Grassley: Greater Transparency Needed in Fee Structure for FBI Program

WASHINGTON – ?Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is calling on the FBI to disclose how it spends fees collected from fingerprint based Criminal History Record Information checks. The FBI currently does not report which portion of the fee is used to cover the program’s expenses, and which portion is used for other purposes unrelated to the fingerprint program.  

Congress initially intended the fee to be used to cover the cost of the program. That authority has been expanded, but it is unclear how the portion of user fees not collected for programmatic costs are being used. Furthermore, it is unknown what the actual fingerprint check program costs are, how FBI decides to set its fee level, and whether that level is reasonable.

“Stakeholders and customers deserve to know what portion of the fee actually supports the fingerprint checks program and what portion supports other IT systems unrelated to the program for which the fees are supposedly being collected.,”  Grassley said in a letter to FBI Director James Comey.

            Grassley’s request follows a recently-released Government Accountability Office Report that recommended greater transparency in the program as one of several approaches to improving management of Justice Department resources collected from fines, fees and penalties.

            A signed copy of the letter is available here.  Full text of the letter is below.

March 24, 2015

VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION

The Honorable James B. Comey, Jr. 
Director 
Federal Bureau of Investigation 
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20535 

Dear Director Comey:
  
Public Law 97-257 established the FBI’s authority to collect user fees for fingerprint-based Criminal History Record Information (CHRI) checks.[1]  Although Congress initially authorized the FBI to use these fees to cover the cost of the fingerprint checks program, subsequent legislation expanded the permitted use of this revenue.  Consequently, the FBI can now use fingerprint check fees to “defray” the expenses of other “criminal justice information services.”[2]  

The FBI apparently determined that it is free to set these fingerprint check user fees at any level, notwithstanding provisions of 31 U.S.C. 9701 or OMB A-25 guidelines.[3]  Thus, the essential purpose in establishing the user fee—to support the fingerprint program—could take a backseat to the FBI’s funding of unrelated “criminal justice information services.”  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is recommending that the FBI needs to be more transparent about how these fees are spent.[4]  Stakeholders and customers deserve to know what portion of the fee actually supports the fingerprint checks program and what portion supports other IT systems unrelated to the program for which the fees are supposedly being collected.

            In order for the Committee to better understand how the FBI makes use of this important source of revenue, I am requesting the following information:

1.    How does the FBI distinguish between expenses that can be supported by the one year “cost recovery” funding and expenses that can be supported by the no year “automation” funding?  How are these expenses defined?

2.    For each of the past six fiscal years (FY09-FY14), how much of the fingerprint user fee collections revenue was obligated to recover costs of the fingerprint-based CHRI checks service? 
  
3.    For each of the past six fiscal years (FY09-FY14), how much of the fingerprint user fee collections revenue was obligated in support of automation services related to fingerprint identification systems?
  
a.    Please provide a list of these supported programs/systems and break out the funding that each received from CJIS fingerprint user fee collections revenue and, separately, non-CJIS sources in each of the past six fiscal years (FY09-FY14).

4.    For each of the past six fiscal years (FY09-FY14), how much of the fingerprint user fee collections revenue was obligated in support of automation services that were unrelated to fingerprint identification systems?  

a.    Please provide a list of these supported programs/systems and break out the funding that each received from CJIS fingerprint user fee collections revenue and, separately, non-CJIS sources in each of the past six fiscal years (FY09-FY14).

If you have any questions, please contact Jay Lim of my Committee staff at (202) 224-5225.  Thank you for your cooperation in this important matter.  

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                                    Charles E. Grassley
                                                                                    Chairman

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