Statement on FY 2025 Budget Request for The Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers

5/21/2024

THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

Chairman Murphy, Ranking Member Britt, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony. As President of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), I have the honor of leading a union that represents employees at 34 federal agencies, including over 675 instructors and support personnel at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) at their headquarters facility located in Glynco, Georgia and facilities in Artesia, NM, Charleston, SC, and Cheltenham, MD. FLETC is the Nation’s largest provider of law enforcement training to federal law enforcement personnel. Of significant relevance to this committee, U.S. Capitol Police officers receive their basic training at FLETC. The law enforcement officers (LEOs) that are charged with protecting the Congressional Leadership also receive their protective service operations training at FLETC. NTEU is requesting that Congress provide an additional $56.7 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 to FLETC for instructors, tuition, facilities, and other costs related to training of needed new LEOs nationwide, including NTEU-represented Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers at the 328 air, sea, and land ports of entry.

FLETC’s mission is to train those who protect the homeland, and therefore, in addition to training federal LEOs, state, local, county, and tribal departments throughout the United States also receive training at FLETC. Additionally, FLETC’s impact extends outside our nation’s borders through international training and capacity-building activities. Under a collaborative training model, FLETC provides training in areas common to all law enforcement officers, such as firearms, driving, tactics, use of force, active shooter training, tactical medical response, arrest techniques, criminal investigations, interviewing, protective service operations, and legal training. FLETC also conducts agency specific training, advanced training programs, and in-service training for partners throughout the law enforcement community.

Since NTEU was elected as the exclusive bargaining representative for FLETC employees, NTEU has worked with FLETC leadership on several issues of concern. Some of these ongoing issues include increasing the number of full-time permanent instructor staff, improving training facilities and office space, increasing the quality of training that instructors and support staff receive, increasing the quality of training for the students, and improving morale.

FLETC Staffing Levels and Staff Training

FLETC’s ability to provide the highest quality training is consistently harmed due to inadequate funding and resources. And the need for training continues to grow. For example, Congress and the Administration are both seeking increased staffing for CBP LEOs at the southwest border and land ports and CBP basic training classes will need to be increased to train these new LEOs. FLETC is also the sole administrator of the CBP Driver Training Program (CBP-DTP), which provides CBP Officers with the training necessary to safely engage in emergency driving and vehicle pursuits. Over the past several years, these classes, along with other add-on and advanced courses have been cancelled due to FLETC staffing levels and strained resources.

NTEU also represents 29,000 CBP employees, most of whom are trained at FLETC including over 25,000 CBP Officers at the ports of entry. CBP recently testified before Congress that due to the fact that CBP Officers hired prior to July 6, 2008, will all be eligible for 20-year LEO retirement in 2028, the agency expects CBP Officer retirements will increase by 400 percent that year. Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller testified that this attrition will need to be addressed by over-hiring of CBP Officers in FY 2026 and 2027 and “we need to fund the Academy” because these new hires will need to be trained at FLETC. CBP officials also testified that the most recent CBP Officer Workload Staffing Model shows an immediate need to fund and hire over 4,000 new CBP Officers which, if funded, will also need to be trained.

Unfortunately, past leadership at FLETC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have failed to both acknowledge and address these persistent funding issues. NTEU is optimistic that the recently appointed Director of FLETC and former CBP Acting Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Huffman, recognizes the funding challenges faced by the Agency and has plans to address them. NTEU and FLETC Chapter 338 will strive to work with Director Huffman to address issues and secure necessary additional funding and increases in permanent staffing levels at FLETC.

NTEU was encouraged when the February 2024 Senate bi-partisan border supplemental bill negotiated by Senators James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Kirsten Sinema (I-AZ) with the Administration included an additional $56.7 million for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers for instructors, tuition, facilities, and other costs related to training the new border enforcement hires funded by the bill. Unfortunately, despite broad bipartisan support, this border supplemental did not move forward and the Administration’s FY 2025 funding request calls for a reduction of $43 million in discretionary appropriations and adds only 2 full-time equivalent positions. This is wholly inadequate to address the training needs of our law enforcement officers.

The lack of staffing in a number of FLETC divisions, across multiple FLETC sites, has negatively affected the morale of the staff, increased burnout, and virtually eliminated the ability of staff to attend training programs to improve their own skill sets. FLETC instructors continue to shoulder increases in daily workload and student contact hours, while also increasing their responsibilities and collateral duties. The student to instructor ratio continues to widen, making it difficult for instructors to provide high levels of training to all students. Providing high quality training to the instructor staff themselves continues to be an afterthought in many divisions at FLETC.

The Agency has said that they do not have the required staffing levels or funding necessary to train their own trainers to the level of excellence expected from the partner organizations and the public. Ironically, most trainers at FLETC actually receive minimal ongoing training themselves. Often, students attending courses at FLETC have attended more recent and relevant training programs than the instructors delivering the material. Excellence in training requires trainers to be provided with the best training themselves, which must include training provided by experienced and proven private and governmental entities. FLETC does offer some world-class training programs internally, but these, in and of themselves, are insufficient to meet the current needs of many of our instructor staff. Additional hiring, training, and certifications are also needed by maintenance and garage staff members, who are often responsible for providing services they have never been trained to provide or lack the equipment to adequately provide it.

Fifty percent of the instructor requirements for basic and advanced training, as well as the tuition for basic training are provided through appropriations. FLETC receives reimbursable resources to fund the remaining 50 percent of instructor requirements and other training costs incurred by FLETC. According to our FLETC bargaining unit members, this funding does not meet current needs. Over the past several years, FLETC has suspended the hiring of permanent instructor staff because of fears that the Agency will be unable to meet financial obligations in the event of a long government shutdown or another COVID-type shutdown. As a result, the previous FLETC Director focused on hiring term employees and previously retired employees. This approach has massively increased the staff turnover and exacerbated problems with training quality.

For decades, FLETC has also struggled to hire current federal law enforcement officers and agents because the instructor salary levels and benefits are simply not commensurate with their prior positions. Nearly all federal law enforcement officers are GS-12 and GS-13 salary levels. And in their positions, they often receive significant overtime pay. As a result, current officers and agents are disincentivized to even consider an instructor position at FLETC since most are not willing to accept a pay cut of more than 25-40%.

These salary limitations have led FLETC to consistently target their hiring of FLETC instructors to the local areas surrounding FLETC locations, focusing mostly on state and local officers as opposed to federal officers and agents. FLETC instructor ranks should be filled with a blend of local, state, and federal law enforcement backgrounds that represent the student clientele they teach. To accomplish this, they will need to pay instructors more to attract qualified federal candidates.

FLETC Facilities and Fleet

FLETC facilities and the vehicle fleet are also an ongoing concern for NTEU. Instructors continue to sit in offices and classrooms not designed for long-term usage and are falling apart, suffering from chronic and unfixable problems. Classrooms contain televisions with outdated and dysfunctional audio/video systems. Past managers in the Facilities Management Division have openly stated that they have no defined lifecycle plan for buildings and other facilities at FLETC.

Bargaining unit staff within the Facilities division have also had consistent increases in their responsibilities and the scope of their positions. They are tasked with doing jobs they were not hired to do or trained to do. FLETC Facilities Division and the Fleet/Garage need drastic increases in funding to meet the current needs of FLETC, to include the hiring of additional qualified staff.

NTEU is optimistic that FLETC Director Huffman will address these shortfalls and continue to improve the training environment at all FLETC sites. Chapter 338 is pleased to see FLETC leadership continuing to focus on increasing access to wellness programs, seminars, retirement training courses, and other related programs at FLETC. Unfortunately, due to class scheduling requirements, it continues to be difficult for many of the staff to attend these opportunities. NTEU also encourages FLETC to embrace the new DHS initiative to increase the number of work hours allotted to fitness and wellness from 3 hours to 5 hours per week. An increase in overall staffing numbers will allow more staff to participate in these important programs, improving overall well-being, health, and morale.

At this moment, the number one priority at FLETC must be to hire quality and competent permanent staff members to train the new federal LEOs funded in the final FY 2024 Homeland Security Appropriations deal. NTEU requests that Congress provides an additional $56.7 million in FY 2025 to FLETC for instructors, tuition, facilities, and other costs related to training new federal LEOs nationwide.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this FY 2025 appropriations request on behalf of the exceptional employees at FLETC. We encourage you to speak with the frontline instructor and support staff at FLETC to hear their concerns directly. They are some of the greatest instructors in the world and their insight and skillset is critical to FLETC’s vision of being a true center of excellence.