Federal employees in the Washington area pledged $61.6 million to charities through the Combined Federal Campaign in 2012 — about 99.4 percent of the $62 million goal set for the National Capital Area CFC, said Global Impact, which ran the charity drive. This year’s results of the CFC’s largest campaign reflect some of the broader troubles and plummeting pledges plaguing the government’s charity drive nationwide, which we wrote about in January. The CFC NCA’s 2012 results mark the second year in a row that its pledge totals fell, and failed to meet the goals it set. While CFC NCA came…
Monthly Archives: March, 2013
About 400 civilian employees will be leaving Robins Air Force Base in the latest of a series of early-out offers, according to a news release today. The package, unveiled last month, combined an early retirement option with a buyout worth up to $25,000. The 403 workers at the Georgia installation who ultimately accepted must be off the payroll by the end of next month. The base, an Air Force logistics hub about 100 miles from Atlanta, employs some 15,000 civilians, spokesman David Donato said in a phone interview. This early-out round is the fourth since 2011; a total of 680…
As the realities of the sequester sink in, more and more agencies are finalizing their plans for massive furloughs — by our count, at least 1.1 million feds are likely to be furloughed by the end of the fiscal year. Check back in with Federal Times Monday for our cover story diving into these furloughs, and how they might shape the federal workforce for years to come.
This week’s edition of Silver Screen Feds goes back to the Roaring Twenties and the lawless days of Prohibition, to look at the best and worst Treasury agents who ever busted up a still on-screen: Legendary lawman Eliot Ness from the 1987 film “The Untouchables,” and deeply disturbed Agent Nelson Van Alden from HBO’s series “Boardwalk Empire.” BEST FEDS: Eliot Ness, Treasury Department, “The Untouchables” (Andy Medici) How do you take down one of the most notorious criminals in America’s history? How do you capture and convict a man responsible for gang violence, murder and untold corruption? Why, with a…
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will vote on legislation Wednesday to overhaul how agencies buy and manage information technology. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., introduced the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Act on Monday after months of circulating the draft bill to industry groups for feedback. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., has expressed general support for the bill, which has since undergone revisions to address concerns voiced by industry and others. (Click here to view the revisions) Under Issa’s new plan: – CIOs at 16 major civilian agencies, including Veterans Affairs and Agriculture department, must be presidential appointees or designees and report directly to the head of their agency.…
The General Services Administration accepted a bid of $19.5 million on its vacant heating plant in the pricey Georgetown area of Washington, D.C. The agency had been under pressure from congressional committees to ditch the property. Acting administrator Dan Tangherlini said the sale was just the latest in an all-hands-on-deck attempt to cut costs and unload excess property. “GSA remains committed to using innovative ways to put excess properties to new uses. We are hosting auctions, requesting industry input, and offering proposed exchanges, which helps us to deliver on our mission to provide better value to the American people.” The…
American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox is not happy about the Transportation Security Administration removing small knives, along with bats and other items, from its prohibited items list. “Any knife, regardless of blade size, can be used as a weapon. TSA has created a situation where [transportation security officers] will be required to discern the length and width of a knife blade in a very short period of time. Disagreements over the TSOs’ determination as to whether the knife will be allowed through checkpoints may result in a confrontation. Far too often, TSOs are threatened and…
The sequester is upon us. Budgets are being slashed, pay is frozen and your agency is not hiring anyone. Yet despite all of that, you have a job to do. The only question is, do you have the resources you need to get the job done? Are your workloads increasing? The results of the government’s latest Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey suggest this is a problem across the government. The percentage of employees who disagree or strongly disagree with the statement “I have sufficient resources to get my job done” climbed from 34.1 percent in 2011 to 35.1 percent in 2012.…
Federal Times reported earlier this week that retirements skyrocketed in February, suggesting that the retirement wave may be regaining steam. Are you one of the 20,374 feds who put in your papers last month? We’d like to talk to you, to find out why you decided to call it a day. Was it because of the sequester and furlough threats? The general bad news from the last couple of years? Or were there other factors at play? E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com if you’d like to talk.
This week on Silver Screen Feds, we examine two federal employees who couldn’t be any more different: Dr. Edwin Jenner, the doomed researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the zombie apocalypse show “The Walking Dead,” and Ranger Smith, the hapless National Park Service ranger who can’t stop Yogi Bear from stealing them pic-a-nic baskets. BEST FEDS: Dr. Edwin Jenner, CDC, “The Walking Dead” (Stephen Losey) Edwin Jenner holds a unique place in the pantheon of TV and movie feds: The last civil servant on Earth. Towards the end of the first season of “The Walking Dead,”…