Most travelers don’t know who pays TSA officers. Here’s a breakdown

By Rebekah Riess, CNN

(CNN) — As many travelers face long, winding security lines across the US during the partial government shutdown, many may not realize the complicated path money takes to reach Transportation Security Administration officers’ paychecks.

There are about 61,000 TSA employees currently caught in the middle as Congress remains locked in a stalemate over funding the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees TSA. Considered essential workers, they must remain on the job at the nation’s more than 430 commercial airports during the shutdown, even though they won’t get paid until the lapse ends.

President Donald Trump said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will head to US airports Monday to help alleviate the strain on TSA workers if lawmakers don’t reach an agreement to fund DHS.

Many passengers don’t really know who pays TSA officers – whether it’s the federal government, airports or airlines – according to focus groups done by the US Travel Association, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that advocates for the US travel industry.

How the agency is funded

TSA’s budget is funded in part by a fee you pay when booking your plane ticket. That passenger fee, also known as the September 11 Security Fee, was established by Congress in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. It is currently $5.60 per one-way trip and capped at $11.20 per round trip.

The fee is collected by the airline you book with and is itemized with taxes and carrier-imposed fees on your receipt. The airlines then pass along the fee revenue to TSA.

“The idea for the aviation security fee, the 9/11 fee, was that it would cover most, if not all, of the pay benefits and all the other things associated with the TSA budget,” former TSA Administrator John Pistole said. It was intended “to have the users of the services – that being passengers – pay for those services, rather than just a freebie from the government,” Pistole said.

The fee is key to covering the costs of air travel passenger security, including benefits and salary for federal screeners, along with programs like the Federal Air Marshals Service, the US Travel Association says.

Of the $4 billion-plus collected from passenger security fees each year, nearly all the revenue is deposited into the Treasury Department’s general fund. Only $250 million can be used directly by TSA to spend on a limited number of security costs.

And in 2013, the Bipartisan Budget Act directed that a portion of the security fee revenue be diverted to lower the federal budget deficit, rather than fund TSA operations.

The annual amount used for deficit reduction is typically about a third of the fees collected from passengers, Pistole said. In the 2023 fiscal year, for example, the total amount of security fee collections hit $4.6 billion, of which approximately $1.6 billion was diverted, according to DWU Consulting, a firm that does independent consulting for US airports.

“So every time you buy a ticket and you walk through the TSA line, Congress is … taking a third of the money … a billion dollars a year, and putting it towards something that has nothing to do with aviation security,” said Erik Hansen, senior vice president and head of government relations for the US Travel Association.

Why the money isn’t reaching TSA officers

In the end, TSA’s operations are funded annually from approximately two-thirds of the security fees collected. That amount is not enough to cover TSA’s entire budget, so Congress appropriates additional money from the general fund “as necessary,” Pistole said.

So why can’t the majority of the passenger security fees, still being collected during the shutdown, be used to pay TSA workers?

Because the fee revenue is appropriated by Congress and most of it is not considered mandatory spending, TSA does not have control of the money. Its budget falls under DHS and is considered discretionary spending that must be appropriated annually through government funding bills, which provide federal agencies with money to spend on their programs.

DHS’s funding has been on hold, which led to the partial government shutdown that began over a month ago.

“So when there’s a lapse in funding, (Transportation Security officers) don’t get paid,” Hansen said.

Elsewhere in the federal government, fees like the federal gas tax do not go through an appropriations process but are directly deposited into the Highway Trust Fund. The Federal Highway Administration has direct access to that money to fund its activities, including paying employees, even during a shutdown, according to Hansen.

The US Travel Association has urged Congress to treat revenue from excise taxes such as the passenger security fee as a user fee, allowing TSA to keep using it – including to pay workers, he added.

But experts say the issue is part of a larger political power struggle.

Congressional appropriators, Hansen said, have opposed proposals to continue to pay TSA and air traffic controllers during shutdowns. “They believe that if you continue to pay TSOs and air traffic controllers during the shutdown, then there will be no pressure on Congress to find the way out of whatever political dispute they’re in,” he said.

The current funding impasse centers on Senate Democrats’ demand that the Trump administration first reform its immigration enforcement policies. The two sides have been swapping proposals, and talks intensified late last week after weeks of stalemate.

Meanwhile, the administration and GOP lawmakers have opposed Democrats’ offer to provide money for some parts of DHS – including TSA – while negotiations continue.

“We could fund TSA and other important parts of DHS today – while we press ahead with negotiations on ICE and Border Patrol – if Republicans stopped standing in the way,” Sen. Patty Murray, vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Saturday after Senate Republicans voted against another measure brought by Senate Democrats to pay TSA workers while negotiations over DHS funding continue.

TSA Acting Deputy Administrator Adam Stahl says the onus is on Democrats to “please get cash back into our TSA agents’ pockets.”

Legislation that would allow the passenger security fee to be used for TSA workers’ salaries during a shutdown and permanently end diversion of a third of those fees would “vastly change the makeup” of the agency, Hansen said, even freeing up money for updated security technology.

“The problem is that passengers aren’t aware of their pockets getting picked every time they go through security,” he said.

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CNN’s Tami Luhby, Alexandra Skores and Aaron Cooper contributed to this report.