Federal Officers Cram Training Center

— -- Fed Training Rush Stretches ResourcesB R U N S W I C K, Ga., Sept. 3 — There's enough ammunition at the FederalLaw Enforcement Training Center to fight a small war, but the 15million rounds of bullets and shotgun shells have barely lasted theyear.

The crush of new federal officers hired since Sept. 11 hasstretched resources to the limit at the center, which trains agentsand officers for 76 federal agencies.

James Lanier, chief of the center's Firearms Division, said hehas made a few emergency credit card buys to keep from running outof ammo.

"We're maxing out our facilities and maxing out our instructorsto provide the training, whereas before we at least had somebreathing room," Lanier said.

The 130 instructors have been working six-day weeks sinceJanuary. Some of them will soon pull double shifts at the 17 firingranges so students can train after dark.

The center, established on the Georgia coast in 1975, has hadits training load double in the past year as the government rushedto hire new officers to improve homeland security.

Including its satellite campuses in New Mexico and SouthCarolina, the center has trained 52,000 federal law officers sinceSept. 11, compared with 26,000 the previous year.

Though it does not handle FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration agents,those it does train include Secret Service, Border Patrol andCustoms agents, Capitol police officers, air marshals, and policeofficers who guard the nuclear power plants of the Tennessee ValleyAuthority.

"They're all over the place," said Rep. Jack Kingston, aRepublican whose district includes the center. "The Park Servicepolice, you'd think they're guarding Yellowstone. But they guardthe Mall and the Washington Monument, places of very high profilethat could be targets for attacks."

If Congress and the president agree to put guns in the cockpitsof commercial airlines, many of the nation's 70,000 pilots wouldtrain at the center as well.

The center expanded to a six-day training week in January andhas housed some trainees in hotels up to 30 miles away. Many of thecenter's 2,500 instructors get just one full weekend off a month.

The load has begun to take a toll on morale, said centerDirector Connie L. Patrick. When she was sworn in as director lastmonth, Patrick said more time off for employees was her highestpriority.

"They were gung-ho after Sept. 11. They would work seven days,24 hours a day," Patrick said. "But now it has been about a year,and there's the burnout factor. No matter how much you want to dothe job, physically and spiritually you can't do that."

Congress has given the center authority to hire back up to 250retirees with no penalties against their pensions. So far it hashired 92.

The headquarters, which trained 76 percent of center graduateslast year, is also relying more on its satellite campuses.

Plainclothes air marshals who guard domestic flights are beingtrained in Artesia, N.M., while additional Border Patrol agentshave been sent to Charleston, S.C.

Patrick says next year will be the center's busiest ever, withabout 56,000 students expected. The new Transportation SecurityAdministration is building new facilities to train its agents,expanding the Brunswick campus' 1,500 acres.

The center, which falls under the Treasury Department, hopes tosee its $200 million budget expand.

"Certainly they need additional training facilities in terms offiring ranges," said Jimmy Gurule, Treasury's undersecretary forenforcement. "I would like to see them have additional funding forhousing facilities and additional trainers."

There has been talk of moving FLETC from Treasury and into theJustice Department or the new Department of Homeland Security.Kingston has spoken in Congress against putting the center underthe Justice Department's control, saying he's concerned it mighthave to compete with the FBI for funding.

Patrick says her agency will do its job wherever the center endsup.