Officials describe rosy future for problem-plagued background check system overhaul

Two government officials said Tuesday that pending changes to the federal background check system could soon reduce the amount of time it takes to onboard new agency employees, assuming the changes are implemented in a timely fashion. 

The program to build a new IT system to support Trusted Workforce 2.0, a government-wide initiative to enable continuous vetting of federal employees, is over budget and years behind schedule. 

Matthew C. Eanes — the director of the Performance Accountability Council Program Management Office, an interagency group tasked with implementing credentialing reform — said the legacy IT system is outdated and limiting. 

“It's almost like heroic that they can get the work done that they get done today,” he told the audience at the Professional Services Council’s Defense Conference. 

Eanes said an implementation strategy for the National Background Investigation Services IT system would be released this week. Similarly, David Cattler, the director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, which is responsible for NBIS, previously told a congressional panel that a new cost estimate for the program would be completed by October. 

Ultimately, Eanes said the goal is for initial low-risk background checks to take no more than 25 days, moderate-risk no more than 40 days and high-risk no more than 75 days. 

Eanes also brought up the Transparency of Reciprocity Information System, or ToRIS, which is a new system designed to promote reciprocity when employees change intelligence agencies, although he said that there’s not currently an implementation timeline. Reciprocity essentially allows an individual’s background check to follow them to a new agency, so they don’t necessarily have to go through the process again. 

“One of the things ToRIS is designed to do is to centralize the core information that is needed to make [a credentialing] decision in one place so [officials] can see it,” Eanes said. “So what's happening now is the agency is requesting that information from the other organization, and it just takes time for them to get it and hand it over.” 

Eanes pointed out that employees at national security agencies and with a security clearance are already subject to continuous vetting requirements. The official said continuous vetting will make it easier to move people up security grades, reducing the time it takes from more than 100 days to 20 days or less. 

“The existing model has a bunch of inefficiencies in place where when we need to move someone from a moderate-risk public trust position into a secret [one] we start over and do a brand new initial investigation. Even though 97% of that work is already completed, we redo the work now because that's how the model's set up,” he said. “So in the future model, we'll have someone in continuous vetting…and there will be no need to redo any of that work.”

Likewise, Jonathan P. Maffet, a senior official at DCSA, said his agency is increasingly focused on making manual processes automated. As an example, he pointed to credit checks. 

“Over the last few years, we've implemented a fully automated review of credit reports that come in,” he said. “It used to be a person weaning through all that information, finding the issues and it's all automated now.”