The U.S. Postal Service may be struggling, but outgoing Postmaster General John Potter can count on a comfortable array of benefits to sustain him after he steps down Dec. 3, according to a rundown included in the U.S. Postal Service’s 10-K report made public Monday. Chief among them is almost $3.1 million in pension benefits accumulated during his 32 years with the Postal Service. In that respect, Potter would appear to be no different from any other USPS employee with a similar salary history and tenure in the Civil Service Retirement System. But he will also be able to tap…
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Congrats to Trudy Givens of Portage, Wisconsin. The long-time Bureau of Prisons employee is this year’s SAVE award winner for her suggestion that the government stop printing and mailing daily hard copies of the Federal Register to almost 10,000 federal employees who are probably using the on-line version anyway. Givens won out over three other finalists with almost 20,000 votes, according to a blog post Monday by Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeffrey Zients. The runners-up were Agriculture Department employee Marjorie Cook, Pat Behe of the Department of Homeland Security, and Thomas Koenning from the Department of Labor.…
The Government Printing Office (GPO) won an award for its recycling programs, recovering nearly 5,000 tons of recyclable materials. The GPO won the “Best Public Office Building Recycling Program award” that recognizes businesses or government agencies that try to make their environmental footprint smaller.
The U.S. Postal Service’s net losses widened to $8.5 billion in fiscal 2010, more than twice the total for the preceding year, according to figures released at Friday’s board of governors meeting. Of that amount, $2.5 billion stemmed from accounting adjustments related to workers compensation liability. The remaining $6 billion is identical to a preliminary figure cited by outgoing Postmaster General John Potter at a news conference last month. For fiscal 2010, operating revenue totaled $67.1 billion, down $1 billion from the preceding year. Overall mail volume fell from 176.7 billion to 170.6 billion pieces. In fiscal 2011, the agency…
Here’s today’s fun fact, courtesy of the Government Accountability Office: More than one billion live animals were legally imported into the United States from 2005 through 2008. That’s more than three times the nation’s current human population. But the influx of fauna has a darker side: So-called “zoonotic” diseases—infectious illnesses that can be transmitted between animals and humans—“can emerge anywhere and spread rapidly around the globe,” the GAO noted in a report released Monday. Think severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which killed hundreds of people back in 2003. With four federal agencies sharing responsibility for animal imports, “the statutory…
Scott Friedlander may be out as the chief executive officer of GTSI Corp., but he’ll keep drawing his $400,000 annual salary for another year, along with a one-time $450,000 severance payment, according to a recent corporate filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. GTSI will also reimburse Friedlander for COBRA health insurance expenses for up to 18 months, provide him with continued participation in the company’s long-term care plan for up to a year, and allow him the maximum time possible to exercise his remaining stock options. Friedlander. who had taken over as GTSI’s president and CEO in February, agreed…
Open government groups are hailing a new executive order requiring federal agencies to review and justify markings used to designate numerous types of “controlled unclassified information. “ Under the reviews, agency officials must define each “category and subcategory” of CUI and link it to a specific law, regulation or government-wide policy. The National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office will have to sign off on the results. The order–published Tuesday, Nov. 9 in the Federal Register–labels the current system of markings—such as “For Official Use Only”—an “inefficient, confusing patchwork” that “has resulted in inconsistent marking and safeguarding of documents, led to…
In proposed guidance posted in Tuesday’s Federal Register, the Office of Management and Budget is elaborating on President Obama’s June memorandum barring lobbyists from serving on federal advisory commissions and other boards and commissions. In keeping with Obama’s memo, registered lobbyists already on such panels will not be booted immediately, but cannot be reappointed once their current terms are up, according to the guidance, which is presented in handy question-and-answer format. No waivers are permitted and anyone who becomes a federally registered lobbyist while serving on a federal board or commission will have to resign or face removal. One small…
Are you a fed tired of the knee-jerk government bashing that’s so in vogue these days? The social networking site GovLoop thinks its time for all of you to stand up and yell at the top of your lungs, “I don’t suck!” Yes, GovLoop is holding a “Government Doesn’t Suck” rally tomorrow, alongside Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity/March to Keep Fear Alive event. Go to the south end of the Air and Space Museum and look for the people with green shirts with “Chicks Dig Govies” sign. (Apparently that’s an official GovLoop rally slogan. And I…
One unknown at the Pentagon has finally been answered. Teri Takai, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the Defense Department’s chief information officer, will finally assume her new role on Nov. 7, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Tuesday. “The new CIO position will be central to these efforts as the DoD continues to transform its IT capabilities to meet the enormous mission critical needs of the U.S. military,” according to a DoD news release There was some uncertainty about Takai filling the position after her nomination hearing, set for Aug. 3, was canceled. Under Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ cost-saving plan, it’s unclear whether the…