The Government Accountability Office has said the Federal Air Marshal Service should incorporate risk into deployment decisions.GAO said in a report published Tuesday the factors that affect FAMS’ allocation of its annual resources between domestic and international flights include travel budget and employee head count but not the risk associated with flights.
FAMS officials also choose geographic focus areas and resource allocation levels based on the judgement of subject matter experts and not the evaluation of risk, GAO added.
The government watchdog further noted FAMS does not document rationales for its international destinations.
The Transportation Security Administration‘s coverage score that FAMS uses to evaluate compliance with flight coverage and resource use goals includes 11 categories but leaves out some attributes of performance measures, the report noted.
GAO recommended for FAMS to integrate risk into its resource allocation method, run risk evaluation to support certain domestic deployment decisions and document the rationale for its choice of international flight locations.
FAMS should also name and define the TSA coverage score and report performance results for all categories, GAO said.
