Tuesday Morning Federal Newscast – Nov. 16th

Lame-duck Congress weighs federal pay raises, OPM delays FEHBP database, and Counterterrorism is DOJ\'s biggest challenge.

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Amy Morris discuss throughout the show each day. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air.

  • Raise or no raise? That’s going to be a pressing question for the lame duck session of Congress as it considers final 2011 spending levels. The Senate Appropriations Committee last summer approved a 1.4 percent pay raise for federal workers, matching the president’s request. GovExec reports, House committees have not come up with a figure for civilian employees. But now the president’s fiscal commission has recommended freezing federal pay for three years while cutting the work force by 10 percent. On the military side, Senate appropriators want 1.9 percent raises for service members, while House appropriators want 1.4 percent.
  • A huge change to the FEHBP did not come off as planned. Comments were supposed to close about OPM’s planned Health Claims Data Warehouse in advance of a launch. Instead, a notice has appeared in the Federal Register extending the comment period for the program. OPM says it’s extending the comment period until December 15th to consider changes to the “systems notice”…not the system itself. OPM may also provide a more detailed explanation of planned security and privacy controls for the new database. Privacy and rights groups have expressed concerns about what will be done with the data OPM says it needs to manage the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program, the National Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Program and the Multi-State Option Plan.
  • Counterterrorism tops the list of management and performance challenges for the Justice Department. The list comes from the department’s inspector general. It says the department isn’t doing enough to share information and prepare for a potential weapons of mass destruction attack. Counterterrorism has been a long-standing challenge for DOJ. New on this year’s list are southwest border security issues and violent and organized crime.
  • A top White House leader is encouraging people to bypass the Freedom of Information Act when they want information from your agency. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Beth Noveck says that instead they should contact open government officials who can post or e-mail the materials.Novek, cited in NextGov, says doing that can result in getting the information more quickly, because of the administration’s push to make disclosing information the default for agencies.
  • OMB is losing another leader to the Information Sharing Environment. Mike Howell is OMB’s deputy administrator for e-government and IT. He’s moving on to become the deputy program manager for the Information Sharing Environment. Earlier this year, Kshmendra Paul left his post as OMB’s chief architect to become the Environment’s program manager. Howell begins his new position in early December.
  • CACI International Inc. is going to help the Army boost its numbers. The Washington Business Journal reports that the Department of Defense has hired CACI to help speed up the enlistment process. The contract is worth as much as $75 million over the next three-and-a-half years. CACI will help modernize the Military Entrance Processing Command’s Virtual Interactive Processing System. The company will automate the system, which is used to process applicants.
  • Feds across the board agree that conflicts of interest need to be handled swiftly. What they don’t seem to agree upon is how to handle them. There is a growing divide between acquisition officers and the federal watchdogs who oversee the acquisition process. A survey by the Professional Services Council finds that most acquisition officers find the current system effective. But most oversight professionals, like the Government Accountability Office, say it isn’t. Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, says the survey found clear differences between those doing front-line acquisition and those doing backend oversight and management. For more on the survey read Reporter Jason Miller’s story by clicking here.
  • The federal government is becoming more than a major user of super computers. It wants to have more influence in how the machines are designed. Sandia National Laboratories computer scientists have devised a new super computer rating system they will unveil at a conference later this week. The new rating system reportedly does a better job than existing ones of evaluating performance at tasks the machines are actually called on to do. The new a rating system, called Graph 500, shows how fast computers analyze large, complex data sets. Sandia scientists hope the results will spur super computer manufacturers to design their new machines around the new testing scheme.
  • This week, the House will consider the Senate amendment to the Telework Enhancement Act, which passed the House in July. The bill addresses telecommuting, which came into focus during the blizzards in Washington, D.C. last winter and was able to limit losses in federal workers’ productivity. The bill encourages an expansion of telecommuting and the Senate amendment adds requirements on each executive agency to ensure that employees are authorized to telecommute as long as there is no loss in productivity.
  • Army soldiers could soon be traveling by blimp. The Army and the U.S. Transportation Command are investigating whether updated airships can be revived for both combat and humanitarian troop movement. NextGov reports, two requests for information seek help from industry, academia and commercial transportation companies to develop cost and operational models for airships. In June, the Space and Missile Defense Commanded awarded a 517 million dollar contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. to develop a hybrid airship to carry more than a ton of surveillance gear.
  • The Commerce Department has identified a chunk of radio spectrum it says can be reallocated for wireless broadband service. The 115 megahertz piece of bandwidth is now being used by two federal agencies. One is Commerce’s own National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for weather alerts. And the Defense Department uses the spectrum for ship-board radar. Eventually, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration plans to ferret out a total of 500 megahertz to be reallocated for both fixed and wireless broadband. That figure is part of the administration’s 10-year broadband roadmap.

More news links

The federal government’s long-term fiscal outlook (GAO)

DHS committee Chairman says it is impossible to predict a biological hazard breach in unbuilt facility (House)

Defense Releases details on select major defense acquisition program details(DoD)

Shakeup on the House Oversight Committee? (The Atlantic)

U.S. moves to rebid Northrop’s $2.63 billion contract to wire Homeland Security headquarters (Washington Post)

THIS AFTERNOON ON FEDERAL NEWS RADIO

Coming up today on The DorobekInsider:

** Better – faster – cheeper. You’re probably sick of those words already. Well many state and local governments have been working to be better, faster and do things more efficiently for years. We’ll tap their lessons…

** And the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board meets today. An update on what they decided about your TSP…

Join Chris from 3 to 7 pm on 1500 AM or on your computer.

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.