Jason Miller covers civilian agencies in the federal government with a focus on technology and acquisition. He is also an executive editor at Federal News Radio. Jason's reports can be heard Monday - Friday on the Federal Drive and In Depth.

Coburn calls for partial federal job freeze as sequestration nears

The Republican senator from Oklahoma is asking the Office of Management and Budget to require agencies to stop hiring for certain positions. Instead, he would like that funding put towards mission critical jobs that could be affected by sequestration cuts. Coburn, the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, found 10 jobs listed on USAJobs.gov that he believes could be frozen. He says this would give agencies $1.4 million to spend on positions like border security officers and TSA screeners.

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OMB, agencies still crunching sequestration-related furlough numbers for non-DoD civilians

The White House released its estimate on the impact of cuts from sequestration would have on each state and the District of Columbia. OMB's Danny Werfel said they still are obtaining clarity on the impact $85 billion in cuts would have on each agency.

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Inside the Reporter's Notebook: OPM personnel changes, Tangherlini gets more than 210 days

News and buzz in the acquisition and IT communities that you may have missed this week.

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GSA cancels 2013 Expo conference

Budget uncertainty at the General Services Administration, other agencies and among vendors is the main cause behind the decision to call off the annual training conference, GSA officials said.

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OMB to test agency readiness to move to financial shared services

Danny Werfel, the OMB controller, will issue a new policy in the coming weeks that will mandate agencies simplify their requirements before upgrading their general ledger systems. The policy also will require agencies to strongly consider one of the four federal shared service providers. OMB said it has learned lessons from the previous attempts to move agencies into these common financial management infrastructures.

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OPM eases burden to hire people with disabilities

The agency will publish a final rule Friday that will remove the need for people with disabilities to have a "certification of job readiness."

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New metrics to help agencies determine value of social media

GSA led a 12-member interagency working group to create a set of measures specifically aimed at defining the usefulness of social media for agencies. The agency also released an API that lets users create tools to bring together government social media feeds in one place. Both tools are called for in the Digital Government Strategy.

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VA CTO Peter Levin to leave agency

Peter Levin, the Veterans Affairs chief technology officer, is leaving the agency. He follows Roger Baker, the agency's CIO and assistant secretary in the Office of Information and Technology, who resigned last week.

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Work time spent on union activities at a 7-year high for feds

OPM issued its fiscal 2011 Official Time report. The data shows employees, on average, spent 2.82 hours on union-related work during official hours. The cost of official time also increased by almost 12 percent.

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VA CIO Baker to resign

Roger Baker, VA's assistant secretary in the Office of Information and Technology, helped improve the agency's management of IT projects, implement mobile devices and continued to address cybersecurity.

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DHS, DoD among agencies making slow, steady progress to get off High Risk list

GAO adds two new areas to the list, NOAA's satellite programs and the federal government's financial risk because of climate change. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro said nearly every initiative on the list made progress in fixing their problems over the last two years.

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New data analytics tool gives Postal Service IG head start on cases

Bryan Jones, the director of the Counter Measures and Performance Evaluation (CAPE) team in the U.S. Postal Service's Office of the Inspector General, said the development of a dashboard to help investigators visualize data more easily helped overcome initial resistance to these kinds of tools.
February 14, 2013

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IRS program, interagency contracting finally removed from High-Risk list

A total of 30 programs, once again, are considered troubled, including two new areas. But, the Government Accountability Office removed the IRS' Business Systems Modernization program after 18 years on the list, and interagency contracting after 8 years.

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Employee unions march on Capitol Hill to stop sequestration

AFGE, AFSCME rally against the potential cuts from sequestration as part of their week-long legislative conference. Union members are meeting with lawmakers to ensure they understand the broader impact cuts due to sequestration would have on the nation and the economy.

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White House issues cyber order, giving NIST, DHS lead roles

Senior administration officials say the Executive Order is not a replacement for comprehensive cybersecurity legislation, but the start of a new conversation for how best to protect the nation's critical infrastructure. NIST released an RFI Tuesday as part of its effort to create a voluntary, flexible framework. And DHS will expand the number of companies the government shares classified and unclassified cyber threat information with through the Defense Industrial Base pilot.

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Obama calls on Congress to stop sequestration, pass cyber bill

President Obama used his State of the Union speech Tuesday night to reiterate common management themes that have been part of the administration's push over the last four years.

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Inside the Reporter's Notebook: 2014 IT budget passback is much ado about nothing

News and buzz from the last two weeks includes a new legislative proposal from Rep. Darrell Issa on suspension and debarment and round two of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program.

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Agencies slowly knocking down cybersecurity barriers to going mobile

Through the Digital Government Strategy, several initiatives are underway to address IT security concerns. DHS created a security baseline architecture and is testing it through five use cases. GSA created a new secure online content platform for agencies to move websites and applications into a mobile environment.

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Postal Service's IG's office proclaims 2013 as year of mobile

Gary Barlet, the OIG's chief information officer, is taking a three-pronged approach to helping employees access data from anywhere, at anytime. The steps include virtualization, a BYOD strategy and cloud services.
February 7, 2013

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USPS employees to see less overtime, more buyouts under 5-day delivery plan

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the service can no longer afford to delivery first class mail six-days a week. He said cutting back by one day a week would save about $2 billion a year. USPS still would have a $14 billion deficit and needs help from Congress to address other fiscal challenges.

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