The U.S. Postal Service is slashing its administrative ranks by 15 percent and cutting 1,400 mail processing supervisors and management positions at 400 facilities across the country, the economically imperiled organization announced today. In addition, the Postal Service is closing six of its 80 district offices, a move that will eliminate another 500 positions. USPS is also offering early retirement opportunity to 150,000 postal employees nationwide. The actions are expected to save the Postal Service more than $100 million a year. Affected employees will have four months to find work elsewhere in the Postal Service, at an equal or lower pay…
Monthly Archives: March, 2009
The Washington Post says President Barack Obama is planning to deploy hundreds of diplomats and other federal employees to Afghanistan as part of a major effort to bolster reconstruction efforts in the war-torn country. The Post reports that aside from senior State Department diplomats, “other civilian officials are to be drawn from government departments such as Agriculture and Justice, and hundreds of new ‘full-time, temporary’ positions are planned” under a new strategy expected to be approved next week. During last year’s presidential campaign, Obama promised to refocus U.S. attention on Afghanistan, where the Taliban is regaining strength and Afghan president…
Congress and the White House have declared their desire to see an end to public-private competitions for federal jobs through the omnibus bill and other proclamations. But that doesn’t mean the competitions have been stopped completely. Approximately 570 public works and custodial employees at the U.S. Military Academy will learn the fate of their jobs next week when a two-year long public-private competition for their jobs is expected to conclude. Two members of congress are urging the Defense Department to cancel the competition before a decision is announced. In a March 18 letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Reps. John Hall,…
Vivek Kundra has returned to work as the federal chief information officer. The New York Times reported last night that Kundra, who was placed on leave following an FBI raid of his former offices last week, was reinstated by the White House Tuesday. Kundra was not a target of the FBI investigation. According to the Times’ Caucus blog, Gov. Tim Kaine, D-Va., for whom Kundra once worked, lobbied for Kundra’s return. Kaine is also the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Update, 5:05 p.m.: A quick (and supportive) reaction from John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees: “We have said consistently that this system is inherently flawed. It lacks transparency and fairness. It is a system that is completely untenable and should never have been pursued… I am pleased that [Lynn] has decided to take immediate action.” Original post: The Defense Department announced a major review of the National Security Personnel System today. The announcement came from William Lynn, the deputy secretary of defense. The pay-for-performance system has been controversial for years; President Barack Obama said during the…
Tim Geithner is not having much luck finding a deputy. According to ABC News, his third pick for deputy treasury secretary — H. Rodgin Cohen, a partner in a New York law firm — has withdrawn his name from consideration. No word on why, just that a “problem” came up late in the vetting process. Geithner (who is arguably the most important Cabinet secretary right now) is supposed to have 17 confirmed deputies. He currently has zero.
Update 2: The Associated Press is reporting that Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is on leave “until further details of the case become known” following the raid of his former office this morning. While the raid was going on Kundra spoke at an IT conference today. He set out bold plans for reforming federal IT by opening up more information to the public for review and feedback. During today’s White House press briefing, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the investigation into Kundra’s old office. Stay tuned. Update 1: The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia released some court documents…
Charles Freeman, who was President Barack Obama’s pick to be chairman of the National Intelligence Council, is blaming a so-called “Israel lobby” for orchestrating strong online opposition to his appointment. Freeman was criticized for his connections to the Saudi-funded Middle East Policy Council, past statements critical of Israel, and his perceived leniency on the Chinese government’s repression of political dissent. Freeman released a statement Tuesday after taking himself out of the running: I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy…
Can agencies handle the upcoming crush of stimulus grant applications? Apparently Grants.gov is already seeing a big spike in traffic. So OMB director Peter Orszag wants agencies to review their grant systems and make improvements to handle the increased workload. The deadline for that review is Friday. “We want to make sure that the systems are in place to handle what everyone expects will be an unprecedented number of grant applications,” Orszag said. I wonder, though, if some agencies will be reluctant to invest a lot of time and money in adding new capacity to their grants systems — because…
The Senate voted Tuesday evening to approve a $410 billion spending omnibus bill to fund the federal government through the end of the current fiscal year. The Senate voted 62-35 to invoke cloture on the bill, HR 1105, ending debate on a series of amendments. The omnibus was approved by a voice vote. Republicans had proposed a series of amendments, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., allowed several to go to the floor for debate, hoping a few Republicans would then decide to cross party lines vote for the bill. No amendments were approved, including one that would have repealed…