The White House and Office of Management and Budget hosted a forum today (it is going on right now actually) to gather ideas from industry executives about how government can use technology to modernize and streamline operations. The idea is to improve services to citizens by equipping agencies with the basic tools prevalent in the private sector, like online booking, electronic applications for benefits, and similar advances. But the administration isn’t only interested in hearing from industry on this topic. OMB director Peter Orszag invited members of the public, which includes you dear FedLine readers, to weigh in as well…
Yearly Archives: 2010
My avatar is going to look like George Clooney, and I can’t tell you the computer skills we needed to make that happen. Retiring — and remarkably candid — intelligence chief human capital officer Ron Sanders on an upcoming “virtual” job fair that will let job seekers adopt avatars and chat live with agency officials.
The libertarian Reason Magazine has a — shall we say — provocative article online, entitled “Class War: How public servants become our masters.” It raises some valid points about problems associated with public-sector employment: The impending “pension bomb,” for example, is a serious threat to the finances of many state and local governments. But I think the author, Steven Greenhut, makes a couple of questionable propositions about the federal government.
I wanted to pass along the links the State Department posted instructing the public on how to provide assistance to the victims of yesterday’s devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. State says the fastest way to give financially is to text HAITI to “90999.” A $10 donation will automatically go to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts. The charge will show up on your cell phone bill. State also set up a number to call if you need information about loved ones affected by the disaster. The number is 1-888-407-4747. You can find more disaster assistance information from the…
Nobody can say that the Government Printing Office lacks a sense of humor. After FedLine blogged White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ joke yesterday about sending the federal budget to Kinko’s — now called FedEx Office — GPO today said it will send Gibbs his own Kinko’s card. Technically, it’s a GPOExpress card. Those cards allow federal employees to place a small-scale printing order at any FedEx Office branch and net the government up to 70 percent off of the cost. Public Printer Bob Tapella, who runs the agency, said GPOExpress has helped feds place more than 40,000 printing orders since…
Here’s an update on Monday’s story on U.S. Postal Service executive Robert Bernstock and the three sole-source contracts he awarded to people he worked with in the private sector: Agency spokesman Gerry McKiernan said yesterday that the Postal Service’s general counsel, Mary Anne Gibbons has finished reviewing the contracts and “determined that the procurement process was followed in securing these contracts.” Gibbons began reviewing the contracts last week in response to Federal Times inquiries.
Ronald Sanders, chief human capital officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is leaving his position. The ODNI announced his departure yesterday, but spokeswoman Vanee Vines said the office would not answer any other questions until Thursday, when Sanders will speak to reporters. Sanders joined the ODNI in 2005, and began working on a pay-for-performance system for all 16 intelligence agencies in the government. But the Defense authorization bill Congress passed last year put those plans on hold, at least until the end of 2010. Sanders also pushed intelligence workers to spend some time working at other agencies,…
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs appeared to announce a new outsourcing initiative at today’s press conference: MR. GIBBS: I’m not going to get into details and specifics on a budget that will be released at a later day. Q: It’s at the printers? MR. GIBBS: And when it comes back from Kinko’s, we’ll be able to talk about it. It’s not really at Kinko’s, though, I was just — go ahead. That sound you just heard was the Government Printing Office having a collective heart attack. Who knows what would happen to them if the White House actually started sending an intern down…
In case you haven’t heard, White House budget director Peter Orszag’s home life just got a lot more complicated. For the appropriate — and always tasteful — analysis on Orszag’s “magnetic machismo,” we turn it over to Jon Stewart and his crack staff at the Daily Show. [HTML1]
President Obama’s appointment of the first openly transgender person to a political post became a punch line on David Letterman’s late night talk show, and a leading gay rights group has come out swinging. Amanda Simpson began her new job Tuesday as senior technical adviser in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, where she will monitor the exports of U.S. weapons technology. Simpson, who has worked in the aerospace and defense industry for 30 years, is the first openly transgender person to receive a presidential appointment, the Human Rights Campaign said. She was born a male and began her transition to…