Tuesday federal headlines – October 21, 2014

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on Federal News Radio each day. It is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com reade...

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive and In Depth radio shows each day. Our headlines are updated twice per day — once in the morning and once in the afternoon — with the latest news affecting federal employees and contractors.

  • The number of veterans running for congressional office is dropping. An analysis from the Veterans Campaign shows, only 183 veterans are on the campaign trail. Navy Times reports that’s about one-fifth of major-party candidates up for election. Right now, Congress has 106 lawmakers with military experience. But Seth Lynn, executive director of the Veterans Campaign, said that figure could fall 10 percent. Next year could be the first time since the 1950s that Congress has fewer than 100 veterans. (Navy Times)
  • U.S. military officials say it’s still too early to tell if air drops to Kurdish forces in Khobani will help. They said the Syrian city could still fall. Air Force C-130s from Central Command conducted multiple airdrops near Kobani, attempting to resupply Kurds battling the Islamic State militants. They dropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies. Operation Inherent Resolve has made 135 air strikes against the Islamic State members in Kobani, according to the Pentagon. It said the strikes have killed hundreds of Islamic State fighters and destroyed or damaged scores of pieces of equipment. But officials still characterize the situation there as fragile. (DoD)
  • Samsung phones have gotten the OK for classified government data. The National Security Agency approved the phones under its Commercial Solutions for Classified program. The devices include the Galaxy S-5, the Galaxy Note 4 and seven other smartphones and tablets. All federal agencies can consider using these devices to handle classified information. Earlier this year, the Defense Department cleared Samsung devices to handle sensitive but unclassified information. Samsung said it’s the only manufacturer with mobile devices approved by both NSA and the Department of Defense. (Federal News Radio)
  • Commit misconduct? No problem. Just sit back, take a few months off and get paid. That’s what happened with thousands of federal employees, according to a Government Accountability Office report. In three years, more than 50,000 employees were on paid leave for up to three months. About 4,000 were on paid leave for up to a year. All of this cost agencies $775 million in salary. But that’s still less than 1 percent of total government salary costs. Employees on leave also continued to build up their pensions, vacation and sick days. GAO says one of the problems is a vague definition of paid leave. It recommends that the Office of Personnel Management clarify its guidance. (GAO)
  • The Government Accountability Office sustained a protest against the embattled contractor USIS. The company’s professional services division had received a $210 million contract from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It was protested by FCi Federal. GAO judges want the agency to evaluate once again whether USIS is a responsible contractor. The company was accused of defrauding the government in an unrelated contract for background investigations. GAO’s procurement counsel, Ralph White, said if USIS is found to be other than responsible, the agency should terminate the contract and award it to FCi. USIS officials said they received a rating of outstanding during bid evaluations. (Federal News Radio)
  • A familiar face has returned to the federal IT scene. Sonny Bhagowalia started work yesterday as the CIO of the Treasury Department. He replaced Robyn East, who retired in June. Bhagowalia has spent the last three years as a technology executive for the state of Hawaii. Before that, he spent 12 years in the federal government at the FBI, General Services Administration and Interior Department, where he was the CIO. (Federal News Radio)
  • Open office designs have the potential for high rates of theft. That’s the finding of the inspector general at the General Services Administration. GSA headquarters got rid of most closed offices and went to an open, shared plan a couple of years ago. One late night in July, IG staff wandered around and found computers, personnel files and confidential source selection materials lying around. The IG says employees have lockers and file cabinets to safeguard stuff at night, but habits learned from having private offices haven’t caught up with the open plan. While few thefts have actually occurred, the GSA chief of staff agrees the agency needs to more strongly encourage employees to lock away valuables. ( Federal News Radio/GSAIG)
  • Energy Department contractors are withholding documents related to a whistleblower case. Donna Busche was fired in February from contracting firm URS Energy and Construction, a subcontractor of Bechtel National Incorporated. Busche raised safety concerns about an unfinished Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford, the nation’s most polluted nuclear site. But it’s still unclear if Busche’s dismissal was fair. The Energy Inspector General said URS and Bechtel won’t provide thousands of emails and documents needed for the review. Bechtel said it’s disappointed with the IG report. The company says it went above and beyond to cooperate with the investigation. (Federal News Radio)
  • The Navy awarded a $2.1 million contract to Dell for cloud email. Dell will provide a Microsoft cloud email system for Navy reservists. The system offers an alternative to Navy’s Next Generation Enterprise Network. Navy said using N- GEN for reserve forces would raise costs by $286 million over five years. But it said using Microsoft cloud email would save nearly $17 million in the same time. If the pilot is successful, the Navy will consider cloud email for the entire Navy. That would be a change for 800,000 Navy Marine Corps users on N-GEN. ( target=”_blank”>FBO)

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