Two top security officials in charge of overseeing background checks of federal airport screeners left their posts last week, the Transportation Security Administration said yesterday, underscoring troubles afflicting a division that has been criticized for letting criminals slip into its ranks.

The two officials, Richard A. Ferris, director of TSA's Personnel Security Office, and Bruce Brotman, director of the newly created Credentialing Program Office, both left the agency on June 27. Brotman left for personal reasons and the agency declined to comment on Ferris's departure, a spokesman for the TSA said.

Ferris and Brotman did not respond to efforts to reach them. On Tuesday, TSA Administrator James M. Loy appointed Justin Oberman, a TSA employee who worked with the agency's strategic analysis office, to a job that combines the two positions.

The departures come after lawmakers harshly criticized the TSA for delays in vetting the backgrounds of its airport security workers. The agency admitted in a congressional hearing last month that it has yet to complete 22,000 out of 55,000 background checks of its workers currently on the job. The agency has fired 85 felons that it had hired, and two TSA screeners were arrested last week in Miami for allegedly stealing items from passengers' luggage.

The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has launched a probe into the agency's background-check process.

Ferris joined the TSA last year after retiring as director of the Office of Human Resources at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. His unit oversaw the agency's background checks. But in May, Ferris's office was folded into one overseen by Brotman, when the TSA reorganized its units that oversee background checks and credentialing of the agency's entire workforce.

TSA spokesman Robert Johnson said the agency reorganized in part to dedicate more workers to completing the background checks, which must be finished by Oct. 1.

Before serving as credentialing director, Brotman played a role in one of TSA's earliest blunders. Just days after being appointed to serve as the agency's security official in charge at Louisville International Airport last year, Brotman used his credentials to skirt an airport security checkpoint with his wife while the two were traveling, an incident that attracted media attention.

Brotman was suspended for 30 days and placed on administrative leave for two months after the incident and later reassigned to serve as assistant federal security director in St. Louis. TSA spokesman Brian Turmail said Brotman had since "performed in an outstanding manner" and that is why he was appointed as director of the credentialing office.

Separately, a TSA security official who last month alerted other agency officials about security lapses in the effort to scan luggage for explosives also announced his resignation, the TSA said.

Scott McHugh, who was highly regarded among TSA officials and formerly served as a security director for Philip Morris Management Corp., declined to comment on his reasons for leaving. "It was a surprise to everyone," Johnson said. "He had a lot of good ideas we were hoping to take advantage of."

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