When I became an agent, I was one of seven Latinos, and there were 10,000 white male FBI agents. They said, ‘We don’t discriminate.’ I said, ‘There’s nobody to discriminate against.’ – Former FBI agent Bernardo Perez, on the challenges faced by the Bureau’s Hispanic employees in the 1960s. An Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report released this morning found the proportion of Hispanics in the federal work force has increased in recent years, but their representation still lags far behind the percentage of Hispanics in the national work force.
“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night” is supposed to keep the U.S. Postal Service from delivering mail door-to-door across the country. But apparently, it draws the line at hail …. a hail of bullets, that is. According to a Chicago television news report, postal carriers in the Windy City stopped delivering mail to dozens of homes in a particularly dangerous south suburban neighborhood nearly two weeks ago after a morning shooting occurred yards away from a mail carrier. Residents’ mail is being held at the local post office while officials discuss possible solutions, such as putting…
FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair just told the Senate Banking committee that her agency is studying ways to insure (potentially) hundreds of thousands of mortgages. It’s an unprecedented proposal for the agency. Bair said the new authority comes from the “bailout bill” approved by Congress earlier this month. Banks would have to renegotiate troubled mortgages, perhaps lowering the interest rate or extending the repayment period. In return, the FDIC would guarantee the mortgages, much the way it guarantees bank deposits. But the guarantee program would also expose the FDIC to even more financial risk. Bair didn’t offer many details on the…
Federal agencies have done a commendable job of eliminating the use of Social Security numbers wherever possible, according to a new report by the President’s Identity Theft Task Force. The Social Security Administration no longer uses the nine-digit code — the holy grail for identity thieves — on personnel forms for its own employees. The Defense Department is removing Social Security numbers from military ID cards. And the IRS only lists the last four digits on all federal tax lien documents. But the nation’s counties have been slower to react. An astonishing 85 percent of the largest counties make records…
… but legislators had another group to criticize today for our financial crisis: the credit rating agencies. As Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., put it during a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform committee: The story of the credit rating agencies is a story of colossal failure. The credit rating agencies occupy a special place in our financial markets. Millions of investors rely on them for independent, objective assessments. The rating agencies broke this bond of trust, and federal regulators ignored the warning signs and did nothing to protect the public. The result is that our entire financial system…
Do Hispanic people have enough chances to take federal jobs, and later advance into leadership positions? The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will consider that question, and what it might do to fix possible problems, at their meeting tomorrow morning in Washington. The EEOC’s Federal Hispanic Work Group will release its report on Hispanic federal employment, including hiring, retention and leadership development issues. Watch federaltimes.com for more information on what they found. And if you’re a federal employee of Hispanic descent, we’d like to hear from you in our comments section below. Are you given enough opportunities to develop into a leader? Are…
The Interior Department announced today that more than 190 million acres of federal land are now open for geothermal energy projects. Last month, you’ll remember, Congress declined to renew the ban on oil shale development before it adjourned. And the lapsed ban on offshore drilling means a huge swath of land is now open for leasing. All this adds up to a massive expansion of responsibilities at a few federal agencies — including one that doesn’t have a stellar track record: the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, lambasted by the department’s IG last month for a “pervasive culture of exclusivity”…
Another day, another drop in the Dow. The Dow had another heart-stopping day today, losing more than 500 points as of 4 p.m. And if you’ve looked at your TSP account lately, you might be having panic attacks and be contemplating drastic changes to your fund allocations. That’s exactly what Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board members and staff are hoping you won’t do. “This is not the time to sell low when you bought high,” said member Alejandro Sanchez at Monday’s board meeting. The board urged participants to hang in there, saying market history proves short-term losses are just a…
The Washington Post reported today that three federal agencies — the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the New York branch of the Fed — are “vying for control” of the $53 trillion market in “credit-default swaps,” contracts that insure financial institutions who make risky investments. It’s an interesting look inside the infighting that plagues financial regulators. A horde of agencies oversees the financial world: the SEC, CFTC, two agencies to regulate banks, the Fed, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Treasury Department… In the era of deregulation (now ending), that was fine. But our fragmented regulators…
Bet your bottom dollar that the Small Business Administration’s second annual report card on the government’s use of small businesses in procurement will come out tomorrow. We say this because we’ve been told there is a press conference on that very topic, so it’s a pretty safe bet. The report cards grade agencies on how well they’ve met their individual goals for contracting with small businesses. These goals are often above and beyond the governmentwide goal of 23 percent, which is set by statute. Last year, SBA reported 12 agencies got red scores indicating they failed to reach their goals…