January 12, 2011 - The Homeland Security Department’s border protection agency plans to hire 1,000 additional IT staffers this fiscal year as it seeks to “federalize” its work force, a senior official said today.
Ken Ritchhart, deputy assistant commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Information Technology (OIT), said at a seminar that hiring a government employee can save up to $40,000 a year per person compared with contracting for similar tasks.

The government staff roster for the OIT is expanding from about 1,500 employees at the end of fiscal 2010 to a projected 2,500 employees by the end of fiscal 2011, Ritchhart said in an executive session sponsored by the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council. About 700 IT staffers have been hired so far and 500 have started work, he added. Many of the new hires are entry-level, low-level and midlevel IT workers who are comfortable with new technologies, Ritchhart said. Currently, the OIT has 2,131 government staff members and 3,268 contract employees.