Root of this problem, and i hope you succeed. The secret service has an immensely incredible job, very important job as you know. One of the most important jobs we have out here with our forces. Good luck to you. Were here for you as well but we do demand some accountability. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Young our boys are atwill employees. Their boys are not atwill employees. Thats one of the differences. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I knew you would find that answer. Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Director, thank you for your distinguished career in the secret service and for stepping up and taking over this agency at such a difficult time. When i was a young boy i always looked up the secret service, wow. I always think of the Important Mission that you all have. And i share the sentiments with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We want you to succeed. This is something that is important for our country, and its a difficult time. Weve heard about the different problems that the individual agents have had. I just after listening to some of the comments, want to ask you this. At the fundamental base of any profession when someone is going through training, we heard from one of our colleagues in the military, i was trained in the profession of law. There is a great judge, our chairman. There are certain fundamentals that are imparted in the recruitment process and in the training process. Youve inherited this service. I guess my question for you is, how do you impart the values the good inherent values of the secret service to the recruits and bring that through the training process so that when an agent comes to the point of becoming an agent, these issues are something that he or she would just stand up and say no to . I think that seems to be one of the fundamental problems that weve inherited. Id like your thoughts on that sir. Youre exactly right. In terms of our hiring and recruiting process its a 7 to 9month process and everyone gets a polygraph a background check. Theyre thoroughly checked out. Then when we get them into our training, they are given classes on ethics, professionalism, and its driven home. Somewhere after that training is where we lose them. And i think thats because of my leadership our leadership, that somewhere we lose them where they forget those lessons learned. And i think the only way we get that back is by, again the account accountability that we drive home so people realize there are consequences to individual behavior. I harken back to the different professions. There is conditioned training for those professionals who go through either annual or semiannual updates as to whats expected of them. Is that going to be part of the process, sir . We do fiveyear updates to go back into our neighborhoods and make sure theyre good citizens and so on. We do continuously do training throughout their careers. But in many ways, it comes to individual accountability. Each of us, if you see someone in your presence not performing properly, weve got to step up individually and correct it as well as of course supervisors have to do it. As an agency, weve just got to Work Together to try to get through this. Yes, sir. When can the committee expect your reports of professional reviews required by the secret service as of the 2015 Homeland Security appropriations act . And as a followup to that, do you intend in that report, sir, to address concerns that have been raised on both sides today . Im sure that will be addressed in that report. I dont have a date. Does anyone have a in the near future, but well give you a more definitive date, sir, once we conclude this hearing. Thank you. And mr. Clancy i do wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, sir. With that i yield back. Thank you for yielding. Ive been looking at some numbers over here while we were talking. In my estimate, you have about 4,600 people in your agency who either carry a weapon or are eligible to carry a weapon. So mr. Stewart made a good example. Youre not in the army youre not in the military. You have an armed force under your command, 4,600 armed men and women. Thats a huge responsibility. Yes, sir. Thats the kind of responsibility the chiefs of police in major cities have when they have that responsibility. The chain of command has to be rigid to maintain the kind of discipline that is necessary to handle an armed force. Its just that simple. Its by its definition, its a dangerous group of people. Whether it be the use of the Police Department or whether it be be your force. Okay . Now, the concern we hear is that let me say something. On the oji i think i know why you did that, because you wanted to make sure this was a clean investigation from the start. Im not criticizing any igs here. It can also be a place to go away for a while and you take a long time on the ig investigation before it becomes a current event again in washington, d. C. And a lot can calm things down in that period of time. And having had experience in our Veterans Administration with some of the ig investigations and the results of those investigations, they can be disappointing. So i dont want this to be a policy of, well we got a problem. Part of the time the igs get their job done, im going to forget about the problem. Because im not going to forget about the problem. I dont think anyone up here will forget about the problem. The ig better light a fire under themselves and get a response to us very promptly as to whats going on here. But in reality youre the head. Youve got people above you in the chain, but you are in charge of these armed people. Yes, sir. And there has to be a strict chain of command. The managers of those people should be all over them today. If these two people were Senior Management you should be all over them today. And i realize youve got union contracts, youve got, you know, Civil Service issues and all those issues to protect the worker sometimes to the detriment of the agency. Its a weakness that i find appalling appalling. One of the things that if i could wave a magic wand to fix in washington i would think the ability to not terminate someone for dangerous or bad behavior immediately, quite honestly, i think is unacceptable. But its not your fault. That is the way it is. I recognize that. But in turn, youre in command. Youre the twostar. Youve got a division under your command. And you got to make sure that everyone in your command and control structure are meeting that obligation. If everybody is just sitting around watching me talk on television to figure out what it is, you know, i can chew their ass, too. But thats not my job. Thats your job and the people in the chain of command. It needs to be done whether the ig is making a recommendation or not. I think its a barrel push, barrel bump at a tape break. But youre both holding badges. Why not get out of the car and go to the scene and say, whats going on, as to being so arrogant to think you can in intrude in a crime scene. If they are stone sober, you need to ask them, do you think youre so big in this agency you think you can drive through one of my tapedoff crime scenes . That should be something they get called to the carpet for. If they were stone sober they were arrogant. Yes, sir. And part of it you can have an agency like you have is people who think they dont put their pants on one leg at a time like everybody else. Yes, sir. Theyre superman so they can act like superman. They cant act like superman. Thats what were all talking about up here. Your job right now some of these reports told the president not to hire outside the agency, so youve got a big responsibility, because you got 30 years of friends, but youve also got to start jerking a knott inknot in their tail. Yes, sir. And thats your job. When i met you i believed you were the guy who could do it. I still believe youre the guy who can do it but recognize what your authority is and exercise that authority. Thats not a question. I just wanted to say that because i think sometimes we get so off acting like bureaucrats, we forget you are a dangerous bunch of people. Yes, sir. As dangerous people, you have to be a set chain of command regulated from top to bottom. Or something dangerous is going to happen. Yes, sir. Thats what were all worried about here. We dont want anybody under your tutelage to get hurt or to allow someone theyre supposed to be protecting to get hurt whether its the president , the pope, the people at the u. N. Or whatever. Those are big responsibilities, and i think your chain of command is haywire. Yes, sir. Work on that. Yes, sir. Ms. Allen . Thank you mr. Chairman. Let me just disassociate myself with comments that were made by the chairman. I, too believe that youre up to the task and can do it. Last december the panel made a lot of recommendations for training handling, leadership and what happens at the complex. What can you tell me about your schedule for fulfilling those recommendations, particularly in regards to improvements of the replacement of the white house fence . And is the budget request sufficient for allowing you to fulfill all the panels recommendations as expeditiously as possible . First of all, the budget request is definitely a good step forward. And the recommendations from the panel. The ones we can do short term have been completed such as adding additional posts or some enhancements of security around the complex. The ones that are more longer term, as you mentioned the fence. We are in the process of the by the end of april i should get some options to choose what is the best new fence or new structure to protect the complex there. And with the National Park service, well make a decision on where to go with that. But even after we pick and choose that option, then we go into a design stage at six months. Then a procurement stage maybe two months. Then the construction phase. So its still going to take almost a year and a half to complete that project. However, we have been testing at our facility some interim measure for the fences. Putting something on top of the fence that will deter people from climbing and will prevent people from getting over in a timely manner. So we recognize that thats a long time to wait a year and a half. So were looking at an interim measure to go in place this summer if we can get the property approvals. The Admission Panel also recommended that the next director, which would be you, conduct an honest top to bottom reassessment of the agency and that he and this is a quote move the service forward into an era and drive change in the organization. What are you putting into place to help you look more broadly at the agencys practices processes and activities to identify places where improvements are needed so that the initial training of new agents you know, isnt lost and senior members help to reinforce the ethics and the training that young agents get rather than whatever is happening today . Overall, we have begun a restructuring of the executive staff. First of all, with bringing in some new Staff Members with new ideas and reinvigorate some of the things that we want to do in the agency. But additionally, were em empowering and elevating our civilian subject matter experts. Just as an example, traditionally the secret service has had a director and deputy director. We now have, and it should go out next week a Vacancy Announcement for a chief operating officer that will be on the same level as that deputy director. That chief operating officer will ensure that the businesses run correctly, efficiently and weve put under this chief operating officer positions that traditionally have been agentheld positions. Were using for example, the chief Financial Officer. Traditionally the chief Financial Officer has answered to an agent. Now weve elevated the chief Financial Officer so that we do a better job in the budget world. The same with our technology. Typically that director was run by an agent. Weve moved our engineer and chief Technology Officer now to run that director. We have a nationwide search right now for a civilian private spector cio, chief information officer. So we want to leverage their experiences, their professionalism, their subject matter expertise in our agency. Now, additionally, on the operational side, you mentioned the training piece of it. Ive split them out to recognize training and the hiring process. Specifically the training were now spending a lot of time ensuring that people get the right integrated training that they need. Since september 19 uniform Division Training has been increased 110 . The agent training has increased 78 . Thats we got to sustain that, though. And thats why weve got this new directorate for training, to sustain the training for that level of people that they need. They need that training. In answer to your question were restructuring the management of the agency. Thank you. The director general have come up with other things to implement. Have you implemented all of them, or what still needs to be done on those recommendations . To protect the mission . Yes. The longer term projects for example, you mentioned earlier the training facility, the mockup of the white house. We feel thats important. Right now we use we train on a parking lot, basically. We put up a makeshift fence and walk off the distance between the fence at the white house and the actual house itself. And we dont have on that parking lot we dont have the bushes, we dont have the fountains, we dont get a realistic look at the white house. Even our canine theyre responding on hard surfaces rather than grass. We think its important to have a true replica of what the white house is so we can do a better job of this integrated training between our uniformed officers our agents and our tactical teams. In fact, when i mention tactical teams, i think special forces before they go out to do a special operation, typically they have a model built first so they know what theyre getting into. Thats where we would like to be. We would like to have a good mockup of the white house where we can train, i think, more efficiently. When you look at the secret service, you got to look at the employees that are there, and then the employees that will be there. That is, the hopefully a diverse hiring process. What how will you focus on the folks and i know youve gone over this, but just summarize on the employees that are there and the new hires that will be coming in to make sure that you dont compound the problem. There is, of course continual training. You mean the problem we had recently . Well, the problems have been going on for years. Yes, youre right. We have continuous training. We hit it hard in the first seven months of training when theyre first hired, as well as the background check that we do. We look for any insufficiencies in the background check and the polygraph. We lose a significant number of people because of the polygraph. Were looking for that character. We think were hiring very good people. Then we go through that sevenmonth training that the ethics and professionalism is stressed, as well as the operational peels ofiece of our job. Although we continue to train, we continue to give classes on ethics and professionalism throughout their career i think as much as anything it has to be how do we react to this misconduct . How do we hold people accountable . I think thats the piece that may be missing, and thats the piece that its my responsibility to ensure that we hold people accountable. Do you lose a lot of people by attrition . We lose a lot of people by attrition. More recently, i would say, because of their quality of life. When youre working 12 hours a day and you think you have the next day off, and its canceled, the amount of travel they do and the stress that were under. I know maybe folks dont want to hear us talk about that. I apologize, sir. Do you lose them to other agencies or do you lose them to the private sector . We lose them to other agencies. But what ive done since ive come here, for example Uniformed Division. Ive encouraged and insisted that these Uniformed Division officers who want to roll over to special agent positions, weve got to make that happen. We cant do it all at once, but weve got to make more of an effort to let them become agents because they want to experience that side of our agency. If we dont do that and weve invested a lot of money to them. If we dont do that, theyll go to another agency or the private sector. And we lose the investment that you all have supported. I dont know how diverse your work force is but do you work with historically universities or hispanic institutions to expand the pool . You can have a small pool, and then as you vet them, you lose a lot. But if you expand the pool, do you work with those universities to look for potential recruits . Part of this i have to go on memory. I know that we did, and over the last few years, just our overall hiring process has been limited. But now were back on track and we are going to go out to those colleges. This fiscal year 16 weve asked for additional moneys so we can have these hiring fairs at these universities and in these in the military as well. To get a good Diverse Group of people that we can hire. Ive got about 45 seconds. Just real quickly. The secret service has a tradition, but lately its taken a black eye. How do you expect to turn this around quickly . Because weve heard other folks sitting exactly where youre at. How do we take your new initiative to say, this will be different this time . It has to start with building that trust and part of building that trust is how we hold people accountable. And that peoples views matter. That were listening to whether youre a brand new agent, officer or professional, that were listening to your concerns. And then we have to act on those concerns. If we dont act on their concerns and show their value, show their concerns are of value, then theyre going to lose interest and were going to have these discipline problems. But weve got to do a better job of communicating, mentoring, teaching, and each of us, whether youre a supervisor or not, have to take responsibility to ensure that these types of events dont happen. I wish you the best. Thank you. Mr. Clancy, you mentioned in your statement zerobased budgeting. One of the Mission Panel recommendations is the need for a new budget structure that is zerobased or missionbased as its subject matter. How is this different from the budget presented in your fiscal year 2016 quest . What type of budget reform is being considered . And how will it be implemented . How might a new type of budget drive future funding needs . Have you already identified gaps