Tuesday Morning Federal Newscast

This morning's federal news as heard on WFED:

OPM Director John Berry proposes sweeping civil service reforms that could end the General Schedule. Berry telling students at his alma mater, Syracuse University, that now is the time to build something new to reinvigorate federal human resources. Among his his proposals, bolstered training and opening up performance pay to all employees, not just senior executives. Berry also wants to make firing easier. Nothing is final. But the OPM director wants you to weigh in with ideas.

The military is having trouble counting how many contractor employees are on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Wartime Contracting Commission says not knowing all of the contractor workers puts troops in danger. FederalTimes reports that's because some might be hired without background checks. A computer program called SPOT produces a contractor head count that shows tens of thousands of fewer contractor workers than a manual head count. Meantime, Iraq support contractor KBR is under fire for not reducing its headcount even as the U.S. is removing troops from that country.

Federal Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients promising to revamp how you choose and purchase information technology. Zients telling an audience at the American Society for Public Administration Monday that outdated systems are the biggest road-block to improving federal performance. As quoted in FederalTimes, Zients pledges to fix the IT development process, from specifications to project management.

If you filed your tax return electronically this year, you helped the IRS break records. In all, the IRS took in $95-million e-filings. FCW reports that represents 67-percent of all tax returns and is up 6-pecent from last year.

Congress has sent President Obama a bill allowing military spouses to claim residency in the same state as their wives or husbands. As things stand now, service members can maintain residency in their home states even as they get transferred from place to place. But spouses must change residency as they move. That requires getting new drivers licenses re-registering to vote. Sometimes, married couples even have to file separate tax returns. The president is expected to sign the bill to make life easier for military spouses, who move on average every three years.

More news links

Uncle Sam tends to federal families' well-being (GovExec)

Senator Defends IRS Private Debt Collectors After GAO Report (InsideARM)

Agencies: Glitch with foreign SS numbers is fixed

First lady launches White House mentoring program

Fort to graduate first Navy chaplain class (TheState)