South Florida’s Port Everglades Considers Private Contractors Over County Sheriff
As September 11, 2001 fades into memory for some and the economy continues to produce low revenue, more ports and facilities will look to security to cut overall operating expenses. Seeing the impact of post 9/11 security costs from this single port, $4 million prior to the attack and $25 million after, it’s tough to be critical of any practice they consider for the chopping block a decade later. The cost estimate doesn’t take port expansion or other factors into account, but that significant of an increase shows the shift in focus for port managers following the attacks.
Although expenses need to be reviewed and scrutinized in the current economic situation, I would caution any port, facility, business, etc to make decisions based on complacency, on the fact there hasn’t been another successful large scale attack. The threat is still present, the ideology continues to spread, and the fight is ongoing.
More than 70 Broward Sheriff’s Office employees working at Port Everglades could be replaced with private guards under a cost-cutting proposal from seaport administrators that union leaders say could jeopardize security. The port’s plan calls for eliminating all of its Sheriff’s Office community service aides, civilian employees who staff the four entrance gates, direct traffic and patrol what is on track to become the world’s largest cruise hub. Replacing them with guards from the private sector could shave about $2.5 million yearly from the port’s budget, said Port Director Phillip Allen. Allen said he’s attempting to “right size” port security, but the union representing the community service aides questions whether the change would expose the port to heightened threats, including terrorism. The Federation of Public Employees argues that private guards lack the aides’ training and sense of professionalism.
“Anyone seriously viewing such private security guards as being capable of properly protecting our seaport … against infiltration by organized crime networks and as potential terrorist targets has simply failed to do the necessary research,” Scott Perrin, a master steward for the union, wrote the Broward County Commission. In recent years, community service aides have identified stolen vehicles and stopped weapons from getting into the port. If the port moves forward with its privatization plan, BSO would be forced to lay off 79 of its 232 aides on a last-hired, first-fired basis, Sheriff Al Lamberti said.
Port administrators also are scrutinizing whether they need 57 deputies working there as called for by the port’s contract with BSO, which expires Oct. 1. The Sheriff’s Office, security, fire-rescue and emergency services, account for 34 percent of the port’s operating expenses. Lamberti said one of the port’s proposals for cutting costs is to eliminate as many as 30 deputy positions. Allen said the number being considered is nowhere near that high, but declined to elaborate, saying he didn’t want to negotiate through the media.
The decisions about port security ultimately must be made by the Broward County Commission as it sets next year’s budget. Port Everglades is an economic powerhouse generating $14 billion in business activity statewide and impacting an estimated 143,185 jobs. The entry point for South Florida’s gasoline and diesel fuel, if it were shut down the region’s transportation system would be crippled.
Just a decade ago, access to the port was open, with people able to drive through it to get to the beach. But in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorism attack, screening measures were put in place and the security budget swelled from $4 million to about $25 million. Port Everglades is the only one of Florida’s 14 seaports that contracts with local law enforcement to staff its gates. Port of Miami uses its own employees, while the other ports hire private security firms, said Michael Rubin, vice president of the Florida Ports Council, a trade organization.
Allen said it makes economic sense to shift to private security firms that perform similar jobs at other ports. Private security firms already work at Port Everglades in the cruise terminals and cargo yards, he said. “It’s not a matter of performance issues [with the community service aides],” Allen said. “It’s a matter of cost and how can we spend the dollars wisely. … We have reduced our operating expenses the last three years with the exception of BSO. Now it is time for contract renewal, it is time for reducing security costs.”
Fred McCrone, a business representative for the aides’ union, said that by contracting out security, the port could be left with low-paid, relatively inexperienced guards deciding who is allowed entry. The number of people guarding the port could be reduced if Port Everglades administrators focused on installing new security equipment, especially for a “failing camera system,” McCrone said. He said that of the 413 security cameras at the port, as many as half are routinely out of operation. Allen called those numbers inaccurate, and said that of the port’s approximately 300 cameras, fewer than 20 currently require maintenance.
Sheriff Al Lamberti said he has a good relationship with port officials and that contract negotiations are still under way. He said he’s concerned how a private security firm would work with BSO and other law enforcement agencies, including Coast Guard, Border Patrol and the Drug Enforcement Administration, present at the port. He pointed to how in December 2008, one of his community service aides recognized two men wanted in the Dunkin’ Donut robbery spree as they tried to enter Port Everglades to board a ship for the Bahamas. The aide tipped off a Sheriff’s deputy and the suspects were arrested at the checkpoint. “If a private security company was on that gate, those guys probably would have made it through the gate and out of the country,” Lamberti said.
Filed Under: News
There are some places where private security is appropriate. Protection of critical infrastructure is NOT one of them.
So how do you explain the use of private security at DOE sites and the use of WPPS by the DOD and DOS???
This was posted more to bring attention to post 9/11 security costs and funding issues at ports than to debate government vs contractor security services. I’ll let the port director and staff debate which one is better suited for their facility.
It’s unfortunate that the entire document I sent to the Commission was never made public. In it I explain that private security that “Protect” DOE, DOD, National Symbols, Etc… are in way over their heads as the records of third party expert reports point out.
Like, the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002.
As Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations explained when testifying before Congress on March 20, 2003,
“On October 12, 2001, I had the opportunity to testify before this committee at its first post 9-11 hearing on homeland security. At that time, I asserted that “the economic and societal disruption created by the September 11 attacks has opened Pandora’s box. Future terrorists bent on challenging U.S. power will draw inspiration from the seeming ease at which America could be attacked and they will be encouraged by the mounting costs to the U.S. economy and the public psyche associated with the ad-hoc efforts to restore security following that attack.”
“We cannot afford to be penny-wise and pound foolish in advancing this vital agenda.”
“But the fallout from a terrorist attack on any one of the nation’s major commercial seaports would hardly be a local matter. For instance, should al Qaeda or one of its imitator organizations succeed in sinking a large ship in the Long Beach channel, the auto-dependent southern California will literally run out of gas within two weeks. This is because, as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita highlighted, US petroleum refineries are operating at full throttle and their products are consumed almost as quickly as they are made. If the crude oil shipments stop, so too do the refineries and there is no excess capacity or refined fuels to cope with a long term disruption.”
I won’t copy the entire seven page report for the sake of brevity but the issues you have questioned here have also been addressed.
Of the states that keep applicant histories, it has been found that about 7.3 percent of applicants (Over 96,000) for private security positions were rejected, primarily for having criminal backgrounds.
Over the years, criminals have landed jobs as security guards. Some didn’t go through background checks. Others were subject only to one state’s checks, which didn’t find criminal records in other states. Stories of guards beating, raping and robbing the people they were hired to protect have not only hurt the industry’s image but destroyed any semblance of the feasibility of protecting our seaport and airport here in Broward.
New Jersey Democratic congressman, Rep. Robert Andrews, said, “How much is it worth not to have one criminal guarding a nuclear power plant?”
“This is one area where doing things on the cheap is a really bad idea,” Andrews said.
The New York Daily News reported that security companies hired by the state to protect the Statue of Liberty and other state and military facilities employed hundreds of unlicensed guards, including former convicts.
In Atlanta, federal investigators found that private security guards employed by the federal government to protect four federal buildings were easily duped by undercover investigators.
The investigators were able to talk their way through security without identification and slip weapons into the buildings. In one security breach, an investigator who entered a building with no ID persuaded a security guard to give him a pass and a special access code to enter the building at night.
The security businesses’ own trade group, representing the largest firms, acknowledges the industry as a whole isn’t ready to recognize signs of terrorism and respond to an attack.
“I would have to say no,” said Joseph Ricci, executive director of the National Association of Security Companies, when asked whether most guards are trained to protect the homeland. “Companies that hire private guards began spending more for security after September 11, 2001, but then began cutting back. We’ve become complacent because we haven’t had attacks.”
Nobody knows how private security guards would perform in an actual terrorist attack, but several incidents serve as potential warnings:
• In September 2004, at the Energy Department’s enriched uranium stockpile plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., a force of armed contract guards ran through the dark to confront “intruders” — a team of guards conducting a mock attack. Some guards and outside watchdog groups said there was sufficient confusion to potentially cause an accidental shooting. Bryan Wilkes, an Energy Department spokesman, disputed the account, saying, “No accidental shooting came close to happening.”
• In fall 2005, an envelope with suspicious powder was opened by guards at the Washington headquarters of the Homeland Security Department. The guards carried the substance past the office of Secretary Michael Chertoff, took it outside and then shook it outside Chertoff’s window without evacuating people nearby. The powder turned out to be harmless.
• Since September 2001, guards have been caught napping or playing computer games at nuclear power plants, and one was caught dozing at a federal courthouse. Three security workers were investigated for “inattentiveness” at Three Mile Island in 2005, said Ralph DeSantis, a spokesman for the nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa., the site in 1979 of the nation’s worst nuclear accident.
• Guards with criminal backgrounds have committed criminal offenses on and off duty in numerous cities.
To close my comments here I would ask anyone who remembers the day September 11th 2001 happened to ask themselves this:
If you lived next door to one of the Critical Infrastructure Ports in this Nation would you roll the dice?
Thank you,
Scott Perrin
Master Steward
Federation of Public Employees