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Browsing: Agencies
Remember that U.S. Postal Service list of about 3,650 post offices under study for closure? The number is now closer to 3,270. The reason: Since the original roster was released last July, 380 facilities have quietly been given a reprieve, according to the Postal Service. In many cases, USPS officials decided that closing wasn’t feasible because there was no other post office within an acceptable distance. In other cases, they cited “negative community impact” or decided that closing wouldn’t be cost-effective, according to an official spreadsheet. Not surprisingly,one of the biggest gainers was Alaska, where 31 post offices have so…
As expected, Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., has formally asked Postal Regulatory Commission Chairman Ruth Goldway to explain all official travel since she assumed the position 2-1/2 years ago. In a letter to Goldway sent today, Carper sought a detailed itinerary and justification for each official trip she’s taken–along with similar information for her two most recent predecessors—by Feb. 20. Carper, who chairs a Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over the U.S. Postal Service and the PRC, also requested details on the commission’s travel policy and any procedures in place to prevent wasteful or unneeded travel. “Given the Postal Service’s ongoing financial…
A new inspector general report questions how much revenue the General Services Administration is setting aside for operations and future investments. GSA Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) officials say the agency hasn’t met its goals for funding reserve accounts that pay for administering, managing and improving the schedule program. But the account thresholds have not been reviewed in several years and may not reflect actual needs, according to a report released last week by the GSA deputy assistant inspector general for acquisition audits. The inspector general last audited GSA’s revenues – earned by charging agencies for use of its schedule contracts –…
The General Services Administration is considering a procurement for tablet computers that meet federal security standards and can easily integrate with various email platforms like Google and Microsoft Outlook. GSA issued a request for information to vendors this week for tablet computers that are manufactured by U.S.-based small businesses and meet federal encryption standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. “The General Services has received many statements of interest from customers within the agency and across government for tablet computers,” GSA said in the RFI posted on fbo.gov. Vendors have until Feb. 20 to respond. Vendors are asked to include…
More than a year ago, agencies were ordered to begin shuttering hundreds of data centers and move government applications to the cloud under the administration’s information technology reform plan. As of last fall, agencies had moved 40 services to the cloud and terminated 50 legacy systems. Transportation Department Chief Information Officer Nitin Pradhan announced a program last November called IT Vital Signs, which was created to set consistent performance metrics for cybersecurity , IT investments and departmentwide initiatives like data center consolidation. The department has committed to closing at least 42 of its data centers by 2015. “Stakeholder engagement is really at the…
The U.S. Postal Service doesn’t just deliver the mail; it also buys a ton of goods and services, as a new compilation of the mail carrier’s top 150 contractors reminds us. Leading the list for the ninth straight year is Federal Express Corp., which received almost $1.5 billion from the Postal Service in fiscal 2011 to transport Express, Priority and First-Class Mail; runner-up Kalitta Air LLC was paid about $549 million to send military mail to troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Husch Blackwell, the Washington, D.C. law firm that puts the list together each year. For those…
There’s some moderately big news out of the Postal Regulatory Commission, which has denied the U.S. Postal Service’s request for fast-track review of plans to weaken first-class service standards and close up to approximately 250 mail processing plants. Last month, USPS lawyers had asked the commission to issue a legally required advisory opinion by mid-April. But in a Tuesday order, the PRC said “the complexity of the case appears to justify the schedule as issued.” Under that timetable, the commission won’t release the opinion until late July at the earliest. Long story short, this is bad news for postal leaders…
The Office of Management and Budget wants Congress to reconsider a proposal to reduce how much contractors can charge the government for their executives’ compensation, an amount that is currently “unjustified and unnecessary,” the federal procurement chief said in a blog post this morning. Under federal cost reimbursement contracts, agencies pay contractors for incurred costs, including salaries for executives and other employees. These costs usually show up in the overhead rates that contractors set. OMB caps how much contractors can charge the government for executive compensation based on what top private sector executives earn. Contractors can currently ask the government to reimburse up to $693,951 for each of its top…
Seldom does one federal agency save money at another’s expense. But that’s how it’s looking more than a year after the Internal Revenue Service opted to stop delivering millions of income tax forms by mail. The IRS announced the decision in September 2010 as part of a push to economize on its annual printing and postage budget. As of this past August, the savings on postage costs just from not mailing Form 1040 packages amounted to about $4.1 million, according to a recent report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. That was money lost to the U.S. Postal…