Senators 'concerned' with background check agency progress

Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) warned the Office of Personnel Management that timing and transparency are key to standing up the National Background Investigations Bureau, and OPM needs to deliver on both.

Tester and McCaskill sent a letter in May, asking OPM for information about the NBIB’s day-to-day operations, how inspectors general will have oversight authority of the agency and a timeline of key actions.

The number of overdue reinvestigations doubled over the course of fiscal 2015, according to a first-quarter update to Performance.gov. The Federal Investigative Services ended the year with 8,076 overdue investigations in its backlog, compared with 3,998 cases at the start of 2015.