The 2009 fiscal year was one of the worst in history for the U.S. economy. But it was great for the nation’s top homeland security contractors.

That is one of the conclusions drawn by trade publication Government Security News from its list of the top Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contractors.

In fact, the contracts going to the top five companies on the list grew considerably in the year, according to the magazine:
“Despite the economic downturn that swept the country—and much of the world—in 2009, those Top 5 companies enjoyed increased total revenues from DHS in procurement, R&D and services contracts that averaged approximately 38 percent.
Thirty-eight percent growth in one year on government contracts worth hundreds of millions. Unisys, the fifth ranked company, pulled in $337 million in contracts during the fiscal year, in part for technology to capture and analyze traveler information at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services land border crossings. The top contractor Integrated Coast Guard Systems won $675 million, in part for modernizing U.S. Coast Guard ships and aircraft.

The 2009 fiscal year, on which the list is based, ran from Oct. 1, 2008 to Sept. 30, 2009.

Of course DHS contracting should continue at robust levels in a bad economy. The threats faced by the United States from terrorism, organized crime, and natural disasters (all in the DHS portfolio) don’t evaporate in a downturn. And they’re all real dangers the private sector should help the government prepare for and respond to.

But it’s at least noteworthy just how “counter-cyclical,” or running contrary to a shrinking economy, this pocket of the U.S. economy became.

The magazine did not say how much, on average, the revenue from DHS contracts grew during the period studied for the other 95 firms on the annual ranking of the largest 100 DHS contractors, compiled with information from the Federal Procurement Data System.

The list’s largest contractors remained fixed in their top spots over the previous year. The only newcomer to the first 10 rankings, the magazine said, was Booz Allen Hamilton, a company known for its national security and defense work and since mid-2008 majority-owned by private-equity giant The Carlyle Group.

Another notable entrant in the top 10 might have to be consulting firm Accenture, recently in the news for withdrawing its sponsorship of Tiger Woods. Accenture is a consulting firm which in 2001 headquartered itself in Bermuda and then in 2009 transferred its corporate base to Ireland.

Accenture, ranked sixth according to Government Security News, has a big job:
”[the company] serves as the prime contractor on a complex 10-year, $10 billion ‘virtual border’ project being deployed at more than 400 U.S. air, land and sea ports of entry. The contract calls for a biometrics systems design to verify the identity of incoming visitors and to confirm compliance with visa and immigration policies.

If the overall DHS budget is any indication, the money flowing to contractors won’t slow down any time soon. According to the Homeland Security Watch blog, despite rumors in Washington, D.C. that the DHS budget would be shrunk slightly, the department got a 2 percent bump from President Obama’s budget for Fiscal Year 2011.

The January edition of Government Security News containing a short description of top DHS contractors’ work can be accessed here. The complete list of the 100 top DHS contractors is available on the magazine’s website.