I’ve probably made this point before, but it’s worth making again. There’s a lot of snark going around about the job-creation figures released last week on Recovery.gov. The conservative National Review, for example, jokes that the data shows an “embarrass[ing]” $533,000-per-job performance by the economic stimulus bill. That $533,000 figure comes from dividing the total amount of money spent so far on contracts, $16 billion, by the number of jobs they created, 30,000. $533,000 is more than 10 times the median national income — so if it takes that much money to create a job, the stimulus bill must be…
Monthly Archives: October, 2009
The Office of Management and Budget received nearly 40,000 ideas from federal employees recommending ways the government can save money in fiscal 2011. When OMB’s SAVE Award contest closed on Oct. 14, federal employees had submitted 38, 484 ideas. An OMB panel will now review the submissions and send a handful of finalists to President Barack Obama to choose from. The winning entry will be announced next month. The winner gets to meet Obama and the idea will be included in the 2011 budget. Now that nominations are closed, FedLine wants to know: Did you submit an idea? If so,…
Former White House official David Safavian was sentenced to a year in prison today for obstructing justice and lying to investigators about his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. This was the second conviction for David Safavian, who served as chief of staff at the General Services Administration under President George W. Bush. His 2006 conviction was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 2008. He was tried again and convicted in December. The case stemmed from allegations that Safavian lied to GSA ethics officials when he had asked for advice on whether he…
The Recovery Accountability and Transparency board has posted the first batch of recipient reporting data on Recovery.gov. A little background for those of you who don’t follow the stimulus bill quite as obsessively as we do: Recovery.gov already had agency reporting data, which comes directly from the agencies that awarded the money. But the recipients of that money are also required to report, on a quarterly basis, on each contract, grant or loan they receive. The first round of reporting ended on Oct. 10, and the RAT board has staretd posting that data online. This data — in theory –…
The group that crafts the Federal Acquisition Regulation has been hard at work. Today the FAR Council published seven new, interim or final rules in the Federal Register to enact congressional mandates. They are: A final rule limiting the term of a non-competitive contracts awarded during an emergency response to one year. A final rule granting Government Accountability Office auditors and investigators the right to interview contractor employees. An interim rule requiring that contract award fees be tied to positive outcomes. An interim rule limiting what charges contractors can pass along to the government from their subcontractors. An interim rule…
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., continues to hold up the vote on Martha Johnson’s nomination to lead the General Services Administration. Bond placed a hold on her confirmation this summer to squeeze the agency for information about why it wasn’t closing down the federally owned Bannister Complex outside Kansas City, Mo. and relocating staff to leased space downtown, as previously planned. GSA’s new Public Building Service commissioner, Robert Peck, responded to Bond, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., in a letter last week. In the Oct. 9 letter, Peck explained that plans to close Bannister are still on…
Two Defense Department agencies announced the release of their fiscal year 2008 contractor inventories in today’s Federal Register. The inventory for the Missle Defense Agency, which posted its headcount here, doesn’t appear to include much information about the number of contractors performing the work. In fact, that column appears to be blank for most of the contracts listed in the 210 page document. The Defense Contract Management Agency also posted a notice about its list, but at the time this is being posted, the list isn’t on the agency’s site. The notice says it has 30 days to post its…
A few of you have e-mailed me about the latest list of post office closures, released on Friday. I think there’s an interesting gap between how the public perceives the closures and how the Postal Service perceives them. The closures are getting a huge amount of attention. Newspapers across the country are running stories about them; Congress has called hearings about them; even Andy Rooney threw in his two cents. To the Postal Service, though, these closures are a pretty minor item. I don’t mean they’re not taking them seriously. But the closures represent a tiny fraction of the agency’s…
A request for our readers: I know OMB’s new performance management guidelines are still pretty new, and I’m sure many agencies haven’t had a chance to discuss them yet. But if your agency is planning to apply for the extra program evaluation funding that’s available in 2010, send me an e-mail — I want to hear from you.
Here’s the updated list (pdf) of proposed post office closures from USPS. There are 371 post offices on the list, down from nearly 700 on the initial list released in July. Most of them are in major urban areas. California has the greatest number of proposed closures — roughly 70 of them, mostly in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. New York City, Atlanta, and several cities in Florida would also face cuts. The Postal Service started the summer with almost 3,600 post offices under review. It pared that list down to 677 before a July 30 congressional hearing on…