North Carolina-based Autonomic Resources last week became the only firm to complete a new security review process for all federal cloud products and services. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) was launched in June to standardize security reviews of commercial cloud products. The program is housed within the General Services Administration. As part of FedRAMP, a joint board of chief information officers from the Homeland Security and Defense departments and GSA reviewed Autonomic’s cloud offering and whether it met federal security standards. The company had to verify that it met some 300 security requirements, including proof that its…
Browsing: Agencies
The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s administrator is stepping down, according to a Dec. 21 statement. Thomas D’Agostino has worked in the federal government for more than 36 years but said the time had come to step down – effective Jan. 18, 2013 – and make way for new leadership. The full statement is reprinted below: After more than 36 years of service — including the last five and a half years as the NNSA Administrator and Under Secretary for Nuclear Security, and two years as Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs — my wife Beth and I have decided…
The chances of postal legislation clearing Congress this year are now zero following the House of Representatives’ abrupt decision to quit town Thursday night. A band of five retired and current postal workers nonetheless is nonetheless persevering in a hunger strike as scheduled through Saturday. “We’re maintaining our guard,” Jamie Partridge, a retired city letter carrier from Portland, Oregon, said in a phone interview this morning. The group, encamped on the National Mall in downtown Washington, began the six-day fast at 9 a.m. Monday to protest efforts to end most Saturday mail delivery; they will keep going on until tomorrow…
The Merit Systems Protection Board would be able to mete out a wider range of punishments for Hatch Act violators under a bill that won final congressional approval today and now goes to President Obama for his signature. Instead of firing violators–the only authorized penalty up to now unless the board unanimously opts for a different route–the MSPB could issue formal reprimands; reduce violators’ pay grades; bar them from federal employment for up to five years; or fine them up to $1,000. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, sponsored the bill in the Senate; Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., handled it in the…
The National Academy of Public Administration has announced the panel of five experts who will carry out a congressional required study on the possible effects of putting some federal employees’ personal financial disclosure statements on the Internet. The study is due at the end of March. The panel’s members are: David Chu, president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Defense Analyses; former Office of Personnel Management director Janice Lachance, who is now chief executive officer of the Special Libraries Association; Martha Kumar, a political science professor at Towson State University; Ronald Sanders, former chief human capital officer at…
The General Services Administration has awarded contracts to 43 small businesses for tablet computers, mobile devices and other common information technology products and services, the agency announced Thursday. The blanket purchase agreements were awarded through GSA’s National Information Technology Commodity Program and are available to federal, state and local agencies. GSA’s Office of Integrated Technology Services launched the program last year in an effort to procure IT commodities and supplement services for government agencies. The contracts will provide agencies with deeper discounts than those offered on GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules, according to an agency new release. Other products offered on the…
The American Federation of Government Employees is rallying tomorrow against Social Security Administration cutbacks. The union, which represents some 28,000 employees in SSA field offices and tele-service centers, is using the lunchtime gatherings to protest the continued use of attrition to reduce the workforce and cutting the hours that field offices are open to the public. The rallies will take place at about 80 offices around the country, including the Social Security Administration’s Baltimore headquarters, according to Witold Skwierczynski, president of AFGE’s National Council of SSA Field Operations Locals. The Social Security Administration has been under a partial hiring freeze…
The Hatch Act would get some tweaking under a bill that won unanimous Senate approval last week. The bill would allow state and local government employees to run for partisan political office, for example, and the Merit Systems Protection Board would get more options for dealing with violations of the act, which generally bars federal civil servants from partisan politicking. Currently, the board’s only option is to fire offending feds unless its members unanimously agree to some lesser penalty. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, now goes to the House, where Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., has introduced similar…
As the U.S. Postal Service’s problems grow, its governing board is shrinking. The board, which is supposed to have 11 members, currently has eight and will lose another next week when Chairman Thurgood Marshall Jr. steps down, leaving it with just one more body than the six needed for a quorum to conduct business. As of today, however, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hasn’t scheduled confirmation votes on three board nominations that have been awaiting action since summer. In an email, committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips said she did not know the reason for the delay. Although there have…
The U.S. Postal Service may have its problems, but they evidently aren’t severe enough to persuade many supervisors and administrators to jump at an early retirement offer. Out of 3,594 Executive and Administrative Schedule employees eligible for the package, just 186 signed up by the Nov. 19 deadline, according to Postal Service figures provided today. The package—standard for the federal government–allows employees to retire early if they are at least 50 years old with a minimum of 20 years’ service, or any age with at least 25 years’ service. Unlike recent early retirement offers to postmasters, mail handlers and clerks,…