TSA orders uniforms for $98 million?
 

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportun...=core&_cview=1

has been awarded to a contractor that is allegedly procuring the uniforms from Mexico.

What a waste of money in the name of "security" when these uniforms are not useful tools to detect contraband weapons and explosives.

Glad to know my tax dollars are being spent on National Skewrity!:mad::td:

Would it be better for them to report to work in t shirts and jeans? Where would they put their badges?

What was wrong with the old uniforms?

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/wp-conten...8834-640wi.jpg

I would be more than happy to tell TSOs where to put their badges.

A place where the sun doesn't shine!

Sideways.

They didn't have awesome tin badges to make them look more like cops.

So based on what google pulled up, there are about 110,000 TSA employees meaning an average of $891 was spent on uniforms per employee. How the hell does this cost so much? This makes no sense, even if they were to give each of them 5 pairs of uniform pants at $50 a piece and 10 uniform shirts at $40 a piece, that's $550 per employee.

This is beyond absurd and another great example of government waste.

A few interesting tidbits from the PDF on the page:

https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=1e...794fb0efd2d907

• Provide uniform items to approximately 12,000 new hire TSOs - confirms about a 25% turnover rate.
• TSA revises the uniforms in some form at least every 2-3 years.
• Standard issue includes a team jacket (Go TSA! :rolleyes:)
• Commando sweaters (whatever those are - might explain a lot), parkas, ball caps, and knit stocking caps are optional items
• Looking for designs for the following: Raincoats, gloves, multiple shoe/boot choices (wonder if jack boots are an option), cardigan sweater,Honor Guard items - headgear, white gloves, aiguillettes, ascots, corfam shoes, belts (W-T-F?), and cargo pants

According to the PDF documents on the "packages" tab the estimated spend per year is $11-13m. Source: https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=0d...38a0dc8ec56af6

There is also a detailed price list based on the previous bid here: https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=7c...788d5f48038ca1

Taking the high end of the spend estimate ($13m / year) that equates to $118 per employee. You can work the other way from the price list to determine how many uniforms it would take to reach that total, but taking a rough estimate of 3 uniforms per employee that equates to $39.39 per uniform.

Seems reasonable to me, even by government standards. Easy to get caught out by these multi-year contracts ;)

Instead of playing it safe with regard to the laws of the land, politics and politicians, it seems like the TSA decided to -- as usual for the TSA -- arrogantly gamble, this time by stupidly encouraging the offshore production of all these uniforms. The DHS/TSA procurement people behaved as if clueless that the the following language http://www.rules.house.gov/111/Amndm...kissel_hr1.pdf was passed at the time of last year's huge economic stimulus bill.

It was cheaper to outfit the pre-TSA contracted security screeners and they didn't show up to work in jeans and t-shirts if they wanted to secure their jobs.

Only dorks bother to read the fine print. :p

Perhaps it's for the operators of the strip-search machines that want to go commando to make it easier in the peep-show booth... ;)

What a waste of tax dollars:td::td: