Rep. Kennedy Introduces Legislation to Restore Accountability and End Waste in the Federal Protective Service
WASHINGTON – Representative Mike Kennedy (UT-03) alongside Representative Shomari Figures (D-AL) introduced H.R. 3425, the Personnel Oversight and Shift Tracking (POST) Act, bipartisan legislation that fixes long-standing failures within the Federal Protective Service and improves public safety.
“I came to Washington with a goal to hold government accountable and fix broken systems,” said Rep. Mike Kennedy. “The POST Act does exactly that by ending bureaucratic failures at the Federal Protective Service and demanding more from our government agencies.”
“The POST Act strengthens oversight and modernizes how we manage contract security at federal buildings,” said Rep. Shomari C. Figures. “It improves accountability, updates outdated systems, and helps ensure federal spaces are safe and well-protected. I’m proud to have co-led this bipartisan practical step in the right direction for public safety.”
"The POST Act will make needed improvements to the way the Federal Protective Service (FPS) oversees, tests, and trains its contract guard personnel," said T&I Chairman Sam Graves. "These reforms will ensure that our federal facilities are safe, secure, and able to serve the American people. I want to thank Congressman Kennedy for his leadership on this important and timely legislation."
Background:
The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is responsible for protecting nearly 9,000 federal facilities nationwide. In fiscal year 2024, FPS operated with a $2.2 billion budget and oversaw more than 15,000 contract Protective Security Officers. With that level of funding and manpower, taxpayers expect reliable results. Unfortunately, FPS continues to fall short.
A recent Government Accountability Office investigation revealed that contract guards failed to detect prohibited items such as batons and pepper spray in half of all covert tests. While FPS conducts these tests, they lack a standardized system to capture, analyze, and respond to the results. The POST Act addresses these shortcomings by making sure FPS reviews these failures, identifies their causes, and then takes corrective action.
The legislation also fixes FPS’s broken guard post-tracking system. In 2018, FPS launched the Post Tracking System (PTS) to modernize its outdated paper-based guard sign-in process. Yet PTS remains unreliable, and FPS is still dependent on paper records as its official standard. In 2025, this means federal leaders cannot verify in real time if a building is staffed and secure, leading to failures that have in some cases forced closures of taxpayer-funded facilities and wasted taxpayer dollars in the process.
The POST Act ends years of bureaucratic delay and indecision and gives FPS six months to either repair or replace its failed tracking system.
The full text of the bill can be found here.