The FBI is scrambling to fill instructor positions and restart classes at its training academy after the lifting of a sequestration-forced hiring freeze that quieted the facility at Quantico, Va., the Washington Post reports. The bureau is short dozens of instructors who oversee a range of courses, as many were reassigned to other FBI offices when Congress imposed mandatory budget cuts. With funding flowing again, the bureau wants to hire hundreds of agents and analysts this fiscal year. Owen Harris, the FBI's assistant director of training, said he needs to fill about 40 instructor jobs in advance of the first new-agent class, which begins June 1.
Harris said most of the instruction at Quantico came to a halt except for firearms training and other vital safety courses. The last class graduated in July, and since then, 285 agents have left the FBI, thinning the bureau's ranks. The FBI trains about 13,000 police officers from the United States and around the world each year, and those sessions, which were also interrupted by sequestration, will resume as well. In 2010, there were 70,000 agent applications; only 900 were accepted.