CBP adapts to tight budget

   U.S. Customs may have gotten a congressional reprieve to avoid forced furloughs of field officers, Border Patrol agents and other employees, but that doesn’t mean the agency hasn’t felt the effect of the sequester.
   The six-month DHS appropriation gave CBP flexibility in how to implement automatic budgets trigged by gridlock over the deficit, but it still had to swallow a $100 million cut for fiscal year 2013 that had to be implemented all in the last half of the year.
   “To counter that we have to demonstrate to Congress that we’re a good investment,” Deputy (and de facto Acting) Commissioner Thomas Winkowski said in a keynote address at the American Association of Exporters and Importers annual conference last month.
   “We need to tell our story better. It can’t be anecdotal,” he added.
   CBP recently developed a border staffing model designed to garner congressional support for additional officers as it works to modernize amidst a rise in trade and passenger volumes and expansion of border facilities. The strategy maximizes existing resources, objectively quantifies staffing needs and explores funding sources to support staff levels.
   According to a CBP fact sheet, adding a single CBP officer annually adds $2 million to GDP, saves $640,000 in opportunity costs, and supports 33 new private sector jobs. The addition of 1,000 officers boosts trade penalty assessments by $7.85 million and seizures of counterfeit products by $2.5 million, among other benefits.
   CBP officials have acknowledged during the past couple of years they need to come up with new measures that can quantify the effectiveness of their programs — beyond how many shipments or people were detained. But coming up with meaningful metrics, such as how reductions in wait times help the economy, isn’t easy.