Monthly Archives: April, 2013

The head of the Defense Department’s closely watched audit-readiness effort has left for the private sector. Joe Quinn is now a senior manager at Ernst and Young’s federal practice, where he will advise clients on strategies “to improve financial, accounting and cost management capabilities,” the firm said in a news release last week. As director of the Pentagon’s financial improvement and audit readiness (FIAR) program for the last three years, Quinn was point man for the mammoth undertaking of getting DoD’s books in order. Under a timetable that Congress has now written into law, the department is supposed to have an auditable statement…

Federal, state and local agencies are working together in the aftermath of 3 explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon that has left at least 2 dead and more than 20 people injured. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick said in a press conference with reporters Monday that he has talked personally with President Obama and the FBI – who have pledged to help in any way required. He said the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, Massachusetts State Police and the National Guard were all working together along with local law enforcement and first responders. “There is…

Put all government security clearance holders together and you’d have the second-largest city in the United States, according to the latest annual numbers from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. As of October, the number of federal employees and contractors allowed coveted access to secret information totaled almost 4.92 million, an increase of about 1 percent over the preceding year. Of that total, about 3.5 million were feds, augmented by almost 1.1 million contract employees, the ODNI report said. There were also about 300,000 cleared individuals who fell in the category of “other,” meaning that records didn’t make…

House lawmakers will consider a bill Wednesday that would allow companies and federal agencies to voluntarily share and receive cyber threat information with each other. The Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) passed the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence April 10 and will be introduced on the House floor Wednesday. A vote is expected by Thursday. An earlier version of the bill passed the House last April but lacked additional privacy controls included in the revised bill. Still, that has not satisfied the White House and civil liberties groups who say the bill’s current provisions are insufficient. CISPA…

President Obama this afternoon bid farewell to departing Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry today in a statement: John Berry has served the American people well as Director of the Office of Personnel Management.  He’s streamlined the way federal employees are hired, modernized the workplace, made the federal workforce more diverse, and increased the number of returning servicemembers hired by the government.  John has been a champion for federal workers – men and women who devote their lives to vital tasks like securing our borders, curing disease, and keeping the American people safe.  This country is better off because…

The president’s budget will propose a 2 percent increase in overall information technology funding in 2014 to about $82 billion.  The slight increase is compared with 2012 levels and may mean that agencies will be allowed to reinvest savings from targeted cuts the administration directed last fall. The increased funding, however, seems to contradict administration efforts to reduce IT spending. Cybersecurity, innovation and delivering efficient IT are among the priorities expected to be outlined in the budget. More details to come…

Make sure you keep checking FederalTimes.com through the day for up-to-the-minute coverage of the White House’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal. The budget will go online at 11:15 a.m. today, and the Federal Times crew will immediately start diving into the numbers to find out who are the winners and who are the losers. (Although given the way things have been going lately, we expect a lot more losers than winners this year.) We already know that President Obama is going to propose switching to the chained CPI, and cutting federal retirement benefits by $35 billion. Check our story from last…

The average federal salary increased nearly $1,000 last year — from $77,505 in fiscal 2011 to $78,467 — according to statistics posted online by the Office of Personnel Management yesterday. How can that be, you ask, when federal pay has been frozen for more than two years now? The increase highlights a point we’ve made several times — that the pay freeze isn’t actually a total pay freeze. It’s a freeze on the pay scales. Within-grade step increases — which bump many feds up to a higher level of pay every one, two or three years — were left untouched…

Agencies were directed last fall to cut a combined $7.7 billion from their information technology budgets in 2014 and propose ways to redirect those funds for priority projects. Duplicative investments, failing projects, help desks and contracts for email, desktops and mobile devices are among the areas targeted for cuts, according to budget guidance released by the Office of Management and Budget in August. Details of the proposed cuts were included in agencies’ budget submission documents and were incorporated into the president’s budget, which is due out Wednesday. For each agency, cuts will amount to 10 percent of their average annual…

May 5 marks the beginning of Public Service Recognition Week. For this occasion, Federal Times invites you to share your thoughts on the state of federal public service. These are trying and uncertain days for federal employees. Their compensation and contribution to the nation are under scrutiny like never before. Public support for federal employees is low. The nation’s leaders are engaged in an important debate on how to readjust the size and role of government. Meanwhile, federal employees are retiring in large numbers. We invite you to write a short, candid essay — between 300 and 500 words —…