Here is a new wrinkle for me. We get updated clearance rosters at least quarterly. We use people part time who perform on multiple contracts. I understand when a person ends one affiliation it can accidentally cancel their affiliation with my contract. It happens. It can be fixed. We have done this several times. Lately, each October we experience multiple part time employees removed from our sponsor list with no action from us requesting it, no derogatory action having taken place, no other contract requesting their affiliation be dropped. We get zero notification this has happened, the client doesn’t’ either. The part time employee possesses access to the compound so they have a badge. They continue to report to work but are not on our sponsored list and this will not be discovered for 90 days. I cannot find out why this spreadsheet is generated or who feeds this information to this office to do so. In each case they simply reactivate the wrongly cancelled clearance…but they are at a loss to explain what drives this.
Any thoughts?
I worked for a contractor and periodically we would be directed by our sponsors to do a scrub and see who still really needed access. Some years back it was only certain picky offices but eventually it became more widespread. Last round I heard of they were actually reviewing time charges to see who was still working the contract BUT they gave us a chance to rebut if we thought somebody might be needed or if we had some reason they were temporarily reassigned. But I have not heard of a list coming back where some names were no longer present.
That could lead to some real problems.
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And it is causing me problems. When I explained I walked off a person who was showing “no clearance,” I am asked how this is possible, why did we let this happen, etc. “We” didn’t let it happen. If they admin term a clearance NISPOM requires them to make effort to notify the affected people. They aren’t living up to their end of the bargain. People are admin decertified…they fall off our clearance roster and when we ask…they tell us they were admin decertified via spreadsheet quite some time ago. As a CSO it gives me nightmares, but the client security office tells me it isn’t as big a deal as I was thinking it was. It really hits my confidence in what I felt was locked down tight process. I was quite proud of what I thought I had. Or the illusion of it anyway. Three 100% award fee ratings in a row give you a sense of “I got this.” Surprise…
I guess what I am thinking of is people losing their access to certain programs, not their clearances. But if someone is not actively “read on” to any SCI programs does that affect their eligibility to get read back on should the need arise?
And that adds to my situation. Multiple levels of clearance, Secret, TS, TS SCI, TS SCI Poly…Most of the part time folks were at the Secret level sponsored by companies A, B, C, and D. Each has a Contract Officer that signs the sponsorship paper for their respective program. When they leave one of those programs, the respective contract officer should indicate “Terminate clearance on contract 000-999-222-9 ONLY.” But at times they wipe them all.
It adds another wrinkle on the SCI. When we hire certain folks who cross over as TS, we read them in on this client’s SCI. Their badge looks different if they do not have a poly. And that question comes up all the time, as most assume the different badge means no SCI,but it doesn’t. This site does follow the “if not read in, you do not really have access,” you have clearance eligibility.:" But on occasion we are told a person is “not SCI Eligible,” and that can be due to date of BI. Honestly, I rarely see folks read out of individual SCI’s, as most of our TS are collectively read in on 4 specific SCI’s. When I debrief we write “ALL SCI” on debrief form as the vast majority do not have SCI’s from other agencies or their multiple contracts. Thank goodness.