IG: Mid-Atlantic bases need more security staff - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

IG: Mid-Atlantic bases need more security staff

Installations at Navy Region Mid-Atlantic are facing a “severe” shortage of security personnel to guard bases, according to a report by the Naval Inspector General.

That’s leading to a lot of wrangling over bases’ use of the Auxiliary Security Forces, which are made up of sailors from operational commands tapped to assist with base security at times of heightened security concerns.

Ostensibly designed to help out in emergencies, installations have begun requiring full-time activation of the auxiliary forces to help fill manning shortfalls for day-to-day security operations, the IG said.

Shore commanders say they’re already suffering manning shortages for other reasons, such as reduced unit sizes and wartime deployments, and having to turn over full-time sailors for security duty is making matters worse.

“This ‘tax’ burdens nondeployable tenant commands and affects their operational readiness,” the IG said. “Tenant commands typically are not manned to support shore security, as this is not their core mission.”

At one base in Hampton Roads, Va., sailors from tenant commands assigned to temporary duty with the Auxiliary Security Force made up about 43 percent of the security department, the IG said.

Security manning was one of several manning issues the IG examined during a spring visit to bases in the Hampton Roads area. The site visit report, completed in April, was obtained by Navy Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

Navy Installations Command officials told the IG that the command is doing the best it can with the money and resources it has.

The command has sought to hire private contractors to help with security, but in fiscal year 2009, the funding was “reduced to 65 percent of the requirement,” the IG said.

Security departments told the IG they have been hit hard by overseas deployments, as masters-at-arms are in high demand, according to the report. And policies prohibit pregnant women, who are often removed from ships and assigned to shore installations, from doing jobs requiring guns, the IG said.

Installations Command officials say they have a new method of estimating manning requirements for individual installations. But tenant commands are not likely to see their requirements end completely.

“There will always be a requirement for tenant commands to supplement the security force to permit the full manning of requirements in increased force protection conditions,” the command told Navy Times in a written statement.

The IG recommended that the chief of naval operations renew efforts to give Installations Command enough people to meet its security requirements. In turn, the command should “eliminate the use of the [auxiliary forces] for routine security operations,” the IG said.

“Requiring operational tenant commands to cover installation security ... transfers the cost and masks the impacts of security manning constraints. [Installations Command] is responsible to provide resources to support shore installation security. Transferring those costs and impacts to tenant commands and the war-fighters will not correct manning shortfalls,” according to the IG report.

In a separate investigation last year, the Naval Audit Service found problems with the anti-terrorism efforts at many bases. Auditors visited 22 of the 66 Navy installations in the continental U.S. and found only one had fully complied with post-Sept. 11 Navy directives to develop an anti-terrorism plan.