New Homeland Security Dept. faces challenges Unions, budget and computers among concerns
One person compares it to building an airplane and flying it at the same time. However you might look at it, Tom Ridge has his work cut out for him. These are but a few of the challenges facing Ridge:
Angry union leaders. Anxious workers. Failing intelligence and immigration agencies. Mismatched computer systems. A tight budget. And the recognition that another terrorist strike inside the USA will be seen as a failure.
Other than that, Ridge's new job should be a breeze. Once he gets these problems ironed out, he'll probably be able to go back to playing golf on Wednesdays, eh??
This clearly is NOT a one-man job, but Ridge will be held responsible should the new Department of Homeland Security crash and burn, which at moment is not out of the realm of possibility.
Already, a transition team of more than 50 administration lawyers, budget analysts, technology experts and personnel managers has identified problems facing the new department:
* Warnings from union bosses that seasoned employees will quit in droves because their collective-bargaining rights are threatened.
* Concerns in Congress that costs will skyrocket beyond the $37.4 billion budgeted for 2003.
* Technical issues such as how to handle incompatible e-mail systems, evaluate detection devices being hawked to the government and find a building to house about 17,000 workers who will be based in the Washington area.
The transition team has been working on the details since August. It presented its organizational plan to Congress after Bush signed the bill. By law, the department will be created Jan. 24, but it will take a year or more before it's fully operational.
Oh, yeah, and someone needs to figure out what to do with the TRS-80s and 286s in the basement, and how to make all those different computer networks talk to one another....
It is, one must admit, a fascinating dilemma: how to meld 22 agencies with 170,000 empoyees into a single agency. This, of course, will involve the requisite turf wars, inter-agency rivalries, and duplication, triplication, and quarduplication of efforts. Of course, then you have the problem of controlling costs and ensuring protection of workers, and, oh by the way...it's also your job to protect us from terrorist attacks.
Good luck, Mr. Ridge; this tape will self-destruct in five seconds....
