that ignited in your community and different ways you learned to incite hope in the challenge of this aggressive disease. >> thank you. >> okay thank you. the coordination of the response clinical and

non-clinical, i think, is a very, very interesting one. what guided us was one strategy one program one response. that was the slogan, that was the goal. so all of our international partners that came in to help in the response in liberia, the message was one response one strategy, one program. under the leadership of the government. under the leadership of the president. so the president of liberia got very, very much involved. we saw that uniqueness coordination, togetherness of the people of liberia, government and the people when we got to know that this was a common enemy. and so under the leadership of president sirleaf, she did empower us as liberians who had the technical know how as public health experts to work with our

international police, with also public health knowledge deal with this situation. at the very beginning it was a bit difficult. it was a bit chaotic because you have this was -- or this is the health response. this is a public health crisis. so it has to be dealt with by the ministry of health of liberia so the government did realize that and the president did put the ministry of health in charge so we developed the thematic areas that are mentioned, case management, laboratories psycho social support, social mobilization surveillance. all of these thematic areas our international partners have technical areas. so ims, with these areas, we did

work together as a team so when i chaired the ims meeting, i put cdc on the spot. i said cdc you are the experts for liberia. you're here to work with our liberian team, i need a presentation in the ims meeting of what happened why there are cases where we're not testing anyone in 24 hours. and cdc knew they were in charge with lab of our team. they had the resources they took responsibility as an institution. if there's an issue with awareness, social mobilization, a look in the affairs of the representative of unicef and say, look, the world mobilized resources for unicef to support and respond with social mobilization, that's not a clinical part. if there were issues with

clinical part like treating people in ebola treatment unit, in the ims meeting and say, look, as a government people are not being treated people are rejected in the street, we need to get these ebola treatment units in place immediately to treat people. so with surveillance, who and cdc were also in charge. so with cdc epidemiologists, we asked them we have to do this. so that's how the cohesiveness of the response, one response one strategy when it came to logistics we asked the bfp chaired by a liberian co-chair bid the bfp. so we've got planes, boats to move those things so it was a unique response in liberia with

the great support from our international partner because we held them accountable and we're still holding them accountable if there are areas we didn't have the resources as a country we know there were mobilized resources from the u.s. government so those agencies in the field they were implementing had dignified burials. you had the ifc and as a u.s. ngo called global communities sponsored by usaid they played a very very critical role in the ebola management. in less than a month we were able to establish 74 burial teams with logistics in all of our counties. so i can -- in my ims meeting if a body stayed more than 24 hours and was not picked up from the community and buried, global community has to answer questions why isn't it working? or they have to tell me the next day why is this county not

picking up the dead bodies on time? so that was a response that we managed. worked with our partners and i think it worked very well. post-ebola preparedness and response, one lesson learned why we still battling ebola we're working with our international partners again like cdc the center for disease control has an agency called the cdc foundation and also working with e-health. as we speak we're now building permanent emergency operations centers for liberia each of our counties we are working with them to build eocs in counties for preparedness and response. so we're leveraging the ebola crisis to rebuild our health

care system with that also. women and children were highly affected. very highly affected. our market women were very much moving from one country to another. we had a liberian woman flying from liberia to dubai into china in the united states and into the region in gunny and in ghana, a liberian woman would get on the airplane buy their produce, get into the market in liberia. guess what happened? all of the airplanes stopped flying to liberia except brussels i don't know how you have me at this forum if brussels didn't fly me here because everybody was afraid of ebola. so that affected women. our country's closed borders ghana closed their border guinea closed their border senegal closed their border.

at some point market women cannot travel to go to one country to get their produce to the market in liberia. that affected the economic and social impact. children got infected. their mothers parents died. there are 3,000 orphans. we're working together as a region, guinea liberia, and sierra leone. there are things working very well in guinea that we learned lessons from. and there are things in liberia that guinea learned from. and the fact that liberia is getting on zero put a pressure on guinea and sierra leone. it also put pressure on partners organizations and countries with larger partners that supported those countries. so there are lessons that we're learning from each other as countries to move forward. but i think the major thing is working together in the community, that community

engagement component. so force cannot do it. you have to get a community involved and make sure that they do the right thing. the understand response, somebody asked whether or not it came late. the entire world came late to the ebola crisis. the entire world came very late to the ebola crisis. the world health organization made a mistake. that's one of the lessons that we have to learn as the global health community. disease has no boundaries. if it is in southeast asia, if it is in europe, if it is in america, especially countries that don't have the capacity, developing countries, especially subsaharan african countries

have weak systems. we know the ebola crisis since 1976 and we knew very well it was the first time it was entering capital cities with huge populations. the world would have intervened in march and april and june or may. but we intervened late. so the whole world, there's a lesson learn eded. ban ki-moon the secretary general of the united nations visited liberia, we sat together, we had discussions, the world bank president did visit liberia, usaid administrator sent a message to call of them, including you, i told you in monrovia that the world came late but when they came they came very big. they came very big. the united states government came very big to the rescue of liberia.

we did appreciate that. i'm very, very optimistic that the president of liberia did appreciate the government by deploying the military, by building our laboratory system for ebola, for getting us to zero on time is because of the support that the u.s. government did send from all walks of life. usaid was there cdc came with epidemiologist epidemiologists, we had the u.s. military moving in with logistics which was done in march or april. we would have lost 3,000, we would have lost 8,000 lives in the region 20000 people would have been infected from the ebola virus disease today. they came late, they came huge and supported us and we appreciate that. >> tolbert i think that's a very resounding compelling conclusion to our 90 minutes together this morning.

thank you so much for being so compassionate and candid and detailed and taking on all of these multitudes now issues with such clarity and sensitive and thank you for the leadership that you have demonstrated and sustained over many months. your contribution is just enormous and the story that you tell is a very positive story at the end of the day and so thank you so much for being with us. congratulations on the results. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> we look forward to having you return again to pick up this story in the next phase. >> thank you.

>> if you missed any of this event on the ebola outbreak in liberia, it will be available soon in our video library. just go to our web site c spon spon.org. news out of liberia this week. the bbc reporting that president obama will pull all but 100 u.s. troops stationed in liberia to fight the spread of ebola by the end of april. there were 2800 u.s. troops in west africa at the height of the epidemic. liberian president ellen johnson sirleaf has told the bbc she is very optimistic that ebola can be beaten. she warned, however, that there is a danger of the disease coming back and said liberia needs a health system that can work. president obama's announcement of ha nearby total withdrawal of

u.s. troops from liberia follows the news that the number of new ebola cases has risen for the second consecutive week, ending a period of encouraging declines. coming up in about an hour on our companion network c-span 2, former u.s. ambassador to the united nations john bolton talks about national security challengings, that will be hosted by the defense forum foundation. you can see it live at 12:25 p.m. eastern. and then at 2:15, live coverage of president obama's speech at a white house summit on cyber security and consumer protection. it's part of the president's trip to the san francisco area where he's meeting with tech industry officials on cyber security policies. >> on c-span starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern on president's day -- >> to provide that proven leadership is our challenge in 1992. that is why today i proudly announce my candidacy for

president of the united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] >> a special presentation on presidential campaign announcements from ronald reagan in 1979 to barack obama in 2007. and we will reair these announcements later in the evening at 9:00 p.m. on book tv on c-span 2, finalists for the national book critic circle award. david brion davis on his third and final volume on the history of slavery. at 1:30, elizabeth kolbert argues that we are undergoing a zings mass extinction and this is the result of human action and will be the most devastating. then at 3:00 french economies thomas piketty and along with senator elizabeth warren. then cartoonist patrick oliphant draws 10 presidential

caricatures as historians discuss the president and memorable qualities. then a 1960 nbc interview with former president herbert hoover discussing his life beyond the presidency. and at 9:30, our conversation with playwright james still and actor mary bacon about the ford's theater production of "the widow lincoln" to mark the 150th anniversary of president lincoln's assassination. find our complete television schedule at cspan.org. let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments at cspan.org or send us a tweet. join the c-span conversation like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. now to a house oversight committee hearing looking into the secret service's protection of the white house compound. witnesses include members of an independent panel appointed by the homeland security department to examine recent white house

security breaches, including an incident involving a fence jumper who made it inside the white house. the panel of former obama administration and bush administration officials testify on their recommendations for improving security. this runs two hours and 35 minutes. good morning. the committee on oversight and government reform will come to order and without tox chair has authorized to declare a recess at any time. i'm pleased to be holding this hearing today with ranking member cummings reforming and restoring the secret service is not a partisan issue, i firmly believe a united front with mr. cummings and i have presented have driven change within the agency. together we've sent letters to ten closed door meetings and briefs with the secret service and asked for change. just this morning in a bipartisan way we went and visited the secret service headquarters and we appreciate their accommodations and the tour of the facility, the

management facility there. today the senior leadership of the secret service looks much different than it did when we began examining the agency. in fact, we originally planned to have both the acting director and the deputy director appear before us today on a second panel but with the recent announcement of the deputy director's departure from agency, we agreed to postpone the agency's appearance before the committee for another day. we want to thank acting director clancey and secretary jeh johnson for being consistently available to us. they have been very accessible and we're very appreciative of that. we also applaud secretary jeh johnson for assembling a panel to examine the secret service. the panel's report did not mince words or skirt the issues and provided by serious recommendations. according to the panel's find it is secret service is "starved for leadership" and lacks a "culture of accountability."

the panel recommended the next secret service director appointed by the president come from outside the agency the panel's report states -- and i happen to agree that "at this time the agency's his tri need for secret service experience is outweighed by what the service needs today, dynamic leadership that can move service forward in a new era and drive change in the organization." the report goes on to say "only a director from outside the service removed from personal relationships will be able to do the honest top-to-bottom reassess." dealing with what is necessary inside the agency. alarmingly, the panel found that no one inside the secret service has ever taken time to sit down and figure out what it costs to protect the president. in fact, the panel found "no one has really looked at how much the mission done right actually costs." this is simply unacceptable.

combined with other limitations like insufficient training antiquated technology and insular attitudes, these factors have all contributed to the recent security breaches. the fact that the panel made these findings is not surprising. i will tell you it's very refreshing to have a panel take such a deep serious look into the agency and provide very candid results and perspective. you did in the a swift manner and far we're very thankful. over the past several years, a series of security breaches have raised the number of questions about the effectiveness of the agency. 2011 a man fired a high-powered rifle at the white house while president obama's daughter was inside the residence. the secret service was unable to confirm the that shots had been fired at the white house until a housekeeper found broken glass four days later. the shooter eluded capture for five days, traveling all the way to pennsylvania where he was eventually apprehended by state police. on september 19 of last year

with the partially amputated foot and a limp wearing crocs a man was able to jump the white house fence. contrary to initial reports from the secret service, this man made it all the way into the green room armed with a three and a half inch knife that was serrated. the same month an armed security contractor was allowed on an elevator with the president unbeknownst to the secret service and in violation of protocol. we still don't know where the breakdown was that enabled this to happen. last month, the gunman fired shots near the vice president's residence in delaware security cameras were unable to capture video of the gunman. to this day, we still don't know who fired those shots. this was very close to active secret service agents at the residence. two weeks ago a drone crashed into a tree on the white house lawn highlighting a security vulnerability we must shore up immediately. by examining these security breaches we can find out what went wrong and we can work together to fix it.

together with ranking member cummings which committee will continue to examine issues surrounding culture, budget training, technology, and protocol. congress needs to know why the secret service has one of the lowest levels of employee morale in all of federal government. we have some of the finest men and women serving in the secret service these are patriot rat i can, hardworking, talented people. we love these people and thank them for their service but the bureaucracy has been failing them and it has to change. we have to get this right. we have to get it right now the panel made a number of recommendations, the first step is new leadership from outside the agency i look forward discussing the panel's good work and i'd like to recognize the ranking member mr. cummings for his statement. >> thank you very much mr.

chairman. thank you for working with us in a bipartisan way and agreeing to hold this hearing. i also thank you for doing something else, that is i notice that you have consistently given our federal employees credit for what they do everybody time i speak before a group of federal employees they say so often they hear just negative things about them and i know you've said in the private and now you're saying in the public about the secret service that we have a phenomenal number of great dedicated secret service agents and i appreciate that and i know they do, too. you've sought the input from our side and our participation and i believe our efforts will be more effective as a result of that more significantly you've shown respect for us. we're holding today's hearing because the independent panel has done a thorough review of

the secret service and we want to hear directly from them before taking our next steps. to the panel i want to thank you for what you've done. you've done an outstanding job in a short period of time. they met with more than 170 people from inside and outside the secret service. they made numerous recommendations and now the upper managements of the agency have been removed. the chairman and i both strongly agree that the independent panel's work was excellent. we have also discussed the panel's classified report and we believe it was tough, it was thorough and crucial to bring about real change at the agency. we thank all the members of the panel. but i want to make two key points today. first, i completely agree with the panel that the question of leadership is most important. although the previous director has left and top managers have been removed, the job is only

half done. as the panel concluded, a strong group of new leaders must now be identified. and that responsibility rests with the executive branch. second, i also agree with the panel that these changes "require strong leadership but they will also require resources." that is our job. that's the job of the congress their report makes clear that the secret service is stretch too thin. . the status quo in long shifted forced overtime, inadequate training and too little rest. i would like to read briefly from the report describing this problem it says this, and i quote, "the strains are manifest throughout the agency. the service has been forced to pull firearms instructors from its training academy and uniform officers guarding foreign missions to work protective details. the attrition has caused alarm.

it's all smoke and mirrors" says a plain-clothes agent. "we are like a giant ship teetering on toothpicks waiting to collapse" says another. "our protective mission is in crisis." that was from a press report in 2002, more than a decade ago. let me read another quote. "while the threat of terrorism looms large over the white house complex, one of the most insidious threats of our national security actually comes from within. with the creation of the department of homeland security and the fallout from the hurricane katrina disaster, the secret service overall has suffered much in terms of budget or, perhaps more appropriately, the lack thereof. we were informed last year that our budget had been cut and that the secret service was going to have to make some changes to cut costs and save money." that quote was from 2007.

it was from a letter sent internally to the secret service leadership by a former uniformed division officer and we have obtained a copy. last week, the federal law enforcement officers' association wrote the committee saying this "a lack of resources and funding is the core reason the agency has suffered. it's moments of honesty even media reports have restated what is well known in the service and was highlighted by the protective mission review panel that the secret service has been outstretched and underfunded since 9/11 attacks and continues to be." let me make one last thing clear. i'm not saying we should throw money at the problem, that more money is a silver bullet that inadequate funding is an excuse for failure or any other similar straw man argument. i agree with the independent panel that the secret service

needs more funding and is our job in congress to get it to them. the panel recommended as a first step adding 200 officers and 85 agents and it said many more may be necessary once the new management team assesses the agency needs. we have heard from others inside and outside the secret service that they are down by at least 500 positions. dhs funding will would start to restore some of this funding but unfortunately it is being held by our republican friends who oppose the pressident's actions on immigration. we have two weeks left before the department shuts down. if it happens the secret service employees will be required to continue working without pay. this is no way to treat the secret service agents officers, they should not be collateral damage in this political fight. the fact is that federal work areas cross the board have been hammered over the past four years. they have sacrificed nearly $140

billion as a result of a three-year pay freeze and pay cuts in the form of increase retirement for knewly-hired employees. they have endured furloughs and the elimination of jobs for the last three years. it is time to recognize these actions take a toll. finally, mr. chairman i would like to take a moment to address our working on the committee. i completely agree that we must reform this agency. its mission is too critical. i have the greatest admiration for the president and the last thing i want is for something to happen to him or the other people that the secret service is responsible for protecting. so i commit to working with you to the best of my ability and in good faith. in return, i ask we focus aggressively on the reforms that are needed, that we avoid spending valuable time reinvestigating issues that others have already investigated and that we continue working closely together as we have been to conduct our investigation in

a responsible way that does no harm to the agency or the mission. with that, i yield back. >> thank the gentleman. i will hold the record open for five legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written statement. we will now recognize our panel of witnesses. first let me say, thank you so much for your time and dedication and making the effort and cutting -- carving out time in your schedule to be here. we appreciate that. the honorable -- today, we have the honorable mark phillip, the honorable danielle gray, the honorable joseph hagan and the honorable thomas perelli. all witnesses will be sworn before they testify. if you please rise and raise your right hands. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you. let the record reflect that all

witnesses answered in the affirmative. you may be seated. my understanding is you are going to give one joint statement as opposed to four individual statements. i'm not sure which -- you are going -- okay. thank you. you are now recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman, ranking member cummings and members of the committee. i'm tom perelli one of the panel. the panel asked me to make a brief opening remark today. as the outset we want to express echoing the chairman and ranking member our appreciation for the extraordinary work and dedication of the men and women of the secret service. they work long hours in a mission that has no tolerance for error. and they do so without desire for fame or fortune. they deserve all of our thanks and support. the secretary of the department of homeland security asked the panel to do a review of the secret service's protection of the whitehouse following the events of september 19, 2014. we did not focus solely on that event but looked broadly at

concerns about the service that had been raised by this committee and others. from october when we were commissioned to the issuance of our report on december 15 the panel talked to dozens of members of the service from all levels as well as more than 100 experts from the federal protective services, local law enforcement, national laboratories and the defense and intelligence communities. we thought it was important to hear perspectives about the service, about the protective function about technology from both inside and outside the service. we also reviewed thousands of pages of documents. ou report and recommendations were completed december 15th. the report contains substantial sensitive information as well as classified information and recommendations. we have had the opportunity to brief the chairman and ranking member and many staff of this and other committees in a classified setting. we will tread carefully on subjects related to operations tactics and threats. it's in the its of the united states that much of the service's work be secret because they are tasked with the

important job of protecting the commander in chief and others in the white house. we released a summary that lays out recommendation including training, staffing, technology and leadership. that's incorporated in our written testimony to this committee. as we described in that summary, the panel concluded that training had fallen below acceptable levels because personnel were stretched too far. we provide recommendations about increased training as well as increased staffing. we describe our recommendation for 200 additional officers and 85 special agents as a down payment that we make now so that the service can train and perform at the level that all of us believe is necessary. many of our technology recommendations are classified. i note our concern that the service needs to be more engaged with federal partners who are using or developing technologies that would assist the service in protecting the white house. we focused a great deal of attention, as the chairman said, on leadership, concluding that

the service needs dynamic leadership that's unafraid to make change, that articulates the service's mission pursues resources and demonstrates to the work force that rules will be applied even-handedly and that the best of the best will be promoted to lead the organization to the future. more detail in our conclusions and recommendations are in our testimony and we will be happy to answer questions. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. i appreciate all four of you. i recognize myself for five minutes. the report says more resources would help. what we need is leadership. you went on to say, only a director from outside removed from the organizational traditions and personal relationships will be able to do the honest reassessment that this will require. i don't know who to address this to. yes, mr. phillip. >> yeah. thank you. we gave a lot of attention to leadership. in that we believe that will be a critical issue going forward. we fully respect that the choice of a secret service director is

that of the president and there's a unique relationship there and that may be uniquely amongst appointments in the federal system, that individual is responsible for the personal safety of the president and first family. we respect our role in that regard. but would did and do think that all things equal would be useful to have outside perspectives. the reasons for that i think are even more important than the conclusion. because they animate a lot of our views on a number of things. we think it's essential for reform that there be a full look at the activities of the secret service through the lens of the core priority of protecting the president and the white house. that the activities and budgeting align with those core activities. we think that the innovation associated with the secret service's activities also be aligned with those core priorities. and that the new director whoever that is is prepared to make tough choices about

personnel independent of any sort of old boy's network or friendships or alignments. that was part of the reason we thought all things equal it was easier for an outsider to make those assessments as opposed to someone presently with the service. we also think it's important that there be engagement with the broader intelligence community and a consistent set of disciplinary rules independent of prior friendships or allegiances or experiences. finally, also an infusion of outside expertise in budgetary air areas human resources congressional affairs things of that sort. so we thought it was more likely that that person would be an outsider. but obviously, we respect that it's the president's choice. to the extent we can be a resource, whoever the next director is, we would proudly be available to try to help them. >> thank you. one of the questions that tends to float around here is whether or not we should separate out the investigation side.

did you look at that? what sort of assessment did you give that? >> we did. our views on that are that there's certainly some benefits to be gained from the investigative mission to some extent. now, there's a continuum in the activities. to the extent, for example, that cyber investigations involve the safety of the first family of the president, that's probably going to be part of the core mission of the secret service. to the extent that cyber involves looking at whether a movie studio has been hacked or a health insurance company or a multi-national retail type entity that might be further afield and other parts of the federal government that are involved in cyber activities might be better positioned to handle the lead on that. again, all through the core prism of what the main mission of the secret service is. we had a couple months to look at this. we don't purport to have the

final answers. we think the guide post on this will be what is the core mission of the secret service and does this particular activity, whatever it is, further that mission or distract from it. >> one last thing i want -- i know other members want to ask about this. if you can put up the slide on the training. one of the things that we're deeply concerned about -- these are the training numbers we see here. if you look at from 2008 through 2013, we were doing roughly special agent basic classes eight per year, eight eight eight, then down to five then down to zero. then we go to one. why did that happen? how do we prevent that from happen sng what's your assessment of that? >> i'm happy -- >> there we go. >> training was -- our analysis began with training. as mr. perrelli indicated, we viewed this as sort of key in animating many of the other decisions that the secret

service has to think about from staffing to management of overtime and the like. as your chart is consistent with what we found in our findings that training has fallen below acceptable levels. there have been a number of reasons that we're advanced to us in the course of our review to explain why that is so. from the increased activities of the see krelt service and missions, the number of protective visits that secret service members are staffing and the line reductions in staffing and the forced overtime issues. regardless of those causes, i think we all are in agreement that the levels are unacceptably low. the number in our report that we emphasize looking at fiscal year '13 data, the average agent trained 46 hours in fiscal year '13. the average uniform division officer trained about 25 minutes on average. >> for the year? >> for the year. and so by any account, those

numbers are unacceptably low and we need to do better. >> did you compare that against large police forces or other -- >> yeah. we spoke to a number of large metropolitan police forces. we also spoke to other federal agencies that conduct protective missions that are akin to what the secret service is doing. nothing is an exact comparison. but the training level hes that we heard for those agencies ranged anywhere from 5% a year to 25% a year of time spent doing training. and that type of training is managed in different ways. some police forces or protective security agencies conduct focused training at set times of years. others integrate it more naturally month to month. but however it's done, the sort of leave hes that we heard from others ranged between 5% to 25%, which are obviously significantly higher. >> thank you. now i recognize the ranking

member, mr. cummings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. perrelli i want to go back to something that you said. you said that the secret service needs an additional 85 agents and 200 officers. and then you said something that i want you to explain. you said as a down payment. what does that mean? >> when we looked at the data provided by the secret service and tried to assess with the current work force based on what we can discern what would it take to -- how many additional personnel would they need to get to the training levels that we think are the bare necessity, which as we indicate in the report is a true fourth shift, and 10% of the time training. based on the information we were able to obtain that led to our

recommendation for immediately the need for 200 additional uniform division officers and 85 additional special agents. but i think a couple of things that caused the panel to believe that once a full analysis is done by a new director, more resources are going to be needed. one is i think as the chairman said there really hasn't been a true analysis of how much it takes to protect the president and other protectees in the white house. the internal systems are not designed to do this. mr. hagan and i sat with a secret service agent and watched them put in their time in a dos system with a green blinking cursor. once you factor in the overtime that we think the agents both anecdotely told us and we saw

ourselves, once you try to bring some of those overtime numbers down, we think that you will discover that more resources are needed. as we said in our report, we think that a new director, a critical function of a new director is to have a zero-based budget. start from the beginning and define the mission and explain to congress and the executive branch how much it takes to do this. we think it's going to be more money, we think it's more agents and more uniform divisions. but we think a new director might decide to shed or trim certain missions so that it's not all new money. >> we are able to pass the dhs budget, it will be able to hire at 85 agents and 200 officers. let me ask you with regard to going back to training, there's a lot of talk about the fourth shift. you know, i want to go back to what the chairman was asking

about. you're saying that getting 25 minutes -- i hope the committee hears this. 25 minutes a year -- is that what you said? >> that's for the uniform division. >> 25 minutes of training? and what would be acceptable? >> we sort of thought about this in two ways. so for the ppd, presidential protective division that's where the fourth shift concept originated. historically, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s and our understanding from speaking to past directors and past special ats, that the fourth shift concept was a very real concept in the service. the idea was agents would spend two weeks on a daytime shift, two weeks on a nighttime shift, two weeks on a midnight shift and two weeks in training. now that's not to say sort of all 14 of those days in that two weeks were spent training. obviously, the agent's time was managed in a way to provide

surge capacity if they needed to support unexpected trips or missions. this concept of striving for roughly spending 25% of the year in training for the agents in the ppd was very different. that fourth shift has never really been applicable to the uniform division. and it has been difficult to get sort of reliable historical da if a on this. we don't actually have a very good benchmark for the uniform division. but i think what we do know is that the sort of average that you saw in fiscal year '13 that we referred to the 25 minutes, is unacceptably low. >> one of the things that has concerned -- i'm sure the chairman and definitely it has concerned me -- i'm wondering how you got into this and what your conclusions may have been. we have agents who felt more comfortable coming to the congress and testimonying us about about their concerns than

telling the higher ups at the secret service. i've said it many times. i think for this kind of organization, that's not good. so do you all see as the -- did you find that to be the case? what conclusion did you come to? how do you remedy that? >> i think that goes, sir to the culture and leadership attitude of the organization going forward. any robust organization has to be honest with it fl isself and open to the fact that if we are going to improve we have to accept and evaluate criticisms about how things are operating. i think you put your finger on something critically important. i think we all do. that's something that the agency and new leadership will have to get much better at. because no organization is perfect. it's not a weakness to accept the idea that there's problems

face them honestly and objectively and work forward to improve. you are right, that's something important for the new era of the service and for the new director. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. i now recognize the gentleman from tennessee mr. duncan. >> thank you. you are getting off to a great start chairing this committee and calling all these hearings. let me say that i appreciate this panel and how they've come in from the outside to take a look at this. but i do have to tell you that certainly no criticism of each of you, but i'm very skeptical about some of this. i will tell you why. i've been here 26 years. i've served on four different committees. i've read reports from all of the committees. every time some federal agency messes up, the first thing they say, they say they are underfunded. the second thing they say is their technology is out of date. they have more money than any

company in the private sector and more expensive technology than any company in the private sector. yet they always come up with those same excuses. in that time that i've been in congress, when i first came here the national debt was less than $3 trillion. now it's $18 trillion. the federal budget was not anywhere close to what it is now. all the federal agencies all the federal departments and agencies, if you look at the last two or three or four years, we have been doing inging better job holding funding reasonably at a level rate. but if you look over the last 20 or 25 years federal spending has gone way up. and all the federal law enforcement agencies have greatly expanded over that time and their budgets have gone way up. i don't have the figures here. i came here a little unprepared for this hearing, because i didn't know until late yesterday that we were going to have this

hearing. that's my fault. but i had the figures a few years ago that -- five or six years ago, the fbi had tripled in size over the years that i had been there in numbers of personnel and in their budget. and i just am very skeptical that the secret service doesn't have enough funding. and then secondly, i remember when first came here and they had a hearing on the aviation subcommittee. they talked about the low moral of air traffic controllers. that's another thing i've heard a lot of times from federal employees about their low moral. well, i can tell you, it seems to me the less people have to do on their job the more they complain. i almost have never gotten a complaint from a short-order cook at a waffle house. i can tell you that if these secret service people who have low moral, if they don't realize how lucky they are to have these jobs -- i have nothing against anybody in the secret service. i'm sure they're all nice people

and all fine people. but they need to realize they are very lucky to have their jobs. when i first ran for congress, i had -- they had an ad signed by every member, 300 or 400 members of the knoxville police department, every one except four signed it. i was considered pro-law enforcement. but i will tell you that our federal law enforcement people are our highest paid law enforcement people in this country. next are state and the lowest are the local law enforcement people who are out there fighting the real crime, the daily day to day that everybody wants to fight. i will tell you that when i hear about low moral in the secret service, i think they ought to be a shameshamed anybody that feels that way. they are lucky to have their job and the high pay that they get. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> gentleman yields back. we women the gentle woman the district of columbia. >> thank you very much.

mr. chairman i think we are fortunate to have the secret service take the risks and when it comes to the pay, they have not received edd increases in pay. we value them very highly. we value your report, which is very thoughtful. i have been concerned -- by by the way, with the underfunding of the secret service. something i think would shock the american people. they always assume that the protection for the american people was first priority because it's the symbol of the united states itself. i was concerned about the physical barriers because that's the most obvious and common sense way to approach this problem. and i have distributed to the members and to you a copy of a picture that was taken outside right after -- right after the

most notorious of the fence jumping incidents. and i'm asking this question because you indicate that there are some physical barriers that have been added. are you talking about these barriers that are normally used simply for crowd control, or are you talking about actual structural physical barriers? >> that we recommend adding? >> you say that -- we understand that there have been some physical barriers that have been added. i'm asking you if there have been any physical barriers added since the incident -- since our hearing in september and since the fence jumping that was the basis for that hearing. >> the bike rack she's shown in the photo you distributed is new

since the fence jumping incident. >> you know, if that's -- by the way, i consider this quite outrageous. if that's -- what this says to the public is -- this is the first amendment space, lafayette park is right there across from the white house because the framers intended the white house to be a place where people could go. this is hardly a barrier. in fact it's very ugly. there are two pictures here that show what are really quite temporary -- they're not really barriers. they're not used as barriers. they're not meant as barriers. they are meant to be movable because they are crowd control. is that all that has happened since the fence jumping? >> we have not investigated just recently what, if anything -- >> as far as you know that's all that's happened?

>> we are -- we have clearly recommended that a permanent solution be designed and adopted as quickly as possible. >> indeed, i appreciate that you have recommended the fence -- that the fence itself consistent with its historic basis be raised. have you put any time frame on it? of all the things that it seems to me could have happened by this time, it does seem to be at least the plans for that could have been made. >> i will say that, you can receive a classified briefing about that. mr. cummings and i participated in a meeting where the details the timing was laid out. and i would -- if any member would like to have that briefing, i'd be happy to arrange another one. but that was not something this panel looked at other than making a general recommendation.

to get a secret service briefing on what they are doing, a, was impressive and b, is certainly in the works. >> i appreciate that, mr. chairman. i don't consider it very highly classified for the terrorists and other fence jumpers to know that there's going to be a fence that's going to be raised. i don't consider that very classified information. i want to say that i am -- given your report, which i think was timely, i am disappointed that the -- that we have no information. i will seek that information. and the way the chairman suggests. the only disappointment i really had in your report was that there was no mention that i recall of the public space and of the tradition that this has been a public space and that barriers and security for the president can be improved without, for example, a mag no, ma'am ter in the street.

that would mean that even though you are outdoors, you have to go through this before you can get to where the public still can get, by the way. and i wonder why you did not consider the access of this space to the public, considering that it is one of the great first amendment spaces in the nation's capitol. it's not just a tourist site. there are people there every day on every issue trying to express their point of view. >> thank you for the question. and i do think it was of serious consideration to the panel about the historic nature of both the white house as well as the spaces around the white house. i think perhaps what is most telling is the absence of recommendations from this panel to do things like close off the park or those kinds of things that one could consider as

appropriate security measures but that would be inconsistent with the history of those spaces. so perhaps i think we answer your question by not having recommendations that would have gone the other way. >> i so thank you, because that is what i'm going to cite. i'm going to say that the panel said that by not recommending that the public be excluded it meant to say that the public should have access to that space as it has always had. >> thank the gentle woman. i now recognize the gentleman from arizona mr. gozar for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman and panel for the report. i'm going to quote a couple snippets here i think make a summary and ask some questions for that if that's okay. the first one, the secret service is stretched in many ways in cases beyond its limits. special agents and uniform division personnel protecting the white housework in

unsustainable number of hours, secretary. rather than invest in systems to manage more effectively and predict needs, the service simply adds more overtime for existing personnel. third, it goes on to say that the secret service needs more agents and officers beyond the levels required to allow for in-service training. the president and other protectees cannot receive the best possible protection when agents and officers are deployed for longer and longer hours or fewer and fewer days off. number four, the service has to increase the number of agents and to a greater extent increase the size of the uniform division to ensure protection of the white house. i under officers told the panel they don't know whether they work one day to the next. or if they are required to work overtime. the staffing failures within the uniform division are so bad that the special agent yous are flown in to detail them for week long shifts to the white house supplementing the uniform division due to the losses in

staffing it has seen. these are agents result in special agents who are unfamiliar with the white house being in charge or defending it. my questions given that your report found the special agents and uniform division officers work an unsustainable number of hours, what must they do better to manage that workload? >> i think there are a couple of things, congressman. one is as we talked about, the service really hasn't had the kind of work force planning model to make sensible personnel decisions about how many people are needed and control the number of hours that people are working. as i think the chart that chairman put up earlier showed you have -- rather than continuing to hire people and having more officers and more agents, what ended up happening was you just had the existing work force working longer and longer hours. so i think we have recommended

wanting more robust work force planning model so that they can, i think make good judgments about what is need and how to deploy those resources. as we indicated, we think they need more personnel, if nothing else to ensure that the personnel that they have get adequate training. i think those are i think core aspects of this. but as one our larger recommendations is that i think the new leadership needs to take a step back and really define and then come to the executive branch and congress with a clear plan that articulates, this is what it takes to protect the white house and this is where we need the personnel we think we need. >> and i know you can't go into certain technology. i'm being a businessman. technology we can track patients going through a system knowing exactly where they are every time every point of the day. is that something being entertained in regards to work force for the secret service? >> i think on the technology

question, as i think the events of the september 19th indicated, there are shortcomings on training and communications technology with respect to the service's current equipment as well as their training on that equipment. that's something i think we think needs to be addressed. and all those things need to be integrated together. i think you are right that you need to know where your personnel are if you are going to respond to an incident. >> when you look at overall your evaluation evaluation, when you don't have systems to even evaluate, how hard was it to come up with some of those recommendations? you have to look back and look at your past to be able to go forward. >> i think we wanted to be able to provide more specific recommendations in certain areas, but as i think we laid out in the report, because the data we were working from on the special agent side it's clear that they do not record all of the hours that they work. they are working many more hours than show up in their personnel system and on the uniform

division side, the data really doesn't come from the service's own systems but comes from federal pay records about overtime, which isn't necessarily may not be the most precise way to do the planning that's needed. >> one last question. we have a commander in chief, the head of all our military and stuff. it should be the highest honor to serve in that capacity, protect the president. so why wouldn't the requirements be the same for that detail for secret service as the navy s.e.a.l. or the rangers? it should be that protective an aspect. the chart that went up there is disgraceful when we see that application not being the same type of application. do you agree? >> i think the panel agrees that we need the best of the best in this role and that has been historically the culture and the belief of the service. and i think we hope our recommendations will help them return to that point. >> i yield back. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. we will now recognize the gentle

woman from new jersey, miss watson-coleman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning to you and thank you so very much for the work that you have done. i did take the opportunity to read the briefing that i had last night and it was quite extensive and a little bit scary. for the record i want to ask a question. is this a part of the fence that was compromised? for the life of me i can't see how you scale a fence that is skinny like this and -- >> it's the fence in the background of the photo. it's not the fence in the forground. >> i know it's not this. they actually were able to scale this? >> they were able to scale the fence that's in the background of the photo. the bike rack -- what they call bike rack was not there. >> seems to me it's interesting that they could even scale that. are any of your recommendations proposing additional surveillance over these areas that could possibly point -- be

points of access to the white house? >> we feel that they should continue to modernize technology. >> interestoperability. >> i'm being careful here because without going into sensitive areas. but we believe that technology plays an integral part in this multi multi-layer defense of the facility and that it must be continually upgraded and receive a lot of additional focus. >> this is something that i heard in the five weeks that i've been here in some briefing, that the personnel that were on staff at the time of the fence jumping incident were -- i don't

flow what time of the night that was. can you tell me what time of night or -- >> early evening. >> was the staff predominantly low seniority? is there something to a staffing pattern that your seniority gives you a better staff shift? is there an assurance that then or now that there are people who have more seniority and experience are there all the time? >> as i think many on the committee know there was a prior report that focused on isn't 19 done bit deputy secretary of dhs which focused on the very specific issues of that night and did find that the personnel on staff tended to be junior that evening. i think this goes back again to the staffing and planning issues as well as the forced overtime issues that ensuring that the personnel you have, the right change of command, the right mix

of seniority and junior personnel as well as the right training so that people understand and know the compound is something that if the service implements some new -- some reforms and new systems they will be able to ensure in the future and not have that problem on any given night. >> if you look at the organizational staffing request right now, would they be where they say they need to be? because you are asking for 85 and 200. is that -- does that recognize that their staffing is not complete right now or is that -- they have it and that's in addition to what they have? >> so we were heartened to see that there were additional sums sought in the president's budget. and we were very supportive of getting the service to the 85 and 200. i think others may be able to do the calculation as to whether the precise amount sought are -- match up with that. but it's our understanding that some of the additional request

is intended to try to reach those levels. >> on the incident on the elevator, was there an explanation how someone of that nature got on the elevator with the president? >> our panel did not look at the elevator incident. it wasn't part of our mandate. >> okay. our very supportive and very respectful of the secret service and really when i think of the secret service, i think of it being, you know, without parallel. the protection for the president and other people that is uncompromised and incomparable. so these number of incidents that have come up have been tremendously disappointing to me. i want to go on record as saying, i don't think that we're talking about wasteful spending. and i don't think we're talking about asking for something that we don't need. and if we're going to look to where we're going to save money, we need to make sure that we are

applying that to areas that don't have the kind of sensitivity. protecting the president of the united states and those like him, that is the most important thing that we need to be doing as it relates to our secret service. and i for one support the homeland security and its need for a clean funding bill. and for the secret service to have new leadership and all the things that you have identified that it needs. and i thank you for your report and your work. and i thank you, mr. chairman, for the opportunity to speak. >> thank you. i do appreciate it. with will now recognize the gentleman from tennessee mr. deja dejarle. >> a follow-up on a question. whoever wants to take this question, feel free. how many new hire training classes do the secret service funding for each year? >> in general, they have tried to do eight classes per year.

funding has been different over different years. eight classes has been consistently a norm. that has shown in the early years of the chart. >> is that what you did in the previous year, you did eight? >> i have to go back and look. i think that in '09, '10, '11 -- here is the chart. you see special agent and uniform division classes. eight was the norm for special agents. for uniform division the numbers range a bit. although, something between ten and 11 would be more the norm. >> okay. thank you. your review found that in '13 the service changed its hiring process. this resulted in more applicants but a less effective process at identifying strong candidates. in fact, more than half the applicants failed the routine

polygraph that occurs during screening. do you know who was responsible for this decision? >> we didn't identify a special individual. i think our focus was -- our concern was that that process took a very long amount of time only to have many of the candidates drop out. so it took a lot of resources and did not yield enough qualified candidates at the end. that experience as well as a number of other things that we found are one reason why we think the service needs to professionalize its human resources function and develop a hiring and retention strategy led by experts in that field. >> any other downfalls at all that you didn't identify? what does the secret service plan to do to fix the hiring process to better identify potential candidates? >> so the service has -- is changing its -- has changed its

hiring process and is using more, as our understanding, accepted service authority and has re-ordered aspects of its process so that it is less likely to spend a lot of time on candidates that are going to fall out of the process. but again we think that over the long haul, having human resources professionals in charge of that process is going to be more likely to get good outcomes. >> you note that many of the recommendations in your report are not new. these recommendations go back to the 1964 warren commission. some are identified to the 1995 white house security review. and others track internal recommendations. what were those recommendations? >> well i think there have been many recommendations certainly over the years. but there are a number of things that we found in our report that i think have been seen over time. certainly, questions about

investment in the uniform division and the importance of giving focus to the uniform division and deciding its role. those issues have been there. certainly, issues related to excess overtime have been and insufficient personnel have been identified over time. there are a number of issues that we raise in our -- in the classified aspect of our report that are ones that have been noted in the past by the service. >> why do you think that a lot of those recommendations were ignored? >> i think that the service itself has noted that it has not always done what it needed to do in terms of follow through of its own recommendations. i think our hope is that coming out of this report that there will be a real opportunity to focus on these specific recommendations and real follow through and tracking to make sure that they actually get implemented. >> how will future secret service leaders be held

accountable for implementing your recommendations? >> well, i certainly think that if there is a real process to -- i'm sure this committee will have a role in it and other committees will have a role in it to ask the service what has it done to implement the recommendations and where is it -- where is that going. and i also assume that this and future presidents will hold them accountable as well. >> okay. last question how do you define that success or how should success be defined if you have implemented these recommendations properly? >> i think from our perspective if we see the kind of cultural change and leadership change that we have talked about that really defines the mission. we talked a little bit in the report saying that if in five years the budget that the service submits to congress looks kind of more the same or about the same with a little extra money on it, that we will

not have moved ball forward. >> thank you so much for your answers. >> one thing to add to your last question. there never will be a point in time where the secret service can declare success. every day they have to get better. it has to be a continual improvement organization and people have to have that in their d fl a. there's benchmarks or signals people can look to. but there will never be a point in time given the nature of the mission -- i don't think that good leadership would ever think that there is, where people can say, we have won, let's take a break, we can take two weeks off. it's go og to have to be a continual improvement organization like any successful football team or engineering team or military organization. that's what it's going to take. >> thank you. appreciate it. now recognize the gentle woman from michigan ms. lawrence for five minutes. >> thank you. after today's hearing my desire

is that there will no longer be any legitimate doubt that the secret service needs more resources critical to the mission that you perform. and i join with the ranking chair and the chairman of recognizing how important you are in the service that you give. we clearly know that there is areas of concern. and i feel strongly that the option of continuing the way we have in the past does not exist. and it will not be something that will be tolerated. i wanted to give you a quote that i would like to be addressed. the ranking member of the committee of homeland security, congressman thompson and i quote. he stated within next five years the secret service will provide protection through two presidential election cycles two democratic national

conventions, two republican national conventions, the 75th anniversary of the united nations and other national security special events. to his point on top of your current responsibilityies of protecting the president and protecting your area of responsibility -- we know that there's some problems with leadership resources. we're entering a period where there's going to be additional demands. my background is in hr and i know that when you start hiring and training, there is a gap in your resources. so we have to be realistic about that. for us to get where we need to be, we're going to have to pull resources that we already have. do you agree with that? >> i think that's right.

one of the concerns that the panel had -- again pointing to the chart that the chairman put up. when you don't bring on new classes, when you -- that's going to show up because the average secret service agent takes four to five to six years in the field getting trained before they show up on the president's detail, that gap in hiring is going to show up and be most acute in that four to five years down the road. so you are right that an issue with hiring that shows up today may not have an immediate affect. >> exactly. >> but will show up in the future. >> so in our planning and discussing what the expectations of our -- of improvement giving additional resources, i see with the additional responsibilities coming up that training gap, there is a concern -- additional concern.

do you agree with that concern? what is the plan to address that concern, if you agree? >> we do agree with that concern. and i think that's why our proposal of 200 additional uniform division officers and 85 additional special agents we thought that that would allow the current work force to reach training levels that we thought were acceptable. it doesn't answer the question of what is the long-term right size of the organization. and, of course, there are -- as occurs regularly on four-year cycles. the service draws from its investigative force to -- for presidential campaigns but also receives usually receives -- seeks and receives additional appropriations every four years in order to plan for those campaigns.

because the amount of travel which is very unpredictable increases. >> so i want to be clear that what we saw in the report will enable us to have an expectation that you will have the resources to address all of these concerns, because if this report or your ask for resources only takes you up to a point to cover the existing concerns, then my concern is that we're going to see additional gaps. that's my concern right now. and i wanted to be clear that in the proposal that we don't come back later and say we still don't have the resources to do the job knowing that all these additional things and the gap is going to be added. >> as an answer to that question, the proposal we made in terms of specific numbers was what we thought would address an immediate need. it was not intended to estimate

how much the 2016 political campaign would cost or the 2020 political campaign would cost. nor was it an attempt to set the long-term size of the service. as we said in the report, we think that a new director needs to do a zero base budget, needs to start from the beginning and define that and then come again to the executive branch and congress and justify that. but we do think that that immediate confusion ofinfusion of resources is needed, recognizing it's going to take some period of time for those people to be deployed as the white house. >> thank the gendtle woman. now recognize mr. meadows. >> thank you. thank you for your work, your recommendations. ms. gray, i want to come to you first. i received a number of phone calls from agents, male, female, all over the country. they have actually gotten ahold a member of congress, talked to

me. any time i get a blocked number, i know it's them. my concern is is that it sounds like there is a culture of fear within the rank and file. would you agree with that assessment having talked to so many people? >> yeah you know, i think one of the things that we heard from a number of agents is a sense of disappointment in some of their leadership. and i think this goes back to the question that was asked earlier by congressman cummings about, you know, people finding different outlets, finding a member of congress or going to the media and other things. so that's something that we hope the recommendations that we made in our report that get to a leadership that respects input from the rank and file, that provides opportunities for agents and officers to suggest changes within the organization, that gets to why we think that's very important. >> all right. let me follow up on that. if we have a culture of fear

within the service -- i'm quoting from your report. it says they do not have the confidence that discipline is imposed in a fair and consistent manner. they feel like that some people get off easier or some people get punished. would you agree with that assessment miss gray? >> we heard a number of agents and officers express disappointment in the transparency around the disciplinary process. i think over time the service has experimented with different models from having more direct supervisors imposing discipline to having discipline imposed more from central command of the secret service. and i think there has been and we heard a lot of it, a sense of disappointment in the transparency around the processes which leads to some concluding that discipline is not taken seriously. >> all right. so if we have those two issues and there's essentially another

quote from your report, a good old boy network in terms of the management, would you agree with that assessment this that's the feeling within the service? >> we heard a lot of comments. >> would that be accurate -- i'm taking it from your report. if there's a good old boy spirit of fear within management -- we're talking about resources. i think there are democrats and republicans committed to providing resources to make sure that this agency has what it needs. but my concern is is the budget last time under the director that is no longer with the service. actually asked for less money, asked to reduce the level of experience by an average of five years, actually went even further to say that they were going to reduce full-time

equivalent people. and part of the people that made up that budget request got a promotion in january of this year. do you find that that would create a real problem from a morale standpoint? >> absolutely. >> so there were seven people who got a promotion in january. what did the rank and file have to say about that? senior level executives. >> we didn't get into discussions about particular individuals or particular members of the management team. but we did hear overall a sense of disappointment with the leadership in the agency. our focus rather than on individual performance of individual members of the management team, our focus was much more thinking, you know, from the sort of bottom up what are the qualities that this agency needs to have in its management team. >> let me tell you what i have heard. i have heard from agents that said the eighth floor, they need to clean house. you have heard similar

statements like that? >> one of the most telling things that i think we heard from -- it was remarkable how consistent this was. was the rank and file saying to us, if what comes of this report is just more money, we need more resources, that's true but what we really need is leadership. we need a different dynamic leadership, whether -- not specified to one particular floor. but a clear sense from the rank and file that their confidence in the organization would really improve only if they saw substantial change at the top. >> i'm going to close with this. i made a promise to a couple of agents. there is this forcing of transferring of people across the country where they will be working for 12 years, 10 years and then they are forced to move someone there -- somewhere else.

they are encouraged in such a way that if they don't do it they may lose their clearance. is that something the panel looked into? >> we heard concerns about the transfer policies, concerns at the management level as well as at -- from the line level. so that didn't -- i think it didn't become a big part of our report, but i do think that from a budget and management standpoint, that's one of the issues that we think a new director has to look at seriously in sort of charting the future course of the organization. >> thank the gentleman. now recognize the gentleman from california mr. lou for five minutes. >> thank you -- >> miss gray if you could move your microphone a little bit more central, that would be lep ful helpful. >> thank you for your report. i think many of us agree with you that you need better

leadership. but hard to lead without the appropriate resources. and i want to sort of give -- i want to respond to what a member stated. because our law enforcement had increase in funding. therefore, the secret service must also have had adequate funding. but in fact, that's not true, right? hasn't the budget remained flat while your missions have actually increased in complexity? >> i think there has been an increase in mission. and i think what we looked at and talked about in our report -- something that gave us confidence that the 285 recommendation that we made for immediate needs was adding 85 agents to the president's protective detail would really only bring it up to where it was in 2004. now, that's not the budget of the entire organization. and there are folks doing the investigative mission and so the

organization's budget has increased over time. for the uniform division, adding 200 would not bring it to its high water mark. we thought it was important to do today. as we said, we think serious look at what is the right size, what are the right missions to keep, and maybe to shed. we think it is going to take more money, once that plan is put together. but it's not to say that all of it is new money. >> now, i have a question for you. immediately prior member asked a question, and sort of stated that folks last year requested a smaller budget. was that because they were ordered to do so, because of sequestration? they just had to come up with numbers to meet a certain threshold? >> i don't think we can speak really about what happened precisely in another budget process. there's no question that -- and again, i think we talk about this in our report. i think we found that the service did, as perhaps other agencies do, is they look at what they have.

they think about what they might be able to get through the agency, the omb, and through congress, and they ask for a little bit more. and they maybe asked for a little bit more in an area that they think might be one that congress is interested in funding. our concern is that over time, what happened with the service is that they weren't continuing to increase their staffing. they weren't asking necessarily modeling, and making decisions about how much they really needed. and at some point, over a number of years, what they had and what they needed really diverged. and in no small part because the mission continued to increase, the protective mission and investigative mission. >> representative lawrence had read from bennie thompson's letter to us. i'm going to read another part of the letter. it says, the budget request combined with the reduction of appropriations have left the

agency struggling to meet the multi-faceted mission and failing to meet our expectations. i assume you agree with that? >> yes. >> okay. so mr. chairman, with unanimous consent, i ask that ranking member thompson's full statement be entered into the official hearing record. >> without objection, so ordered. >> all right. so i'm very pleased that you're here to issue the report, and i hope we can begin the process of restoring both the secret service as well as protections through homeland, and we can do that by first of all passing a clean dhs bill. so i yield back. >> would my friend yield? my friend here? would you yield? >> i will yield. >> i thank my friend. mr. perrelli, in response to mr. lew, the fact that 85 more uniformed personnel would only bring us back to the level of 2004, i for one am stunned by that. but isn't it also about

turnover? i mean, part of the problem with the agency is not just how many uniformed people we've got, but how long they're there. they're being raided by other agencies. i'm going to get into inadequate training in my period of time. it's unbelievable -- i mean, the average tenure of a uniformed person is what? >> i don't have that figure at my fingertips, but turnover is high. you know, in no small part because uniform divisions have a tssi clearance and full polygraph, making them very attractive candidates for other law enforcement jobs as well. there's no question that turnover is high. and that's something that as we talked about in our report, that there is a need to make a decision, make a set of choices about what the uniform division needs to be. and that will drive how you think about investment in the uniform division or how you might change its mission. we propose two different paths

in the report. but left it to a new director to make that call. >> thank you. and i thank my colleague. >> if the gentleman will yield, i'm sure our chairman will give him more time. i would also like to enter into the record, consent to enter the department of homeland security appropriations bill. this was may 29th, 2013. i want to read from this. it says, the committee, the appropriations committee, is concerned that the president's budget request creates a pay shortfall, reduction in at least 376 ftes from the secret service in fiscal year 2014, and fundamentally alters the dual mission of the secret service. at the current rate of attrition, by fiscal year 2018, the secret service work force would have been decimated by the loss of more than 1,500 ftes. you can put up the slide here on the funding levels. you'll find that congress actually appropriated more than

what the president asked for. it does get to the core of what this panel found, which is, they don't have a zero based budgeting approach. they don't necessarily have the talent in place to do it. when you're entering into a dos operating system, their time codes, they don't know exactly when these people are working. the feedback we both got is they're terribly frustrated. they don't get adequately compensated. nobody understands what they're really trying to go through. and then they end up with 25 minutes of training time in an entire year. and so we share a responsibility in making sure -- that's why i'm glad we're providing this oversight. the panel has illuminated a lot of these things. i do hope we work in a bipartisan basis to make sure the agents and officers, we understand what they're going through, and that we get those staffing levels up. because you combine the lack of staffing, the drop in that, the drop in reduction in training,

and you've got a vortex of vulnerability that is totally unacceptable. with that, my time more than expired, i recognize the gentleman from florida. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for leading the mission over the secret service this morning. it was good to see that. i will just comment on the state of the dhs bill in the senate. what you have is a minority of senators taking a position that they will not even allow that bill to be debated. no debate at all. unless the president is allowed to issue 5 million work permits and social security numbers to people in the country illegally, which is, of course, contrary to statute and something he said could not do previously. to me, i think that's absolutely irresponsible that you won't even have this debate. this is a critical constitutional issue. and i think the country deserves better.

and so a, quote, clean bill, would not include any funding for this radical policy change. a clean bill would just focus on funding, the core functions of dhs that they had traditionally done without the new policy that the president unilaterally implemented. let me ask you this. this is probably outside of what you guys were tasked with doing. but mr. filip, i'll just ask you to start. how has -- because some of the problems that i think you identified are great. need more leadership, better administrative capacity, too much insularity, low morale. how has the transition of the secret service from treasury to dhs, i know it's been 12 years, 13 years now, having it being a bigger bureaucracy with more red tape, to me that would exacerbate these problems. can you comment on whether the secret service is better served, having been in dhs? >> thank you, congressman. we did not focus on that question, given that we just had a couple months' time.

and we thought we had an awfully big agenda just on the core safety issues. i suspect the agency could be improved within dhs, or within treasury. i'm sure there are strong arguments on each side. and we heard arguments exactly like you just shared to the pro-treasury side. we've heard arguments to the pro-dhs side. >> were these line agents, or people who said that they liked treasury better? were they more administrators? >> it generally -- they were people who brought up the subject, people who had been with the secret service for a long period of time. and thus, had been in both places. and there are were a variety of uses. and there were an override as you would expect. but naturally folks who only know one thing, that's what they tend to be what they think about. people with different options see strengths and weaknesses to each. >> mr. hagin, were you working in the white house when this

change was made? if i read your bio correctly? >> i was. >> can you comment on looking back, either during the course of your investigation, or using your experience, because it just seems to me that when you have more bureaucracy, and you put these folks in an even bigger maze, you talk about personnel. the funding is much different when you have all these agencies in dhs than it would have been at treasury. can you provide any insight into how you see that issue? >> there was a decision that all enforcement was leaving treasury. so the question really was, at least in my involvement, was justice department, homeland security, where does the -- where is the natural fit. when you look at the department of homeland security, you have coast guard who regularly on a routine basis supports the secret service quite a bit, with aerial support, motorcades,

other things like that. you have tsa who has been supporting the secret service with magnetometers, especially during political campaigns when they are stretched very, very thin. there's a lot of support from sister agencies within dhs. and that was looked at. >> but you also, the secret service does get support from the fbi and from other agencies who are outside of homeland security, correct? >> not to the extent, i think, that you see with coast guard and tsa. >> do you think that the change, to move the secret service into dhs -- the tsa is a new creation of that, but there was obviously a coast guard before that. so the secret service's interactions with the coast guard and the support that the coast guard has provided has actually been enhanced by having a department of homeland security?