After revelations of extensive security breaches at Department of Homeland Security headquarters, DHS has decided to solicit a new contract for security personnel.

The new contract was supposed to go into effect April 1, but DHS has been mum on whether it actually signed a new contract, and if so, with which company. Wackenhut Services Inc., the company that generated criticism for security shortcomings, currently provides protection at DHS headquarters. DHS would not say whether Wackenhut has received another contract to provide security.

Several current and former security guards at the Department of Homeland Security’s sprawling Nebraska Avenue complex have called attention to what they characterize as a lack of training and preparation of guards employed by Wackenhut. An Associated Press report published last month described the mishandling of an anthrax threat at the headquarters, as well as accounts of under-guarded building entrances and malfunctioning detection equipment.

While DHS had inherited a 2002 contract with Wackenhut for the complex originally signed with the Navy, options to renew the contract were picked up in 2003, 2004 and 2005.

DHS moved its headquarters into the complex in 2003, but it did not officially take control of the complex until early 2005, which means that DHS could have renewed the contract with Wackenhut last year for one year. The contract paid over $9 million a year to Wackenhut, according to DHS documents, and included three more one-year options beyond 2005.

The new contract introduces a host of improvements to the 2002 contract. According to the solicitation, it will include training for use-of-force and CPR, as well as the deployment of non-lethal weapons such as batons, pepper spray and body armor.

The Service Employees International Union, which has criticized Wackenhut’s spotty track record at a number of security-sensitive federal facilities, credited whistleblowing guards for DHS’s decision to drop the Wackenhut contract.

“The fact that they’re putting this out to bid means you can guess they’re not getting quality security from their current contractor Wackenhut,” Gina Bowers, an SEIU spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview but added that “you have to wonder if this would have happened if the guards didn’t come forward.”

The new contract solicitation indicates substantial changes in the training regimen of new guards: non-supervisory guards must receive at least 72 hours of basic training, as opposed to a daylong seminar held by Wackenhut for guards under the old contract. Armed guards will also have to receive at least 40 hours of contractor-provided firearms training — a far cry from the old contract, which had required just four hours of firearms training that guards said was little more than target practice.

Guards also alleged that they were often confused about the “de-escalation” of force — a problem caused, they said, by a lack of intermediate training between using a weapon to control dangerous situations and not acting at all. That appears to be have been a factor in the creation of a new training regimen for non-lethal weapons.

According to the AP report and a guard currently working at the facility, the anthrax threat occurred September 2005, two months before a Nov. 29, 2005, release of a contract solicitation for a new security contract. A current guard also described an incident last year in which no officers responded to an alarm in the building that DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff occupies.

“I think [officials] were very aware of it,” the guard said, referring to lax security at the Nebraska Avenue complex. “Guards in the secretary’s building were very unprofessional. They had a lot of guards that would go to DHS and let them know what was going on.”

Wackenhut currently has contracts with the Department of Energy for its headquarters, as well as a number of additional facilities, including its Nevada Test Site, a nuclear storage center in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and a nuclear lab in Denver, Colo.

Charles Showalter, president of the National Homeland Security Council union of federal employees, believes that the Federal Protective Service could do the work more cheaply — and responsibly — than a private security company. Currently, the service provides backup to private security guards at DHS headquarters but does not provide physical security to the buildings.

While Showalter said that he is “delighted” that DHS decided to re-bid the security contract, he maintained in a telephone interview that “DHS headquarters and the security of the personnel and the equipment managed there should be handled by career federal employees that have a vested interest in the agency’s overall mission.”

Wackenhut Services, Inc. disagrees.

“During the course and scope of the terms of the contract, we complied with all of the contract provisions and all of the contract deliverables,” Bud Blount, a spokesman for the company, said by phone.

Blount said that Wackenhut has “re-proposed” the contract, but hasn’t yet heard which company DHS awarded the new contract to.

“If we win the contract, we’ll meet the new terms as we did with the old terms of the contract,” he said. “We’re hoping to win it.”

Despite repeated calls, DHS did not comment on this report.

Patrick Yoest can be reached at pyoest@cq.com.