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Personnel Oversight and Shift Tracking Act of 2025

Floor Speech

Date: Sept. 8, 2025
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. KENNEDY of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 3425, the Personnel Oversight and Shift Tracking Act of 2025, or the POST Act. I thank Mr. Barrett and Mr. Figures for their support of this really important bill.

This is a commonsense bill that fixes a broken system and restores accountability within the Federal Protective Service.

The Federal Protective Service, or FPS, is responsible for protecting nearly 9,000 Federal facilities nationwide. In fiscal year 2024, FPS operated with a $2.2 billion budget and oversaw more than 15,000 contract protective security officers.

With that level of funding and manpower, taxpayers expect reliable results. Unfortunately, that is not what they are getting. A recent GAO investigation showed contract guards failed to detect banned items like batons and pepper spray in half of all covert tests. That is unacceptable, and it should never have been allowed to persist. It is also preventable.

H.R. 3425 makes sure FPS reviews these failures, documents them, identifies the root causes, and then takes corrective action.

This bill also addresses the embarrassing state of FPS's Post Tracking System. Back in 2018, FPS promised to modernize guard sign-in with a digital system. Years later, that system still doesn't work, and the agency is still relying on paper as its official record. That means Washington can't even confirm in real time whether a building is staffed and secure. In some cases, buildings have had to close because of it. That is a waste of money and a failure of leadership.

H.R. 3425 fixes this by giving FPS 6 months to either make the system work or replace it with one that does.

Mr. Speaker, this is not complicated. When Americans walk into a Federal building, they deserve to know it is staffed and secured. The American people expect their government to meet basic duties. The POST Act honors that expectation by restoring accountability and requiring results.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3425, the POST Act, so that we restore proper oversight and accountability in the Federal Protective Service and protect taxpayers from waste and failure.

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