Jared Serbu covers the Department of Defense for Federal News Radio. Jared's reports can be heard Monday - Friday on the Federal Drive and In Depth.

Cyber study helps Air Force synch efforts with DoD's broader goals

Dr. Mark Maybury, the Air Force's chief scientist, joins On DoD to describe the areas the Air Force plans for cybersecurity development.

Comment

Congress revises DoD's sequestration starting point

When lawmakers and the White House kicked sequestration two months down the road, they also made changes to how the cuts would be calculated. The Pentagon estimates the impact on the Defense budget would be gentler than before.

1

Navy begins installing common IT architecture for entire fleet

The first Navy ship is undergoing an overhaul to implement the CANES system, one of up to 23 authorized under Pentagon's go-ahead for limited deployment.

Comment

Double-digit increase in reported sexual assaults at military academies

Reports of unwanted sexual contact increased sharply in the past academic year. The Pentagon believes the spike shows more reporting, not more crimes.

2

Colleges seeking DoD tuition money face new requirements

Beginning next year, public and private schools will have to sign up to protections for service members in order to receive DoD tuition assistance funds.

1

Federal acquisition leaders distressed over workforce, budget cuts

Latest edition of a biennial survey, sponsored by a contracting industry group, finds acquisition leaders have the same challenges they had a decade ago. But they fear tighter budgets will reverse progress toward improving the government's acquisition workforce.

Comment

Joint Chiefs to crack down on military IT stovepipes

A new process promises more advance word on what the Pentagon wants from its military services, but demands they comply with common architectures. DoD said it is learning from development mistakes of the past.

Comment

Sequestration worse than thought, Pentagon frets

As planning begins for sequestration, the military may have to cut billions more than previously imagined. DoD, like all agencies, is waiting for instruction from the OMB on how to reduce their budget.

1

Navy, Air Force CMOs decry 'blunt, formulaic' cuts to civilian workforce

Senate-passed annual authorization bill for DoD would require a 5 percent cut in non-uniformed employees. Chief management officers from two military services say mathematical cuts to a workforce that's "under siege" would be unwise.

8

Panetta, Shinseki order swifter progress toward joint health records

The heads of DoD and VA met on Thursday, and decided they wanted to a plan to speed up the delivery of an integrated health record system, currently scheduled for implementation in 2017.

Comment

IT reform bill would cull the CIO herd, give them more power

Rep. Darrell Issa said agencies need a lot more agility in their IT spending, but a lack of budget authority and a proliferation of accountability among bureau-level CIOs gets in the way.

Comment

Air Force role just 1 piece of DoD's cyber puzzle

Air Force senior leaders assigned themselves several tasks after a summit on cyberspace in mid-November. But the service's role in cyberspace also awaits forthcoming guidance from the military's top leadership on the future of U.S. Cyber Command.

Comment

IRS struggling to tackle massive surge in identity theft

Faced with declining resources, the Internal Revenue Service has diverted resources from elsewhere inside the agency to try and head off skyrocketing cases of identity theft stemming from tax refunds.

1

Army launches new push to help vets transition to civilian workforce

Nancy Hammer, the senior government affairs policy counsel at the Society for Human Resources Management, joins On DoD with Jared Serbu to discuss a new partnership between SHRM and the Army to help military veterans transition out of uniformed service and into the civilian workforce.

Comment

Senate debates 'arbitrary' cuts to DoD civilian workforce

Senators attempt to head off provision in annual Defense bill that would require reductions among Pentagon civilians.

Comment

Players in budget war game plot $500B in Defense cuts

This past summer, defense experts gathered into teams to map out how to cut DoD's budget by a half trillion dollars over 10 years. The results from the game provide some guidance on ways to make the cut happen in real life based on strategic choices, the organizers say.

1

Defense experts debate sequestration's impact

There's a little more than a month to go until sequestration kicks in, taking more than a $1 trillion from agency budgets over 10 years unless Congress finds a way to agree on a Plan B for deficit reduction. In this week's edition of On DoD, Jared Serbu, Federal News Radio's DoD reporter, talks with several defense experts about sequestration and the Defense budget in a second term under President Obama:

Comment

'Give it a rest,' USPTO chief tells patent critics

USPTO director David Kappos says software is every bit as entitled to patent protection as hardware innovations. Critics of the agency should give recent reforms a chance to work, he told a think tank audience Tuesday.

Comment

'Careless' budget cut threatens critical debris tracking system, Air Force space chief says

Gen. William Shelton says some costs for space activities are unsustainable and the service is working to bring them down. But he implored "congressional teammates" not to cut funding for programs that are working.

1

Next few weeks critical to defining DoD in second Obama term

"Fog bank" of threatened automatic spending cuts makes predicting Defense policy under a re-elected President Obama difficult. But experts agree DoD is likely to take more cuts, with or without sequestration.

1