There’s been no official announcement (to the best of FedLine’s knowledge, anyway), but the federal government now has a new top performance official, at least temporarily. “Acting chief performance officer” was the title that Lisa Brown used in a Friday post on the Office of Management and Budget’s official blog. Brown, whose Obama administration assignments have hitherto included assistant to the president and staff secretary, helped assemble the White House’s blueprint for reorganization of federal trade and export agencies. Until recently, the federal chief performance officer was Jeff Zients, who also served as OMB’s deputy director for management. But Zients…
Browsing: Jack Lew
There’s some apparent good news coming from the White House this afternoon on the improper payment front, according to a news advisory. At 2:30 p.m., Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew and three other top administration figures are holding a conference call “to discuss the administration’s progress cutting wasteful improper payments by nearly $18 billion’’ the advisory says. FedLine had asked about this last week and was told the data was being finalized. Presumably these are figures for fiscal 2011 versus fiscal 2010. Not clear is whether the nearly $18 billion figure is a cut in absolute terms…
Go figure: The humble muffin has become a government change agent. In what is probably the first-ever Office of Management and Budget directive with a connection to overpriced baked goods, Director Jack Lew is ordering agencies to take stock of their conference spending and report back by Nov. 1. The impetus, of course, is that newly released report by the Justice Department’s inspector general that uncovered numerous examples of questionable expenses at DOJ conferences from October 2007 through September 2009. What really caught the attention of politicians and the media, however, was the finding that muffins at one Washington gathering cost more than $16 each. No matter that the hotel in question…
More evidence–as if more were needed–that this government spending standoff is getting serious: the Office of Management and Budget has just posted a 16-page memo for shutdown planning on its web site. Lots of technical advice for agencies on topics like travel, IT operations and contracting. The latest stopgap spending resolution expires at midnight Friday. If Congress appears unlikely to enact a new one Saturday, OMB will issue instructions the same day “for agencies to proceed with their shutdown implementation,” Director Jack Lew wrote in the memo. On one burning question, OMB leaves it up to agencies to decide whether…
More than most agency chiefs, Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew could probably use a trusted number two just now. He may have to wait a while. Although the Senate Budget Committee approved Heather Higginbottom’s nomination for OMB deputy director today, the 11-10 party-line tally bodes poorly for a short and sweet confirmation vote by the full Senate. The panel’s top Republican, Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has questioned Higginbottom’s bean-counting credentials and, although Sessions hasn’t said that he’ll put a hold on her nomination, he does want “adequate time” for debate, according to CQ. Not a good sign. Higginbottom…
The Obama administration responded Sunday to House Republicans’ plan for slashing more than $60 billion in federal discretionary spending during the remainder of this fiscal year. Sort of. “We look forward to working with Congress,” Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew said on CNN’s “State of the Union” talk show. That was all that host Candy Crowley could get out of Lew, despite prodding him several times for a substantive answer. In the bill released Friday night, the House GOP proposed whacking hundreds of agencies and programs to the tune of $69 billion in comparison to last year’s…
The White House Office of Management and Budget is usually tight-lipped with details about forthcoming money matters—except when it elects not to be. In a New York Times op-ed piece Sunday, OMB Director Jack Lew dropped a couple of tidbits from the Obama administration’s fiscal 2012 budget request due out next week. As the White House had already revealed, it wants to cut the Community Service Block Grant program in half, but Lew attached a number–$350 million—to the amount of that proposed reduction. Cuts to the Community Development Block Grant program are also in the cards, he said, and the…
Just as agencies are wrapping up security reviews launched after the latest WikiLeaks breach, a coalition of open government groups is warning of possible consequences for federal employee rights. Although improving safeguards for classified information is laudable, “we urge you not to craft policies that encourage agencies to unduly restrict free speech, or otherwise distract agencies from actually improving information security,” representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and eight other organizations wrote Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew in a letter dated Friday. Ordered by Lew early this month and due to be finished Jan. 28, the…
In the wake of WikiLeaks’ disclosure of some 250,000 State Department cables, the Obama administration is ordering executive branch departments and agencies to review procedures for protecting classified information. “The recent irresponsible disclosure by WikiLeaks has resulted in significant damage to our national security,” Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew wrote in a memo released this morning. “Any failure by agencies to safeguard classified information pursuant to relevant laws . . . is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.” Effective immediately, all agencies that handle classified information must set up security assessment teams to review implementation of procedures…
None too soon for the Obama administration, Jack Lew was sworn in early Friday afternoon as Office of Management and Budget director after winning Senate confirmation the preceding evening, according to a spokesman. Lawmakers acted Thursday after Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., dropped a hold placed on Lew’s nomination in late September in a bid to force the administration to end a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The administration yielded more than a month ago, but Landrieu had continued the hold, saying she wanted an “action plan” for putting the industry back to work. In a news…