“The Department of Homeland Security said this week that it employs more private contractors than federal employees, an admission that officials blamed on the department’s quick establishment seven years ago and the federal government’s burdensome hiring process.

DHS officials informed Senate staffers this month that it employs roughly 200,000 contractors and about 188,000 federal employees. The figure does not include uniformed members of the Coast Guard, which is one of the department’s 22 agencies.

‘That raises a question of whether it’s the most efficient use of taxpayer money, but also the question of who’s making critical decisions at the department,’ Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Wednesday during a hearing of the homeland security committee on the department’s annual budget requests. ‘Is it private contractors, or is it full-time federal employees?’ He called the figures ’shocking and unacceptable.’ “

(Source: At Homeland Security, contractors outnumber federal workers – washingtonpost.com)