This is the In Depth show blog. Here you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources.

Today's guests:

Steve Lenkart — Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, Merit Systems Protection Board

As budgets tighten, leaders at the top of agencies across government are making tough decisions about how to stretch dollars, or cut them. There are some initiatives that may be helpful, such as Electronic Payment Processing, but new ideas can take time to implement. This is up to the chief financial officer, and there are many things that must be considered in that role.

Steve Lenkart, the executive director and chief operating officer of the Merit Systems Protection Board, talks about how his agency is managing financially.

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Tim McManus — Vice President for Education and Outreach, Partnership for Public Service

The Office of Personnel Management is preparing to launch the Pathways Program, geared at bringing interns to work at federal agencies throughout government. New rules will take effect on July 10.

Tim McManus, vice president for education and outreach at the Partnership for Public Service, shares some low-cost, high-impact strategies to comply with the rules and talks about how to gain the most success from the program.

Pathways offers departments access to fresh talent

Read the new rules for the Pathways Program.

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Captain Anthony Barnes — National President, National Naval Officers Association

Forty years of activity encouraging diversity at sea will be the theme of the National Naval Officers Association at its Professional Development and Training Conference in New Orleans, La. July 23-27. NNOA, which fosters the advancement and recognition of minority officers in the uniformed naval services, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

Captain Anthony Barnes, the national president of the association, shares more details about the conference.

Registration for the conference opened June 15. More information on the conference.

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Alan Charles Raul — Partner, Sidley Austin

The misdeeds of the Secret Service in Colombia are widely documented. But there are still lots of unanswered questions. Open government advocates say taxpayers are entitled to know how federal employees conduct themselves on the job. However, privacy experts think too much information about federal employees is getting leaked and released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Alan Charles Raul, a partner at the law firm Sidley Austin, shares his take on the whole issue.

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Also on the show:

Federal News Countdown: Shrinking agency staffs and sequestration anxiety
John Kamensky, senior fellow at the IBM Center for the Business of Government, and Tim McManus, vice president for education and outreach at the Partnership for Public Service , count down the top federal news story of the week.

National Security Agency as Agency of the Month