Federal agencies may have a tough time holding on to their program managers come 2017. A new Government Accountability Office report ranked program management as the occupational category with the highest percentage of employees eligible to retire by 2017. For mid-sized agencies like the General Services Administration, Housing and Urban Development Department and Office of Personnel Management, 56 percent of employees involved in program management will be eligible to retire in the next three years, the report found. At larger agencies that number is nearly 44 percent. As more employees become eligible to retire, GAO noted that occupations like program management…
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The Government Accountability Office on Monday denied a protest against Lockheed Martin’s $4.6 billion contract award to support the Pentagon’s global data network. In its June protest to GAO, Science Applications International Corp. claimed that the Defense Information Systems Agency unreasonably evaluated Lockheed’s technical risk and costs, according to GAO. SAIC also said that DISA failed to meaningfully investigate whether Lockheed had unequal access to information pertaining to the contract, which would have been an organizational conflict of interest (OCI). GAO determined that DISA’s evaluation of Lockheed’s proposal was “reasonable and consistent with [the] solicitation’s evaluation criteria,” Ralph White, GAO’s managing…
About three years ago, Congress granted agencies wide authority to rehire federal retirees and pay them both their full pensions as well as their full salaries. But the Government Accountability Office today released a report that found six federal agencies are barely using the so-called dual compensation waiver authority at all. GAO looked at how many waivers were granted by the Treasury Department, Office of Personnel Management, U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Agency for International Development, Small Business Administration, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in fiscal 2010 and 2011. Those six agencies granted only 187 waivers in the first year, and…
There’s been a slew of reports issued over the last three years comparing federal employees’ pay and benefits to private sector workers, and they’ve all come to some radically differing conclusions. Which one is right? Everyone, and no one, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office posted online Monday. GAO spent the last year digging into six reports on federal pay, and concluded that they “varied because they used different approaches, methods and data.” For example: The Congressional Budget Office, American Enterprise Institute, and Heritage Foundation all used a so-called “human capital approach” to compare federal and…
Science Applications International Corp. is protesting a $4.6 billion award to Lockheed Martin to support the Defense Information Systems Network. The protest was filed June 22 with the Government Accountability Office. GAO will issue a decision on the protest by Oct. 1. “We are disappointed in the government’s decision to not award us the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Global Information Grid (GIG) Services Management (GSM) contract. We feel our solution is the best value for the customer and we are proud of our performance history on this contract,” SAIC spokeswoman Melissa Koskovich said in a statement. Lockheed Martin Corp. beat out incumbent SAIC…
The Social Security Administration did not fully assess the impact of a major internal overhaul last June, which eliminated the chief information office and reassigned its functions, according to testimony from a Government Accountability Office official. At the time, most of the responsibilities for managing information technology and the IT budget were reassigned to SSA’s Office of Systems. Two months later, then CIO Frank Baitman resigned. Kelly Croft, deputy commissioner for systems, assumed the CIO duties and oversight of those IT workers. SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue said the effort would increase efficiency, but SSA did not develop a management plan…
The federal government wants to increase the amount federal employees telework, and even passed a law to make it easier in December 2010. But finding out whether that’s actually happening is tricky. Because the metrics used to measure telework are continually shifting, it’s probably going to be a few more years before we know whether things are actually improving, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. GAO said that for years, agencies have used different methods to collect telework data, leaving those statistics inconsistent and unreliable. After the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act was passed, the Office of…
When it comes to successfully executing major information technology acquisitions, consistent and open dialogue between program officials and stakeholders is key, according to a review of several federal IT programs. The Government Accountability Office report identifies common factors shared by successful IT programs within government: – Program officials are actively engaged with stakeholders. – Program staff has the necessary knowledge and skills. – Senior department and agency executives support the programs. – End users and stakeholders are involved in the development of requirements. – End users participate in testing of system functionality prior to formal end user acceptance testing. – Government and contractor staff are stable…
A review of federal information technology investments found that agencies spend far more than the $79 billion reported on the government’s web-based IT tracking system, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. The IT Dashboard only provides investment data for 26 agencies, the report noted. The website does not include spending data for 61 other agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Central Intelligence Agency and legislative and judicial branch agencies. OMB encourages small agencies to use the IT Dashboard, but they choose not to, according to the GAO report released Wednesday. While administration officials often quote…
Small business program directors at seven federal agencies have been asked by a House subcommittee to explain why they are sidestepping reporting requirements. The directors of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) at the Agriculture, Justice, State, Commerce, Treasury and Interior departments as well as the Social Security Administration were not reporting directly to their agency heads, as required by the Small Business Act, according to a June Government Accountability Office report. The reporting requirement is meant to ensure that OSDBU directors have direct access to their agencies’ top decision makers to advocate for small businesses in…