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- VA chipping away at oldest disability claims in backlog
- What's the latest on phased retirement?
- New mobile tools gives agencies ‘giant innovation permission slip'
- Congress pressures agencies to speed up office consolidations
- Furlough Friday: Multiple agencies took advantage of holiday weekend
- Data breach puts DHS employees at risk of ID theft
- IRS replaces official in Tea Party controversy
- Commerce nominee sails through hearing
- Obama nominates Archuleta as next OPM director
- FedRAMP achieves another cloud security milestone
- Tangherlini to be nominated as permanent GSA chief
- House GOP panel moves on deep budget cuts
- OMB reworking financial system requirements
- Federal retirement funds temporarily tapped
- Friday federal headlines - May 24, 2013
CFOs remain tepid on financial shared services
An exclusive Federal News Radio survey of federal CFOs and deputy CFOs finds 55 percent of the respondents rated spending money more wisely as their top priority. But at the same time, 36 percent rated moving to the Internet Payment Portal or other financial management shared services as their fourth highest priority. CFOs also say they are using data to make better decisions and budget reductions, not sequestration, is their biggest concern.
Industry seeks tweaks to DoD Better Buying Power
Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, is promising a Better Buying Power 2.0, an revision to earlier reforms. That's good news to many in the defense industry, who hope the changes provide more nuanced guidance — as opposed to strict blanket policies — to agency contracting officers. Stan Soloway, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, In Depth with Francis Rosethe time is ripe for an update.
OMB reemphasizes move to continuous monitoring in FISMA guidance
The annual reporting memo gives agencies 57 questions and answers as they prepare their 2012 cybersecurity report.
Obama, Romney define role of government during presidential debate
President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney contrasted their approaches in how they would reduce the federal deficit and how they defined what the role of the federal government is during a nationally televised debate Wednesday night.
New FOIA portal promotes transparency, eases agency interactions
The Environmental Protection Agency partnered with the Commerce Department and National Archives to launch a new online portal aimed at streamlining the Freedom of Information Act request process for both the public and federal agencies.
Agencies could be liable for certain costs under sequestration
Agencies will be liable for many of the costs coming from the termination of contracts, including legal fees and employee compensation costs, if sequestration happens Jan. 2, 2013 and if vendors do not issue layoff notices this fall.
Agencies likely to miss network upgrade deadline
OMB sent a Sept. 30 target date for departments to implement IPv6. NIST statistics show a majority of the government's networks will not change over from the older IPv4 in the next week.
Issa proposes major reforms to IT management
The Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act would codify much of the Obama administration's 25-point IT reform plan. The draft bill would go even further in attempting to address long-standing challenges for agency chief information officers.
Reducing high-risk contracts yields mixed results
Agencies failed to meet a lofty goal to cut spending on new contracts considered high-risk by 10 percent. But despite the inconclusive results, contracting experts and agency procurement chiefs told Federal News Radio there's more to evaluating the effort to reduce high-risk contracts than the failure to reach the goal. Federal News Radio examines this as part of the special report, The Obama Impact: Evaluating the Last Four Years.
Administration recognizes quality of work depends on quality of workforce
The goal was to achieve an efficient, effective and accountable government. A key strategy was to change the way the federal employee approached the job. In part three of Federal News Radio's week-long, multimedia special report, The Obama Impact: Evaluating the Last Four Years, we examine the tactics employed to create a more efficient workforce; hiring and SES reform, reducing backlogs in security clearances and retirement claims, building a cyber workforce, telework and the overall support of the civil servant. Four were rated as effective, two as more progress needed, and one as ineffective.
Obama administration kick-starts regulatory reform, but more action needed
The Obama White House says it has cut red tape, reduced paperwork for businesses and citizens, and required agencies to simplify or get rid of old regulations. But how effective has this been? For analysis, Federal News Radio turns to Jerry Ellig, who was acting director of the Federal Trade Commission's Office of Policy Planning under George W. Bush. He spoke to Federal News Radio as part of the special report, The Obama Impact: Evaluating the Last Four Years.
Obama earns green thumb for sustainability record
Jon Powers is the Federal Environmental Executive for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He spoke to Federal News Radio as part of the special report, The Obama Impact: Evaluating the Last Four Years.
Achieving effective outcomes through management initiatives proves difficult
Federal News Radio evaluated a total of five initiatives meant to rally federal managers' enthusiasm, expertise and duty as part of the special report, The Obama Impact: Evaluating the Last Four Years. We determined more progress was needed on the administration's performance management and regulation reduction efforts. We called the President's plan to reorganize the Commerce Department a bust but find effective efforts surrounding energy sustainability and cutting waste, fraud, abuse and improper payments.
President Obama's executive orders affecting feds, contractors
President Obama has signed more than 130 executive orders since he took office. Federal News Radio compiled some of the orders most pertinent to federal employees and contractors.
Obama administration a mix of successes and failures
The Obama administration's legacy over the past four years consists of major wins, missed opportunities and large scale busts. Federal News Radio evaluated 23 ideas and initiatives behind which the administration flexed its performance and management muscle over the last four years. We rated 10 of the 23 as "effective" and 13 of the 23 as "more progress needed" or "ineffective." In our special weeklong multimedia series, "The Obama Impact: Evaluating the Last Four Years" we review how well the administration was able to go from concept to strategy to implementation to success in the areas of management, technology, workforce and acquisition.
White House warns of 'deeply destructive' cuts in sequestration report
The across-the-board budget cuts, known as sequestration, set to take effect Jan. 2 would be "deeply destructive" to national security and core civilian agency programs, according to a comprehensive report from the White House detailing the impact of the cuts on specific programs and accounts. The $109 billion in cuts coming next year — split evenly between Defense civilian agency budgets — would slash Defense discretionary spending by 9.4 percent and civilian agency spending by 8.2 percent.
OMB's Zients hints at making strategic sourcing mandatory
The President's Management Advisory Board wants agencies to focus on reducing improper payments and making strategic sourcing mandatory.
White House misses deadline to deliver sequestration report, says plan coming next week
The White House plans to deliver a report to Congress late next week detailing how automatic, across-the-board cuts, set to take effect in January, will affect specific programs. The report is required under the Sequestration Transparency Act, which Congress overwhelmingly passed this summer and which the President signed on Aug. 7. The law directed the President to issue the detailed report within 30 days of signing it - a deadline that came this week and went unmet.
OMB touts $4B in efficiency savings
Acting Director Jeff Zients wrote in a blog post today that agencies have met half of President Obama's goal to save $8 billion by the end of 2013.
Timing, technology converge to better attack improper payments
Over the last three years, agencies understood the problem better, improved how they tracked the information and used advanced data analysis tools to lower the governmentwide rate to 4.69 percent from 5.42 percent in 2009. While the amount of money improperly paid out hit a high of $125 billion in 2010, Danny Werfel, the Office of Management and Budget's controller, expects it to drop for a second consecutive year, below the $115 billion mark in 2011.
