Monthly Archives: April, 2009

Steve Losey linked to some OPM guidance on swine flu this morning. One other point to make from my reporting… I’ve talked to a few feds today about their swine flu responses, and they keep mentioning the hiring flexibilities that OPM grants during emergency situations: direct hire authority for doctors and nurses, 120-day temporary contracts to fill vacancies if an employee gets sick, etc. Obviously the disease hasn’t affected federal agencies yet, and nobody’s sure if it will, but it’s worth being prepared.

Following on the earlier theme of open government and sharing ideas, FedLine brings you more ways you can contribute to President Obama’s national discussion on improving government. Today the White House, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and the National Academy of Public Administration launched a site to gather input on how information technology can bring greater transparency to recovery spending. The week long “National Dialogue” is soliciting ideas from the public on what Recovery.gov should do and how it should do it. Topics include data collection, data storage, data analysis, data presentation, Web site design, and waste, fraud and abuse…

Not having a secretary of Health and Human Services isn’t hurting the federal response to the swine flu outbreak, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs Monday. “Our response is in no way hindered or hampered by not having a permanent secretary at HHS right now,” Gibbs said after a reporter asked how the agency is faring. Gibbs said he hopes the Senate will act quickly to confirm Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, the nominee for HHS secretary. The Senate has scheduled debate on her nomination for Tuesday with a vote possibly later in the day. Gibbs said interagency coordination for…

We’ve been reporting for months on the Bush administration’s “midnight regulations,” the flurry of often controversial last-minute rules approved in November and December. The president already announced plans to undo the “conscience rule,” one of most controversial regulations. And today another rule met its end: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that he’s seeking the end of the “mountaintop mining” rule that allowed coal companies to dump the “fill” — the leftover rocks from mining — in streams. “We’re cleaning up a major misstep from the previous administration,” Salazar said today at a press conference. “This was bad public policy… it…

The Air Force likely will have some explaining to do following this particularly poorly thought-out photo op, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Seems the Air Force thought it was a good idea to have a Boeing 747 fly very low around Manhattan while being escorted by an F-16. Apparently, the FAA and the New York City Police Department were told of the stunt, but no one warned the public. Understandably, more than a few New Yorkers made for the exits, as reported by WSJ: The low-flying 747 sent workers worried about a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001,…

The Office of Personnel Management is warning agencies to be prepared in case swine flu hits their area. An April 26 memo from OPM Director John Berry tells managers that employees might become sick or have to care for family members who contract swine flu, and reminds them of the government’s various sick leave and family care policies. And for employees at agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration or Customs and Border Protection – who could come into contact with travelers who may have contracted swine flu — the memo also includes advice on how to manage such encounters. OPM recommends that…

Want a chance to meet President Barack Obama? Come up with a way to save a lot of money at your agency. The president laid out a challenge to federal employees this weekend in his weekly blog/radio address, calling for new thinking and creativity among the federal workforce: “That’s why we’ll establish a process through which every government worker can submit their ideas for how their agency can save money and perform better. We’ll put the suggestions that work into practice. And later this year, I will meet with those who come up with the best ideas to hear firsthand…

Because there’s really nothing more enjoyable on a Friday afternoon than reading a document (pdf) entitled “The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program: Design and Implementation.” It’s a summary, from the Federal Reserve, of how the government conducted its “stress tests” of the nation’s 19 largest banks. The results of those stress tests are expected to go public on May 4. One thing that immediately jumps out at me: Treasury had just 150 employees working on these stress tests. If that sounds like a lot, consider that they were spread across 19 banks — and these are huge banks, each with more…

Many newspaper editorial pages were skeptical about the president’s call for $100 million in spending cuts at federal agencies. Maybe they had good reason: The Homeland Security Department is dropping some newspaper and magazine subscriptions to save money. The agency has told its employees to cancel subscriptions to general interest newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post and to magazines such as Newsweek and Time by April 27.

The Postal Service’s board of governors is meeting early next month to discuss, among other things, the financial results from the second quarter of 2009. There’s not much optimism about the numbers, considering USPS lost $384 million in the first quarter, which is traditionally the strongest of the year. Another bad sign: UPS’ earnings report. The shipping giant said its first-quarter earnings were down by 56 percent, and it expects the second quarter to be worse than previously expected. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison between UPS and the Postal Service. UPS is a huge multinational corporation. And its products are…