Wednesday Morning Federal Newscast – December 15th

No decision yet on holiday bonus time off, Agency funding/pay freeze making its way across the Hill, FBI sued for age discrimination

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Amy Morris discuss throughout the show each day. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air.

  • Christmas falls on a Saturday this year. This means that the official government holiday will be observed on Friday the 24th. Federal News Radio Senior Correspondent Mike Causey tells us that there is no guarantee that presidents will grant federal workers extra time off around Christmas. Last year, the president gave most feds a half day off for Christmas Eve. But this year the economic situation is considered more grim, making the odds that you’ll get a few extra hours off less likely. This is the time of year the President normally makes his announcement…we’re watching for it.
  • The top Senator on the Appropriations Committee is predicting passage of an omnibus spending bill to fund the government through next September. The bill maintains spending at 2010 levels. That’s a tad more than 1.1 trillion dollars, including earmarks. It also includes a two-year freeze on federal employee salaries. GovExec reports Democrat Daniel Inouye of Hawaii says he’s got at least 60 votes as the Senate takes up debate. The House already passed a year-long continuing resolution without earmarks.
  • The FBI is going to court for alleged age discrimination.Forty five current and retired agents have sued the bureau, for what they say is a discriminatory policy limiting how long agents can serve as squad supervisors in field offices. The agents claim the FBI used the policy to force older agents out of those positions to make room for younger supervisors. Courthouse News Service reports the plaintiffs were forced to into different jobs and to drop from GS-14 to GS-13, which could represent a yearly salary reduction of more than $16,000.
  • OPM is proposing to expand the definition of national security positions. A new proposed rule would give agencies authority to define positions as important to national security, if the jobs fall within certain categories. They include jobs that involve protecting or controlling access to facilities or information systems and jobs that work with explosives, arms, ammunition or hazardous materials.
  • The Air Force has blocked access to the web sites of newspapers that publish classified documents from WikiLeaks. When they try to view the New York Times and two dozen other sites, users get an ACCESS DENIED message. Air Force spokeswoman Major Toni Tones says the blockage is designed to keep classified material off of the computers. She said members of the Air Force are still able to view the material from their home computers. The Army and Navy have not taken similar steps.
  • Google and the Government Printing Office have teamed up to offer federal e-books. The titles will appear in Google’s new e-bookstore. Right now, you can purchase titles like the appendix for the Budget of the United States for fiscal 2011, Remembering the Space Age and Borden’s Dream, which is a history of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. GPO says Google did all the scanning and conversion, and the project didn’t use any tax dollars.
  • Big changes for the Census Bureau are close to Congressional approval. They include making the Census Director’s job a five-year term appointment. And, requiring the Bureau to have five year planning cycles with milestones and metrics built in. Federal Times reports the House is likely to vote on the overhaul bill Tuesday. A similar bill passed the Senate earlier this month.
  • The Veterans Affairs Department has launched a project to help patients with traumatic brain injury live independently. NextGov reports, the program uses sensors and wireless broadband to let doctors monitor patients remotely. As the vets go about their daily lives at home, they receive text or video alerts if they get off track in completing routine tasks. The three million dollar project originates at the Tampa, Florida VA hospital.

More news links

Obama plans government workplace diversity effort (Washington Post)

Panel tackles airline industry’s thorny problems

Feds: Va. man makes DC subway bomb threat online

Feds say international child porn ring broken up

Survey names Facebook best place to work(Reuters)

THIS AFTERNOON ON FEDERAL NEWS RADIO

Coming up today on The DorobekInsider:

** Old man winter has arrived and snowmagedon is still very much in our memory. What are OPM’s plans for dealing with THIS winter? We’ll find out.

** And Recovery.gov has been a real leader in 2010 in transparency, in cloud computing, in open data. We’ll tap lessons learned from Earl Devaney of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.

Join Chris from 3 to 7 pm on 1500 AM or on your computer.

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