Contract ending in the middle of periodic reinvestigation

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

I am a contractor with a TS clearance/job and it looks like my contract is ending (next year) just before or during the time my periodic re-investigation should be occurring.

Questions…

  1. Is the 90-day periodic reinvestigation window/initiation based on my “Investigation Date” (Dec 2012) or my “Adjudication Date” (Mar 2013)?

  2. If the contract ends while my investigation is in process, does the investigation stop? At that point have I lost my TS and need to start from scratch with my next job?

  3. If the TS periodic re-investigation is stopped due to the fact I’m no longer on a TS contract, am I still able to obtain a Secret cleared position since those re-investigations are only required every 10 years, or do I lose all clearance simply because the TS reinvestigation stopped.

Thank you for any feedback!!

2

  1. I believe this is driven by the date your INVESTIGATION closed, not the adjudication date.

  2. From what I’ve read, the old rule of “It Depends” comes into play. Did the employer notify DSS (via JPAS) that you were terminated? Are they willing to let it ride for a bit? Has the investigation gone beyond some point at which it will keep going? Hard to say.

  3. Good question, I asked the same thing, could not get a solid answer.

3

I appreciate the response sbusquirrel. I would hate to leave an ending contract just because it coincides with my re-investigation timeline. Just seems like it would be safer for me to do just that though — to move to a longer contract in order to preserve my clearance (where contract ending and reinvestigation are not at the same time). Just don’t want to risk loss of jurisdiction!

Follow up question…

If the contract ended, but I remain with the same company, does the investigation continue? Or, does it only continue if I’m immediately put in another cleared position?

4

Hard to say for sure. Used to be more flexibility in this area but they keep saying they are trying to reduce the number of people with clearances (even as that number continues to rise).

I’ve heard of folks in your situation who got tripped up when recruiter/HR types made promises that security could not keep.

That might be the thing to do. I myself am considering a similar move, I am not at all sure my employer will still have SCI (or even TS) work to justify keeping me ‘active’ at that level.