The Navy in Hawaii is hiring 60 civilian security guards as the U.S. military continues to divest itself of private contractor guards hired after demands grew following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Navy civilian security guard positions are being established to replace contract gate guards and provide continued installation security, officials said.

Public Law 107, which provided a waiver so the federal government could contract guard services, will expire Sept. 30, according to the Navy.

Navy Region Hawaii provides protection services to all Navy installations in Hawaii to include the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Lualualei, the Naval and Computer Telecommunications Area Master Station in Wahiawa, and West Loch, but the majority of the positions will be located at Pearl Harbor-Hickam, the command said.

The deadline to apply is midnight Eastern time, Jan. 24, and start dates are in May and July to coincide with five-week academy classes. Salaries will range from $31,960 to $41,544 per year plus a 12.25 percent cost-of-living allowance.

Interested candidates must be U.S. citizens and should apply at www.usajobs.gov. The Navy said individuals should search for job announcement NW20085-05-5903754B193959-D or, for Security Guard, GS-0085-5 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Across the country, the U.S. military has been replacing contractor security guards with federal employees after a host of contractors came under congressional scrutiny.

A 2006 U.S. Government Accountability Office report found that the Army’s procedures for screening prospective contract guards were inadequate and put the Army at risk of having ineligible guards protecting installation gates.

The Army found that at two unidentified installations, a total of 89 guards were put to work even though they had criminal records, including cases involving assault and other felonies.

Since late 1982, Congress had, for the most part, prohibited the Defense Department from contracting for security guards at U.S. domestic installations, the GAO reported.

The prohibition was originally enacted because of concerns about the uncertain quality and reliability of private security guard services, base commanders’ potential lack of control over contractor personnel, and the right of contractor personnel to strike, according to the GAO.

After the terrorist attacks, however, the Pentagon directed military installation commanders to ensure that all vehicles, identification cards, badges and other forms of identification were inspected for authorized access.

Initially, those security requirements were filled at military installations with active-duty and reserve component personnel, but as war demands grew, "resources became constrained," the GAO said.

The Defense Department said contracting for security guard services was necessary, and in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2003, Congress temporarily authorized the Pentagon to waive the ban against contracting for security guard functions.

Contracted security has since come under scrutiny in Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States.

The National Association of Security Companies acknowledged in 2009 that "there have been problems with individual contractors in the past," but said Congress needed to take into consideration that issues of concern were addressed through much higher contractual standards and more stringent oversight.

"The current force is now being held to standards that are at least comparable to, if not higher, than (Defense Department) civilian guard standards," the association said at the time.

The Project on Government Oversight, a federal government watchdog, found in September that the government approved service contract billing rates that, on average, paid contractors 1.83 times more than federal employees, and that the government was wasting billions of dollars hiring contractors.

In 2010 the Army embarked on a plan to convert nearly 3,100 base access control points from contractor to federal employee status at 46 locations, including Hawaii and the mainland. The change created 3,076 job openings.