Every year, tens of thousands of federal employees retire or otherwise leave their jobs. But some agencies have much higher turnover rates than others. That data nugget is buried in a recent Government Accountability Office report examining government workforce trends. From fiscal 2004 through 2012, the average annual government retirement rate was 3.5 percent, the average resignation rate, 2.4 percent, for a combined “separation rate” of 5.9 percent, according to the report. But when GAO reviewers looked at 24 individual agencies, they found a pretty big spread around that average. During that 2004-12 period, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency…
Browsing: Government Accountability Office
The U.S. Postal Service has seen the future and it looks even worse than expected just 17 months ago. In a USPS-commissioned report released in March 2010, Boston Consulting Group predicted that total mail volume would slide from 177 billion pieces in 2009 to 150 billion pieces in 2020. But that mid-range forecast may have been overly rosy, according to updated numbers contained in a Government Accountability Office overview this week. The Postal Service now expects mail volume to drop to 127 billion pieces by 2020, the overview says. Profitable first-class mail use will fall by half and standard mail…
Poor acquisition planning on service contracts has led to late contract awards, cost overruns and insufficient services at four federal agencies, an Aug. 9 Government Accountability Office report shows. Federal regulations require agencies to go through a detailed planning process for all acquisitions so that well-defined requirements, realistic cost estimates and lessons learned from past procurements are in place before an agency seeks proposals from vendors. Looking at the four agencies with the highest obligations on professional, administrative, and management support services — the Health and Human Services Department, Department of Homeland Security, NASA and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — the GAO…
Although the Obama administration wants more scrutiny of program performance, some agencies need help just getting started. That, anyway, seems to be the between-the-lines message of a new Government Accountability Office report. It looks at how a handful of agencies decide which programs to evaluate, with the inference that they could serve as a model for others that aren’t sure how to begin. Most use performance measures to track progress toward goals, but few appear to conduct in-depth evaluations to see how programs are actually working, the GAO told Sen. Daniel Akaka, the Hawaii Democrat who requested the review. The…
Gene Dodaro’s nomination to become the next U.S. comptroller general got a green flag Tuesday from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which approved it on a unanimous voice vote. The comptroller general runs the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog arm of Congress. Dodaro, a 37-year GAO veteran, has held the job on an acting basis since March 2008; President Obama nominated him for a full 15-year term in September. The committee’s chairman, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said recently that that he hopes to win final Senate confirmation for Dodaro’s nomination before lawmakers end their lame-duck session. “We…
On Nov. 19, the Obama administration proclaimed a new path for government information technology procurement. But an overview of one agency’s travails suggests that a steep climb lies ahead. The agency is the Housing and Urban Development Department; the newly released Government Accountability Office review finds that HUD officials had a hard time just coming up with a congressionally mandated plan to lay out its IT buying strategy. That document is required by a spending bill approved last December. Under its terms, HUD can’t obligate more than 25 percent of available money for IT modernization until the House and Senate…
A little fuzzy on the distinctions between various types of federal contracts? Don’t feel bad, because some federal contracting officers are, too, according to a Federal Register notice published today. In a jointly filed proposed rule, the Defense Department, NASA and the General Services Administration indicate that they are trying to correct the mistaken impression among contracting officers “governmentwide” that the fixed labor rates in time-and-materials/labor-hour contracts make them “fixed-price type contracts.” In fact, as the Government Accountability Office reported last year, time and materials contracts are considered high-risk because the contractor’s profit hinges on the number of hours worked.
After more than two years as acting U.S. Comptroller General–a job that entails leading the Government Accountability Office-Gene Dodaro got the nod today from President Obama for a long-term appointment to the post. In a release, Obama said he intends to nominate Dodaro, a 37-year GAO veteran, for the position of Comptroller General. Dodaro has held the job on a provisional basis since March 2008; in a statement today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that she, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and a bipartisan congressional commission recommended Dodaro for the 15-year appointment. “As the comptroller general, Gene Dodaro…
Don’t expect much to happen in this year’s fast dwindling congressional session, but a bi-partisan group of senators today introduced legislation to bolster the Federal Protective Service, responsible for security at some 9,000 federal buildings. The bill would push FPS to hire 500 more full-time employees over the next four years, require the agency to do more to ensure the competence of contract guards, and mandate standards for checkpoint detection technologies for explosives and other threats at federal facilities, according to a news release from Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.…
Federal Protective Service contract guards failed to detect guns, knives and other prohibited items brought into federal agencies more than half of the time during covert tests by the agency, the Government Accountability Office reveals in a new report. Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said the new report shows FPS continues to face widespread problems with its contractor workforce. While it has taken some steps forward in recent months, the Federal Protective Service continues to be an agency in crisis. As I blogged earlier, the House Homeland Security Committee, which requested the…