How Billing Works
Please note that ICs are not charged directly for ID badges or background investigations, so individual charges will not be shown in the NIH Business System (NBS) for each person sponsored in NED. Instead, funding to cover these costs is collected through an assessment process and constitutes part of the annual operating budget for DPSAC. These costs are allocated among the ICs as follows:
- Costs related to producing and issuing ID badges are allocated among the ICs based on factors such as Census (number of people) and Space (square footage).
- Costs related to background investigation charges from DCSA is based on historical data by IC. DPSAC uses a 3-year average of total DCSA charges per IC to complete the assessment.
These assessment are reviewed annually and updated as appropriate.
FY 2024 and FY 2025 Pricing and Customer Agency Budget Guidance for DCSA Background Investigations
On September 19, 2023, the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) has released the final pricing for product and services for fiscal year (FY) 2024 as well as the updated estimated pricing for FY 2025 per Federal Investigation Notice (FIN) No. 23-03, effective October 1, 2023. FIN No. 23-03 is a follow-on to FIN No. 23-01, dated January 30, 2023. Please read below the announcement from DCSA, as they announce the FY 2024 and FY 2025 pricing high level results, changes and updates:
DCSA is updating its products and services offerings for FY 2024 and implementing previously introduced and new products for FY 2025 to meet Trusted Workforce (TW) policy. This update is the result of the Agency's continued implementation and delivery of TW policies and products, the planned transition of Department of Defense (DoD) adjudication services from appropriated funds into the fee-for-service working capital fund (WCF) in FY 2025, and the transition from the legacy IT systems to the National Background Investigation Services (NBIS).
DCSA is adjusting legacy, 5-tier background investigation (BI) prices in FY 2025 by 1% below the FY 2023 rates. This reduction follows DCSA’s one-time BI rate decrease of 18% in FY 2024 designed to return accumulated WCF cash to DCSA customers. New TW 3-tier BI products will be introduced by DCSA in accordance with the TW Implementation Strategy FY 2025. The rates for these products will be consistent with FY 2023 legacy BI prices, adjusted only for inflation.
DCSA will offer adjudication services to its DoD customers for the first time starting in FY 2025 both as stand-alone and “bundled” products for DCSA’s BI and Continuous Vetting (CV) services. This new service is a result of the transition of the DoD consolidated adjudications services (CAS) from a DoD general funded program to a fee-for service program in FY25.
In addition, DCSA will be offering both new and currently existing TW CV products, to include:
- A TW 1.5 CV product and price for DoD and Non-DoD customers in FY24.
- A TW 1.25 CV product for the non-sensitive public trust (NSPT) federal-wide population in FY24.
- The introduction of TW 2.0 CV products in FY25 (covering both National Security and NSPT populations).
For more information, please refer to DCSA's release regarding the final pricing for products and services for FY 2024, as well as the updated estimated pricing for FY 2025, on their Notices for Policies, Systems & Processes page. Feel free to also refer to DCSA's Billing Rates webpage.
Please be sure to look in the complete FIN No. 23-03 to find the billing rates for "Special Agreement Check (SAC)" and the "Reimbursable Suitability/Security Investigation (RSI)" under Section 1A. RSI and SAC requests include a one-time processing fee in addition to the individual items requested. The chart below shares the DCSA Billing Rates for Trusted Workforce (TW) Continuous Vetting (CV) Services.
