A final transition date is not set, but this will mark the first time in nearly two decades the base has had a civilian police force, he said.
“We have a few who have completed their training and are doing their duties,” Mayer said.
Unlike private security guards, the civilian force will have full police powers, including the authority to make arrests, conduct security patrols and issue traffic tickets, Mayer said.
“They’ll be able to do more things then simply work the gates,” he said.
In 2007, the Air Force hired Southeastern Protective Services, of Rock Hill, S.C., under a $5.1 million contract to guard base entrances until September. The contract covered between 80 to 100 private security guards, according to the Air Force. The civilian police force will have about the same number of officers.
“The goal is to have the cost be the same or less than previous contract costs,” Mayer said in an email.
Congress passed a law that ordered the termination of contracts with private security contractors from handling base security duties, with some exceptions. Under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003, lawmakers allowed the Defense Department to hire private security forces to meet increased security needs in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to Caitlin Dunn, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“The mentality at the Pentagon at the time was you wanted to use your warfighters to warfight and shift to contractors those other functions that you didn’t absolutely have to have somebody in uniform perform,” said Claude Chafin, a House Armed Services Committee spokesman. A recent trend at the Defense Department has been to return more roles to military jobs to save money, however, he added. The number of security contractors working at the Defense Department has been gradually reduced since 2010.
Private security companies bid on the base contracts with the understanding once they concluded returning service members deployed overseas would fill those positions, said Marty Melton, president of Southeastern Protective Services.
But he said the Air Force has hired some of his former employees for the new jobs.
“They did not hire them all, they did hire some,” he said.
In response, Mayer said the gate security jobs were always slated to be filled over the long-term with civilian personnel, not military security forces. Federal work rules dictate hiring rules for government jobs, he added. Veterans may receive preference in some instances based on military experience.
“This can give them an advantage over non-veterans,” Mayer said in an email. “However, it does not mean that only veterans will be judged most qualified for a position.”
Under a $128 million, nearly five-year contract, Southeastern Protective Services provided private security guards to 19 bases in the eastern United States. Melton estimated roughly half of a workforce of about 900 found security jobs with the government. But others who have found work have joined commercial security businesses, which usually offer lower pay and in some cases a complete lack of fringe benefits, he said.
The loss of work has had a “huge impact” for his company and other security contractors, he said.
“When the federal government takes work away from the private sector, that’s wrong … especially now in this economic time,” he said.
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