The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act last week showed support for a 2% raise for DoD civilian workers and a 4.5% raise for military members. In a vote of 22-3 on June 13, committee lawmakers advanced the 2025 NDAA to the full Senate for consideration. The House passed its version of the NDAA last week.

Although the NDAA’s provisions only apply to Defense Department employees, both civilian DoD workers and the rest of the civilian federal workforce on the General Schedule would see the same percentage added to their paychecks, if the raise is enacted.

In House appropriations legislation, committee lawmakers remained silent on the topic of the federal pay raise, indicating a likely alignment with the president’s raise proposal. The GOP-led committee advanced legislation for a fiscal 2025 spending package last week along party lines. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet released its versions of fiscal 2025 spending legislation.

President Joe Biden’s request of a 2% pay raise for most civilian federal employees on the General Schedule, if enacted, would be the smallest annual raise for feds since Biden took office. The 2% proposal comes in contrast to the 5.2% federal pay raise for 2024, which was the largest raise for feds since the Carter administration.

Biden’s initial raise proposal in March, contained in the fiscal 2025 budget request, did not indicate a breakdown between base pay and locality pay. But in most years, presidents typically set aside 0.5% for locality pay and leave the remainder for the across-the-board raise.

For the federal pay raise, nothing is set in stone until Biden signs an executive order to enact it, which usually happens in December. Ahead of that finalization, federal unions and other employee organizations have spoken out in favor of a larger pay raise for feds in 2025, calling for a 7.4% boost rather than the 2% proposal.

Legislation titled the FAIR Act, if enacted, would offer that large of a raise to feds next year. Unions including the National Treasury Employees Union have endorsed the bill, which lawmakers first introduced in January.

“NTEU continues the fight to pass the FAIR Act,” NTEU wrote in a blog post Tuesday. “Such an investment in the federal workforce would help close the significant pay gap between federal employee and private sector pay and help the federal government compete with the private sector for talented employees.”

But many agencies are already trying to figure out how to incorporate the larger 5.2% raise into their budgets for 2024. Some agencies’ budgets this fiscal year remained relatively stagnant, while other costs, such as federal employees’ paychecks, have continued to rise.

The next step in the process toward finalizing the federal pay raise will likely come later this summer. To avoid defaulting to the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA), Biden will have to issue an alternative pay plan by the end of August.

Federal employees currently earn about 27.54% less in wages than those in the private sector with similar occupations, according to the Federal Salary Council. Although FEPCA allows for a large enough annual federal pay raise to bring the federal-private sector wage gap down to 5%, no president since 1994 has incorporated the fully authorized amount.

Decades of deviation from FEPCA have caused distortion of federal pay in multiple ways. It would now cost an estimated $22 billion to bring General Schedule salaries in line with the private sector.

Any potential changes in Congress that might break away from the current pay plans could still take place this fall ahead of an executive order in December.

The post Proposed 2% federal pay raise gets support in 2025 defense authorization bill first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Teleworking DoD employees are once again a target in the latest spending legislation from House appropriators. A policy rider in the fiscal 2025 defense spending bill would block any funding from going toward the costs of teleworking or remote working for defense employees and contractors. The GOP-led appropriations committee advanced the spending bill last week. The telework measure, however, may be unlikely to make it into the final appropriations package for fiscal 2025. Democrats, with a Senate majority, have remained largely in favor of federal telework. They say it fosters better workforce recruitment and retention.
  (Fiscal 2025 Department of Defense appropriations bill - House Appropriations Committee)
• Early signs are pointing in the right direction after some recent federal workforce reforms. The Office of Personnel Management’s initiatives over the last couple of years have included banning the use of salary history in hiring, creating a portal for internship openings and broadening eligibility for the Pathways Program. Larger impacts of those changes are likely still further down the road. But there are already some initially positive indications, especially for early-career recruitment: “It’s going to take a little more time. I do think what we’re seeing, though, is a renewed and increased interest in federal job opportunities by early-career talent,” OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver said.
  (Early-career federal job openings seeing ‘renewed and increased’ interest, OPM’s Shriver says - Federal News Network)
• The Energy Department wants to secure the future electric grid from cyber threats. Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER) is working to set security expectations for using the cloud. Later this year, the CESER office will convene with big cloud service providers and the clean-energy sector to collaborate on cybersecurity requirements. The discussion comes amid growing threats to critical infrastructure, including the energy grid. Many renewable energy operators are relying on cloud computing for critical services.
  (Energy working with renewables industry, cloud providers on cyber requirements - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is looking to keep aging and disabled vets living independently. The VA is looking at how smart-home technologies and wearables like smartwatches can flag when aging and disabled veterans are having a medical emergency in their homes. Joseph Ronzio, VA’s deputy chief health technology officer, said the department is also taking steps to ensure veterans have a say as to who gets this data, and how it may be used. “Everyone nowadays has some smartness in their home, whether it’s a speaker, whether it’s light switches, whether it’s different types of lights or other physical devices — cameras, motion detectors that leave a digital service," Ronzio said.
  (VA looking at ‘smart home’ tech to keep aging, disabled vets living independently - Federal News Network)
• The Army has taken over the role of the Combatant Command Support Agent for U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM). The Department of the Air Force has served in this role since 2017. The shift mainly happened because the primary location of CYBERCOM operations is at Fort Meade in Maryland, where the Army has a significant presence. About 350 Air Force civilian employees in U.S. Cyber Command became Army civilians as part of the reshuffle. The Army will now provide administrative and logistical support to CYBERCOM. Congress mandated the transition as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.
  (Army becomes combatant command support agent for CYBERCOM - U.S. Army)
• The Defense Department has signed a $248 million deal with Duke Energy to deliver solar power to five military bases in the Carolinas over the next 15 years. The power will come from two newly-built solar arrays in South Carolina, and DoD has agreed to buy all the electricity those facilities can generate. Defense officials said the project helps meet the government’s energy sustainability goals, and – in combination with on-base microgrids – makes the five bases more resilient against disruptions to off-site power supplies.
  (DoD Announces Two Solar Projects to Supply Five Military Installations in the Carolinas With Clean Energy - Department of Defense)
• Three more agencies are getting nearly $30 million to accelerate their IT modernization projects. The governmentwide Technology Modernization Fund is granting $17 million to the Energy Department to update its human resources IT systems. The fund is also backing a Bureau of Indian Education project to modernize school websites for tribal communities. The Federal Election Commission is also getting funding to improve online services for political campaign filers.
  (Technology Modernization Fund announces investments to modernize tribal school websites, campaign finance software, federal HR system - General Services Administration)
• The Department of Transportation (DOT) is drafting a new cybersecurity strategy. Transportation officials told the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that the agency will finalize the plan by September. GAO said DOT needs a strong cyber risk management plan to address threats to its data and systems. The congressional auditor is also urging Transportation officials to take a closer look at their cyber workforce needs.
  (Priority open recommendations for Transportation Department - Government Accountability Office )
• The Space Force’s first chief technology and innovation officer, Lisa Costa, has officially retired from federal service. At the Space Force, Costa was responsible for developing strategies and policies that advanced science and technology efforts across the service. She also spearheaded the Unified Data Library project, a repository that collects space situational awareness data from military and commercial sources. Prior to her current role, she served as the chief information officer at U.S. Special Operations Command. There is no information yet as to where Costa will be working next.
  (Space Force’s chief technology and innovation officer retires from government service - LinkedIn)

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The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that Oregon will opt into Direct File next year, and expects other states will also do so ahead of the next filing season.

The IRS announced last week it will make its Direct File platform a permanent option for taxpayers to file their federal tax returns, after piloting the system this year with 12 states.

More than 140,000 taxpayers used the platform to file federal tax returns this year — exceeding the IRS’ goal of 100,000 users. About 19 million taxpayers living in those 12 states were eligible to use Direct File this year.

The Treasury Department expects at least 580,000 Oregon residents will be eligible to use the free online filing tool next filing season.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told reporters that Direct File will give taxpayers more options to file their taxes.

“Direct File is long overdue. It’s the kind of public service the government ought to be providing to Americans and Oregonians whenever they can,” Wyden said in a call Tuesday.

At a committee hearing at the end of this year’s filing season, Wyden praised the IRS for creating a free website that allows taxpayers to file their federal tax returns.

“The website was user-friendly, quick and easy to use. I went out and talked to some of those people who used it, and that was the answer that I got,” he said. “It didn’t hassle users with up charges for add-on services they didn’t need. It got overwhelmingly positive reviews. With Direct File, I believe the IRS has built a good tool that people are going to like, because it saves time, headaches and money.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement that expanding Direct File will help taxpayers save time and money, “and ensure they receive the tax benefits they are owed.

“After a successful pilot this Filing Season, we are pleased to expand the program as a permanent offering and welcome Oregon as the first new state to offer this free new option to taxpayers,” Yellen said.

The IRS is adding more states to Direct File as House Republicans propose defunding the program.

The House Appropriations Committee released a fiscal 2025 spending bill earlier this month week that would cut IRS funding by nearly 18% and zero out funding for Direct File.

The full committee advanced the bill last week, and awaits a House floor vote.

Wyden told reporters he’ll “fight with everything I’ve got to protect Direct File.”

“If Republicans in the Congress have the opportunity, they are going to put an end to it,” he said.

Congressional Republicans have called Direct File wasteful and duplicative, since some tax software companies already allow taxpayers below a certain income threshold to file online for free through the Free File Alliance program. 

The IRS and U.S. Digital Service spent a combined $31.8 million to launch the Direct File pilot.

However, Wyden said taxpayers deserve more options in how they choose to file.

Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, no longer participates in the IRS Free File program. But Intuit notified some taxpayers in Oregon that its TurboTax software might not have selected the best deduction option, resulting in a possible overpayment to the state.

The state of Oregon says this issue affects about 12,000 of its residents.

“It was another example of how the big software companies have been upcharging for products that aren’t that great to begin with,” Wyden said.

States that opt into Direct File have options in how they participate.

During the Direct File pilot, taxpayers in Arizona, Massachusetts, New York, and California were directed to a state-run tool to complete their state tax returns, after they filed their federal tax returns.

Taxpayers in Arizona, Massachusetts, and New York were also able to import their information from Direct File directly into the state-run platform, making it faster to file their state tax returns.

“Moving from Direct File to the state tool went very smoothly. Taxpayers were able to bring their information with them. It was able to prepopulate a lot of the information needed for a state tax return. And then taxpayers had to answer just a couple of additional state-specific questions to complete the filing of their state return,” an administration official told reporters.

The IRS limited participation in this year’s  Direct File pilot to taxpayers only reporting certain income types, such as wages on a Form W-2, and tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.

“Over the next few years, the goal is that direct files eligibility is expanded to cover the most common tax situations, especially those that affect working families,” another administration official told reporters.

The post IRS adds another state to Direct File, as House Republicans seek to defund it first appeared on Federal News Network.

Beginning in 2025, OPM is adding stricter eligibility requirements to try to root out ineligible enrollees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program — something that’s been high on GAO’s radar for at least the last few years. A 2022 GAO report showed that OPM spends up to $1 billion each year on ineligible participants erroneously enrolled in FEHB.

“One of the biggest benefit systems in the country, and for decades, nobody checked these things,” Comptroller General Gene Dodaro told lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee during a June 13 hearing.

Each year, GAO releases a report of the programs and spending areas across the federal government that could lead to significant cost savings for agencies. The changes that GAO recommends aren’t always complex, but to be able to implement the measures, agencies need resources, Dodaro said.

“This isn’t rocket science — I mean, it’s basically looking at those things and doing some good auditing,” Dodaro said. “It could be tackled as soon as the resources could be marshaled to do it.”

Agencies often ‘slow to act’

By putting more controls in place and creating stricter measures on who can actually enroll — and stay enrolled — in FEHB, OPM should be able to more effectively address the cost issues, GAO said. Identifying ineligible dependents has remained a top challenge for FEHB since 2018, according to OPM’s inspector general office.

“[OPM] recognized the significance of the issue, but like in a lot of cases, people are slow to act on a recommendation,” Dodaro told committee lawmakers. “That’s why we keep following up.”

Addressing the FEHB spending challenges will involve a multi-pronged approach from OPM. It’s a matter of finding and removing currently enrolled ineligible FEHB members and preventing new members from enrolling in error, while also making long-term data updates to more easily root out ineligible enrollees in the future.

OPM is already gearing up to take some of these steps beginning in 2025. Starting next year, federal employees will be required to provide eligibility documentation for any family members they want to add to their insurance coverage during Open Season. But on top of that, Dodaro said an audit of current FEHB enrollees is necessary.

“[OPM] has not yet gone back and looked at all the people that are already in the system as to whether they have legitimate numbers of … people who are eligible for services,” Dodaro said. “They could sample across federal agencies, they could get some participation. But there has to be a thorough audit done of existing people that are on the federal employee’s health benefit systems.”

OPM is planning to start on this path as well. During this year’s Open Season, agencies will be required to validate the eligibility of a random sample of FEHB participants. That sample must comprise at least 10% of elections for both Self-Plus-One and Self-and-Family enrollments. Where possible, OPM is also encouraging agencies to validate larger portions of enrollees. If agencies find ineligible members through that data collection, they’ll have to follow OPM’s instructions for removing them.

A centralized FEHB database

But another major barrier for OPM to make improvements, Dodaro said, is the agency’s lack of a central database of FEHB enrollees. Without a centralized system, it’s much more difficult to identify and remove erroneously enrolled FEHB participants.

“Current FEHB eligibility determination and enrollment is highly decentralized and requires cooperation between nearly 100 employing offices responsible for determining eligibility and enrolling more than 8 million members,” OPM said in April. “If funded, OPM could extend this same central enrollment system to all FEHB enrollments, which would allow OPM to manage and make consistent all FEHB enrollments and remove individuals who cease to be eligible for the program.”

OPM, as part of its fiscal 2025 budget request, is proposing legislation to build a centralized enrollment system for FEHB. With a central database, OPM would be able to more quickly address the problem and avoid the spending errors. That system, if it’s implemented, would be modeled after the centralized system OPM just recently built for the upcoming Postal Service Health Benefits program.

During the oversight committee hearing, Dodaro said OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver’s background in insurance should help OPM make headway and get the changes underway — as would asking the Office of Management and Budget for additional support.

“He knows what the shortcomings are,” Dodaro, speaking about Shriver, told House committee members last week. “The question he’s wrestling with is how can he implement all these things that need to be implemented as soon as possible, like getting a central repository in place.”

The post Centralized FEHB database key to OPM cost savings, GAO says first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Senate Republicans are putting a hold on more than 40 of President Joe Biden’s nominees, half of whom are nominees to the federal bench. But the list includes former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, who Biden picked to serve on the Postal Service’s Board of Governors. Senators are also blocking New York real estate developer Jeff Gural’s nomination to serve as chairman of the Public Buildings Reform Board. Gural currently serves as a board member. The board is tasked with recommending underutilized federal buildings that agencies should sell.
  (Senate Conservatives Announce Sweeping Hold Policy On Biden Lawfare Nominees - Sen. Doc Marshall (R-Kan.))
• Some feds continue to see fraudulent deductions from their flexible spending accounts. Some employees saw fraudulent FSAFEDS deductions in their June 7 paychecks. Fraud in the FSAFEDS program was first reported in late May. The Office of Personnel Management still says it has no evidence that FSAFEDS systems have been breached. The fraud is thought to have impacted several hundred federal employees. OPM has paused enrollments in the FSAFEDS program to stem further instances of fraud.
  (Some feds continue to see fraudulent FSAFEDS deductions - Federal News Network )
• For the third time, the incumbent vendor for DoD's nearly $3 billion freight contract has lost a pre-award bid protest for the follow-on award to Defense Freight Transportation Services. Crowley Government Services has been challenging a part of the solicitation that would let the General Services Administration perform contract audits. The Government Accountability Office and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had already declined to overturn that provision of the RFP. This month, the Court of Federal Claims did the same. Crowley also has an appeal pending on that issue — and others — before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
  (Crowley Government Services v. the U.S. - Court of Federal Claims)
• President Joe Biden has nominated Army Maj. Gen. Paul Stanton to lead the Defense Information Systems Agency. If confirmed, Maj. Gen. Stanton will take over for Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, who has been in the position since 2021. Stanton will also serve as the commander of the Joint Forces Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network located at Fort Meade, Maryland. Stanton currently serves as the commanding general of the Army Cyber Center of Excellence. Prior to his current role, Stanton served as the deputy director of operations at the U.S. Cyber Command and as the commander of the Army Cyber Protection Brigade.
  (Biden nominates next DISA director - DoD)
• The Republican-controlled House has cleared its version of the 2025 defense policy bill by a slim margin, despite Democratic opposition to provisions related to abortion access; diversity, equity and inclusion programs; and climate change efforts. Only three Republicans opposed the measure and six Democrats voted in favor of it. Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved its own version of the defense policy bill, which is $25 billion above budget caps. House and Senate leaders will begin negotiating the final version of the measure once the Senate clears its version of the bill.
  (House clears its version of NDAA - House Armed Services Committee)
• Brig. Gen. Camilla White is now leading the Army’s program executive office for combat support. She previously served as the deputy of the Army’s program executive officer for command, control and communications-tactical. Prior to that, White completed her assignment as the chief of staff to the Army assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology. White was promoted to the rank of brigadier general earlier this year, becoming the first African American woman to attain the position within the Army Acquisition Corps. White’s program executive office manages a wide range of equipment programs.
  (PEO C3T former deputy to take over PEO for combat support - PEO Combat Support & Combat Service Support)
• The Army is getting serious about moving its networks to the latest generation of internet protocol addressing. A new memo from Army CIO Leo Garciga is telling Army components that by the end of September, all new IT equipment will need to be IPv6-enabled before it is used on Army networks. Also, for any legacy gear that still can't support IPv6, officials will need to have a plan in place to retire those systems by the end of fiscal 2025. That schedule is in line with the Office of Management and Budget's 2020 IPv6 guidance, which called for 80% of government systems to be using IPv6 by 2025.
  (CIO Guidance for Army’s Transition to Internet Protocol Version 6 - U.S. Army)
• The National Security Agency has tapped Kristina Walter to serve as chief of its Cybersecurity Collaboration Center. Walter most recently led the NSA’s Future Ready Workforce Initiative. She is returning to the collaboration center, having previously led its work to secure defense industrial base networks. Walter will replace former chief Morgan Adamski, who was recently named executive director of U.S. Cyber Command.
  (NSA Announces Kristina Walter as the new Chief of Cybersecurity Collaboration Center - NSA)

The post GOP senators put hold on over 40 Biden nominees first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The spending bill to support the funding for the rest of the government is facing a 25% cut. House appropriators passed the Financial Services and General Government 2025 spending bill yesterday and it is 20% below the administration's request and 10% below this year's enacted levels. But Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the reductions, especially those to the IRS of some $2 billion, will have a much bigger effect than any one agency's budget. "This bill funds every other bill you are going to consider or it funds paying the almost $900 billion to the debt." Hoyer said the cuts also mean federal workers could face hiring freezes, furloughs or layoffs, which will impact the services to citizens.
  (Markup Fiscal Year 2025 - House Appropriations Committee)
• A new report by the research organization RAND found that the majority of federal funding to assist military-to-civilian employment transitions goes toward educational benefits rather than helping service members and veterans find work. In 2019, four programs, including the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill and DoD's Tuition Assistance Program, accounted for $13.5 billion out of $14.3 billion in total. Meanwhile, the DoD's Transition Assistance Program received $140 million in funding. But there is not enough evidence to support that federally funded employment transition programs are effective. The study also found that military-to-civilian transition programs have limited oversight.
  (Military-to-civilian transition programs focus on education rather than employment - RAND)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is staying the course on plans to roll out a new Electronic Health Record. The VA extended its contract with Oracle-Cerner for another 11 months. Both parties agree to come back to the negotiating table each year to renew the multi-billion-dollar contract. The VA and Oracle-Cerner approved a one-month extension in May to continue contract talks. The Defense Department is done with its deployment of the same EHR. But only six VA sites are using it and further rollouts are on hold, as the VA addresses problems at those sites. The VA said it plans to resume go-lives in fiscal 2025.
  (VA awards second option period to Oracle Health in support of Federal Electronic Health Record modernization contract - Department of Veterans Affairs )
• A bill looking to expand fertility treatment coverage in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program has failed to advance to a floor vote. Senate Republicans effectively blocked the Right to IVF Act Thursday afternoon. The legislation, which Democrats introduced last week, did not reach the 60-vote threshold to advance to a floor vote. If passed, the bill would in part increase requirements for carriers in the FEHB program to provide more fertility treatment coverage to enrollees. Even after the bill failed, advocacy groups are calling on the Office of Personnel Management to take it upon itself to make the changes. They want OPM to heighten requirements for FEHB carriers to further cover in-vitro fertilization (IVF) — both medications and treatments.
  (Senate GOP blocks bill to expand IVF access as advocates call for better FEHB coverage - Federal News Network)
• The White House joins a chorus of opposition, including that of Army leadership, to the idea of creating a separate Army drone branch. The White House Office of Management and Budget said creating a separate drone corps will limit the service’s flexibility to deploy drone technology at scale. OMB also said the Army secretary already has the power to create new branches within the service and that creating a separate drone branch through legislation will hinder the Army’s ability to address current and future requirements.
  (White House joins chorus of opposition to Army drone branch idea - White House)
• Oversight processes at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission need some work, according to the Government Accountability Office. Agencies are responsible for managing their own EEO programs for federal workers. But GAO said the commission’s system for tracking those programs does not have guardrails for clearly identifying issues, or making sure decisions are timely. A lack of oversight can lead to challenges in figuring out whether agencies are EEO-compliant. GAO’s new report shows, for instance, that 16 agencies did not have anti-harassment policies in place. The EEOC said its working on enhancing and modernizing its oversight processes.
  (EEOC: Improved oversight processes needed to help agencies address deficiencies - Government Accountability Office)
• A major change to the General Services Administration's schedules program will make it easier for agencies to buy software more like the private sector. GSA will now let agencies pay upfront for software licenses through the schedules program. This change is specifically aimed at making it easier for agencies to buy cloud services, which has been hampered by the Advance Payment Statute, which originated in 1823. The interpretation of the statue required agencies to pay for services in the arrears. The update comes after GSA conducted research and gathered input from agency buyers and vendors last summer.
  (GSA updates rules for buying SaaS off the schedule program - GSA)
• The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is one step closer to getting new leadership. President Joe Biden nominated Christy Goldsmith Romero, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to lead the FDIC. The current FDIC Chairman says he will step down as soon as a successor is confirmed. An independent report commissioned by the FDIC recently substantiated claims of a toxic workplace culture.
  (Nominations sent to the Senate - White House)

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For federal employees, a bill pending in the Senate would bring expanded coverage of fertility treatments through the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program.

But the Right to IVF Act, which Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced last week, did not garner the 60 votes needed to move forward with a floor vote Thursday afternoon. Almost all Republicans voted against the measure to advance the legislation, resulting in a 48-47 tally.

The legislation rolls together three previous bills all aiming to improve access and insurance coverage for in-vitro fertilization (IVF). In part, the bill would have impacts specifically on FEHB enrollees. One component of the Right to IVF Act aims to set higher requirements for FEHB carriers to offer IVF coverage.

The Office of Personnel Management increased FEHB carrier requirements for IVF treatments for plan year 2024. But the legislation looks to further extend the requirements of IVF to cover both treatments and medications, as well as expanding to more types of assisted reproductive technology (ART).

The Democrat-led bill currently has 48 cosponsors. Generally, it focuses on establishing broader access to IVF and ART and lowering treatment costs, which without insurance can add up to tens of thousands of dollars in costs.

“Federal workers — myself included — know how expensive paying for IVF out of pocket can be, and the cost has put it out of reach for far too many,” Stacey Young, president of the Department of Justice Gender Equality Network (DOJ GEN), a federal employee advocacy group, told Federal News Network.

The push for a vote on the IVF bill represents a mindset shift toward the presidential campaign now just five months away, the Associated Press reported. Duckworth and other co-sponsors of the bill have said the legislation is also a response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, and other more recent efforts to limit access to fertility treatments and medications.

“Today, women and families … are worried about what comes next, including the erosion of reproductive freedoms nobody thought were at risk. This includes access to services like IVF,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “The Right to IVF Act establishes a nationwide right to IVF and eliminates barriers for the millions of families looking to use IVF to start and grow a family.”

The Biden administration also came out in support of the legislation and called for its passage.

“The administration looks forward to working with Congress … in order to protect access to fertility services, eliminate barriers for families in need of high-quality, affordable fertility services, and ensure that federal agencies have the resources to implement these benefits,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a statement of administrative policy Wednesday.

DOJ GEN has continually called for better federal health care coverage of infertility treatments. The group is one of many stakeholders that pushed for the advancement of the Right to IVF Act in the Senate.

“Supporting this bill should be a no-brainer,” Young told Federal News Network. “Our nation’s public servants should have affordable access to the full range of reproductive health care, including IVF and other forms of assisted reproductive technology.”

But some lawmakers, along with DOJ GEN, have said even without the legislation, OPM should still work to add more coverage for FEHB enrollees. For plan year 2024, OPM already expanded IVF coverage requirements for FEHB carriers to provide, at a minimum, coverage of the cost of drugs related to an IVF procedure for three cycles annually. OPM has also encouraged FEHB carriers to go beyond the minimum requirements — and so far, 24 carriers have done so.

DOJ GEN leaders said they’re grateful for the efforts OPM has made so far in the FEHB requirements. But the advocacy group wants OPM now to take things a step further. DOJ GEN is asking OPM to expand health carrier requirements to cover IVF treatments, on top of medications, for plan year 2025.

“OPM has the opportunity to break new ground again in 2025 by mandating not only coverage of IVF medications, but also medical treatments,” DOJ GEN wrote in a letter to OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver in May. “Medical treatments comprise the lion’s share of the cost of IVF. Many of our members can attest first-hand to the financial strains that paying out of pocket for IVF placed on them. Some had to drain their savings; borrow money from family members; or forgo treatments entirely. Others left DOJ for private-sector jobs that offered full IVF coverage, taking their invaluable skills and institutional knowledge with them.”

OPM declined to comment on whether there were any plans underway to further expand coverage requirements for IVF in the health insurance program. But some federal health experts have said with just a few months before Open Season, it’s likely too late to expand the coverage as early as plan year 2025 — though it would be possible in future health plan years.

Betsy Campbell, chief engagement officer at national infertility association RESOLVE, said the calls for better insurance coverage of fertility treatments have been growing.

“We know that hundreds of federal employees have been reaching out to OPM to request this coverage, and we’ve started to see some progress with OPM,” Campbell said in an interview with Federal News Network. “The next step is actually adding the medical procedure of IVF. So we’re hopeful that OPM will listen to their employees and add this highly desired benefit.”

RESOLVE has also been encouraging the adoption of a more inclusive definition of infertility that would help LGBTQ+ employees as well as unpartnered individuals access IVF and other fertility benefits through FEHB — but she said the efforts should go beyond simply updating the definition.

“There appears to still be some work, because donor sperm and donor eggs aren’t necessarily covered by all the plans,” Campbell said. “And that, of course, is needed by same-sex couples and non-partnered people when building their families. It’s one thing to have an inclusive definition, but you also have to cover the elements that are needed for these communities to build their families as well.”

A 2021 survey from Mercer, in partnership with RESOLVE, found that a vast majority of employers that increased fertility treatment coverage and benefits did not see a significant increase in medical plan costs.

Additionally, Campbell said, these types of benefit adjustments can significantly impact recruitment and retention of employees.

“You don’t want to provide yet another reason for them to leave federal employment to go to a private employer that is providing fertility benefits,” Campbell said. “Often employers don’t realize there’s a gap in this coverage until it’s pointed out. I think we’re seeing OPM trying to fill this gap piece by piece … Now it’s time to also cover these medically necessary procedures to help their employees build their families.”

The post Senate GOP blocks bill to expand IVF access as advocates call for better FEHB coverage first appeared on Federal News Network.

Last year, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee requested all records related to Operation Fouled Anchor, the Coast Guard’s internal investigation of sexual assault cases at the Coast Guard Academy. Lawmakers said the records provided to Congress are highly redacted and include a large number of duplicates.

“We were told that there are 25,000 to 30,000 pages of responsive documents. We received about 17,000,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

“I did talk to an admiral yesterday. I suggested the only way to get through this hearing with integrity is to turn over the remaining of those documents unredacted. We got about 1,000 pages but in redacted form. This is what we get. This is not full transparency.” 

Operation Fouled Anchor, which investigated sexual assault cases that occurred between 1990 and 2006, ended in 2020, but the service didn’t disclose operation-related information to Congress until 2023. 

Shannon Norenberg, the Coast Guard Academy’s sexual assault response coordinator for the past 11 years, resigned last week ahead of the Tuesday oversight hearing, saying that the service used her as part of a coverup of Operation Fouled Anchor.

Norenberg said the Guard did not provide victims with a government form proving that they reported their incident while still in the military. The form would allow victims to obtain available services and disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In addition, the talking points document she was to reference during an “apology tour” four years ago stated that the service had briefed Congress about the investigation even though Congress didn’t learn about it until last year. 

Meanwhile, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is conducting its own investigation into the Guard’s handling of sexual assault cases. The committee sent a letter to Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan Tuesday expressing concern about the service’s inability to provide investigation-related documents in a timely fashion.

“We are concerned about the Coast Guard’s decision to produce only 8,338 pages of the 1.8 million potentially responsive pages it has identified since the investigation began nearly one year ago. Of further concern, on May 8, 2024, USCG informed the Committee that it could not provide a briefing regarding its upcoming production schedule or any specific information about its plans to produce additional documents in response to the Committee’s outstanding requests,” the letter reads.

Adm. Fagan said she is “working in good faith” with the committee and trying to provide congressional investigators with the requested documents. 

“We began this process last summer, added people and resourcing to ensure that we’re able to get into a regular production of documents. This is an unprecedented undertaking for the organization,” said Fagan.

She said she was aware of Norenberg’s allegations and that her allegations would be part of the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General’s investigation into the cover-up.

“I have not read her statement, I am aware of the reporting of her concerns. Shannon has been an incredible employee. She’s made an incredible difference as a sexual assault advisor at the Coast Guard Academy. We are a smaller organization with her departure, but the allegations she has made will be part of the [Inspector General investigation],” said Fagan.

The post Coast Guard ‘stymies’ Senate’s investigation of sexual assault first appeared on Federal News Network.

But beyond hammering out agency budgets for next year, the GOP-led House Appropriations Committee has tacked on several policy riders that could impact federal employees and retirees in other ways as well.

One policy rider included in the committee’s report language, for instance, would bar any investments through the Thrift Savings Plan that are based on environmental, social or governance (ESG) criteria.

House Republicans also tried last budget cycle to include the “No ESG in the TSP” policy rider in the spending legislation, but it ultimately did not end up in the final appropriations package.

The launch of the voluntary TSP mutual fund window in June 2022 brought more than 5,000 new mutual fund options to TSP participants who choose to enroll in the window and pay a fee for the service. But the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board has said if an anti-ESG policy is enacted, it would bring the TSP’s new mutual fund window to an early demise.

Keeping track of 5,000 mutual funds would become too burdensome and open FRTIB to potential legal exposure, the board has said.

“There is no practical, cost-efficient way to monitor each of the roughly 5,000 individual mutual funds’ holdings,” FRTIB Director of External Affairs Kim Weaver said in 2023.

FRTIB has publicly opposed the provisions that aim to bar ESG investments. Weaver has also said there would be ripple effects from the provision, if it’s enacted. It would cost the TSP additional money to wind down the mutual fund window, and TSP participants may be exposed to potential financial losses if they had to transfer their investments back to the main TSP funds.

Appropriations committee members plan to mark up the financial services and general government 2025 spending bill, as well as several others, on Thursday afternoon. Here are some of the other policy riders federal employees should pay attention to:

Telework, office space in 2025 spending bill

In the report language, committee members also noted previous and upcoming requirements for the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration to report to Congress on federal telework and office space.

In the 2024 enacted appropriations package, lawmakers included a now-approaching deadline for OMB to share all agencies’ work environment plans with Congress. Those plans, which stem from the initial return-to-office memo in April 2023, detail agencies’ recent telework policy changes.

OMB’s deadline to submit all agencies’ return-to-office plans to Congress is coming up in late June.

“The committee looks forward to receiving the report from OMB on governmentwide telework,” House appropriators wrote in the committee’s report. “The committee [also] expects agencies under the jurisdiction of the subcommittee to reduce their office footprint if their average office space utilization rate is less than 60%, based on a benchmark of 150 usable square feet per person.”

At the same time, the committee said GSA has not yet provided its required report on how agencies can reduce office space requirements based on lessons learned from using telework during the COVID–19 pandemic.

The federal footprint has been steadily declining, but agencies still holding onto excess and underutilized office space is a main reason the Government Accountability Office has kept federal real property management on its High-Risk List for over 20 years.

In the 2024 spending package, Congress called on all agencies with an office space utilization rate of less than 60% to submit a description of their current efforts to reduce their physical footprint, the total office space costs, the average utilization rate and the estimated cost of underutilized space.

If enacted, the 2025 spending bill from House appropriators would also give GSA and OMB a new 180-day deadline to offer further data and recommendations on how to best consolidate federal office space, while disposing of unneeded federal real estate.

Continuing a few longstanding provisions

In addition to the slate of new policy riders, House appropriators are also looking to maintain numerous provisions that have been around for years, and in some cases decades. Many of those provisions have become practically standard in spending bills each fiscal year.

For example, one continued provision requires agencies to pay OPM a fee for processing retirement claims for employees who separate early from federal service.

Another would continue to direct agency employees to use official time — or time spent working on union-related activities while on the job — in “an honest effort to perform official duties,” the committee report language said.

Additionally, a provision often referred to as the Hyde amendment would maintain the current ban on any government funding from going toward abortions through the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program.

IRS pilot, FBI headquarters and more

The full appropriations committee also maintained several provisions from the subcommittee’s initial 2025 spending and policy proposals earlier this month.

Notably, the committee plans to implement steep spending cuts for the IRS, and aims to completely defund IRS’ free Direct File platform.

The lawmakers are also looking to decline a $3.5 billion request for construction on the new FBI headquarters building during 2025. The appropriations bill would also withhold all current funds allocated for the GSA construction project.

Democrat committee members, unsurprisingly, have come out in strong opposition to the spending cuts and many of the policy riders. Some lawmakers said they’re concerned about the ability of several relatively small agencies to handle large budget cuts. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) warned last week that the House GOP bill would force agencies to implement staff reductions to make ends meet.

The post Policy riders to watch as House appropriators mark up 2025 spending bills first appeared on Federal News Network.

It’s now on the House floor and forming in the Senate committee: The National Defense Authorization Act for 2025. This week, though, will also bring some important matters forward, like the congressional baseball game. For an update on military defense and national-pastime offense,  the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Bloomberg Government Deputy News Director Loren Duggan.

Interview Transcript:  

Tom Temin
It’s now on the House floor and forming in the Senate Committee, the National Defense Authorization Act for 2025. That is, this week though we’ll also bring some important matters forward like the congressional baseball game, an update now from Bloomberg Government, Deputy news director, Loren Duggan. And the NDAA is kind of leapfrogging through the House and Senate to the house maybe a little bit ahead. What’s the latest?

Loren Duggan
Yeah, we’re going to see a vote this week on the House floor on that legislation, pretty sweeping. And one of the must pass bills this year, where not a lot is likely to get done. This is one of the bright spots, usually, where no one wants to be the armed services chairman who doesn’t get the job done. So what we’ll see this week is probably a lengthy debate on the House floor with a lot of amendments, I think more than 1300 were submitted by Friday to weigh by the Rules Committee and potentially debate on the floor. But it’s wide ranging, of course, obviously sets defense policy and how much later they will provide through the appropriations bills, but also a number of policy issues at the Pentagon and abroad, which could be one of the sticking points, obviously.

Tom Temin
What are some of the top policy issues that are outside of pure defense authorization?

Loren Duggan
Well, always Ukraine will come into play and whether there will be amendments around that and what to do. Obviously, we had the lengthy debate earlier this year about how much to fund and what conditions to put on it. But anytime a bill like this comes up, that’s a natural place to look for that. There’s also a lot in here for the Defense Department about improving the quality of life for service members, whether it’s a pay boost for younger troops, or are trying to find ways to attract more people into the military. That’s been one of the focuses. And it’s actually in the title of the bill, about quality of life there. And some diversity issues have come up as well, that’s been a sticking point in a lot of the bills with House Republicans in particular, looking to curtail DEI programs, things like that. And because the Defense Department has its own schools, there’s definitely a nexus there. So we’ll be looking there and just what other things may hit you right as it moves forward.

Tom Temin
Sure. And then on the Senate side, there’s just because of everything else going on in the two parties, is likely to be different, leading eventually to some tough reconciliation.

Loren Duggan
There could be. It’s worth noting that despite the partisanship in the house, the committee there approved the 57-1, with only one Democratic vote against it, that could change as the bill gets loaded up with different provisions. We’ll be looking for that final passage vote for that indication of how it can be reconciled with the Senate, where often the starting position in the Senate is a little more bipartisan, just because that’s the only way to get a bill across the floor. Much of the work in the Armed Services Committee has a secret, they do it behind closed doors, and then tell us when they’re done. So we’ll be looking to see what they’ve agreed upon as they work through that bill over the course of the week.

Tom Temin
And we did see a slice of the houses version of regular appropriations for 2025. And for the sliver of government that they have in general government work, there is significant cuts, again, proposed from the House side, is that likely what we’re going to see in the large agency appropriations work? And will that be coming out any of it this week?

Loren Duggan
Yeah, we’ll be seeing more there. So the House passed one bill last week for military construction projects, a small sliver of what DoD gets plus the Veterans Affairs Department. Veterans Affairs, there are some increases there, which is the usual, but as we get more bills that are more in the true domestic agencies will likely be seeing more cuts, as we did with Bill funding the IRS where I think there was a $2 billion cut. And as we see the bills covering the Ag department, and eventually when we get to the Labor HHS Education bill, which is all domestic, that’s where if you’re going to meet this top line number of reduction, there’s probably going to be a lot of chunks there. So we’re planning to see I think six bills move through either subcommittee or full committee over the course of this week. So a lot of action to come there in the house. Their goal is to get them all out of committee by July 10. Pretty tight, but we’ve seen them make a lot of progress so far.

Tom Temin
And they’re around yet for another few weeks, right until the July 4 break?

Loren Duggan
Well next week is going to be a little broken up because of the Juneteenth holiday. I think the Senate might be coming in around that, and the House might be actually out of town so that people can be back in their districts for that. But it is kind of a choppy summer as we saw last week. It was a short week because of D-Day. There’s a lot on the agenda between world events and conventions coming up later in the summer.

Tom Temin
We’re speaking with Loren Dugan, deputy news director at Bloomberg Government. And then speaking of broken up week, they do have, it’s not a bipartisan event. It’s partisan versus partisan, but maybe not quite as Ill themed and that’s the baseball game.

Loren Duggan
Yeah, they band together in a different way where the Republicans and the Democrats will take the field at Nationals Park for this annual event. It’s pretty sacred on the calendar for them to keep that and try to clear floor votes to allow it. We actually saw one subcommittee hearing for one of the appropriations bills moved two weeks into the future to make sure that everybody could get to the game who wants to go. And even if the members aren’t playing, they usually come and sit in the audience or take part in that and it’s kind of a fun little DC tradition that I always tell my interns from out of town. We’re swinging by if you want to see kind of a little slice of DC life.

Tom Temin
And there’s a few members that actually have some baseball chops?

Loren Duggan
Oh, yeah, absolutely. There’s people who either played in college or whatever. I don’t think there’s as many pros as in the past when Jim Bunting was in the Senate or something like that. But some people are really good and take it very seriously with practice and trying to keep their record going, and get as many strikeouts or hits as they can. So people take it very seriously.

Tom Temin
And getting back to more serious business, the Senate has some FERC nominees. And that’s a big deal, because obscure as FERC is, it does have a new multi 1000 page rule out there that completely changes governance and regulation of the grid. And so those nominations matter.

Loren Duggan
Absolutely. And it’s a commission that’s a five member commission with a mix of Democrats and Republicans. The folks coming in here now our were approved last week by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee with a pretty solid support. So we’ll see if they can all get over the line in the Senate this week that would fill the void and make sure that it’s got all the members that needs to do the kind of work you were talking about, but kind of odd to see all three back to back to back like that in one week. But they’re moving quickly to try to get that done as soon as possible.

Tom Temin
Right electric car charging, subsidized by one state to another is at stake here. But the vote on those nominees from the committee wasn’t totally party line.

Loren Duggan
No it wasn’t. There was one senator, I think Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who voted against all three. And he said he was disappointed in some of the answers they’ve given. But there could be some at least bipartisanship here, when they have the votes.

Tom Temin
All right. And then the other place that is having some problems, FDIC, the workplace culture, interestingly, the Chairman said he would resign when there’s a successor, which means he’ll be here for the rest of the Biden administration. What’s going on a hearing coming up?

Loren Duggan
The House Financial Services Committee is digging into that. And they say they’re looking at both the failed leadership and the workplace culture. And as you noted, it does get pretty low marks. I think it was 25 out of 26 in a recent survey, and there’s some concerns about how harassment claims have been handled. So a lot to talk about there. And there are definitely people who would like to see Greenberg go sooner. And he lost support among Democrats, which is I think what pushed this forward different Committee, the Senate Banking Committee, where Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio.) is the democratic chair there and up for re election and a pretty tight race was one of the people to come out against him and say he needs to go. So I think this is an agency that will have a lot of discussion around and this will be a concentrated look at the issues there.

Tom Temin
And there’s also a vote on IVF legislation. And that has something to say about the federal employee health benefits plan.

Loren Duggan
Right. This is the second bill in two weeks that Senate Democrats are trying to push. They’re more messaging because the dynamics been there likely won’t get across the finish line. But this one is about IVF coverage, including requiring carriers and the FEHBP to offer IVF services as part of this broader guarantee of access to IVF services.

The post Good Ship NDAA maneuvers steadily through congressional shoals first appeared on Federal News Network.

It may be employees at the LaClare Family Creamery, a goat cheese manufacturer in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, that Republican Congressman Glenn Grothman passes by on his way home.

Or it may be the folks at the Old World Creamery, a family-owned food manufacturer located in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which has been around since 1912.

No matter which of the many cheese factories in his home district of which Rep. Grothman was referring to, he seems to believe federal employees and employees who manufacture cheese have a lot in common.

“When I go home at night, [and this] is kind of a stereotype, but I got Wisconsin, I got all these cheese factories [that] I drive by depending upon which way I go home. They were all packed, even at one o’clock in the morning. So I just want to emphasize that I think, in many private sector jobs, they were showing up at work in the teeth of the [pandemic]. It’s time that we should be back to where we want to be,” Grothman said at the April 30 Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing.

Not sure if you knew this, but the cheese industry has been very important to Sheboygan County since the 1870s.

The same can’t be said for federal agencies. In fact, the Office of Personnel Management doesn’t list cheese or any specific food manufacturer in their list of job series. There is 7401 – General Food Preparation and Serving that includes cooking, bartending and even meat cutting, but sadly nothing about cheese.

Grothman was trying to make a point about federal employees needing to return to the office, but his analogy, like most from lawmakers, fell flat.

Just like Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) jab at federal employees back in April.

“Every day is ‘Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day’ when tens of thousands of bureaucrats are working from home,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), posted on X on April 16, which happened to be National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day.

Did Ernst know about some sort of “off the books” celebration at the Neal Smith Federal Building in Des Moines, Iowa, which includes 800 federal employees from more than 40 agencies, who were all wearing their pajamas to work?

By the way, did you know National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day started in 2004, by Pajamagram as a reward for the late nights working on taxes. If you are keeping score, the 2025 National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day is April 6.

But I digress, the return-to-office debate continues to boil over. Republicans continue to criticize federal employees and the Biden administration for what they see as waste and abuse.

No one size fits all for return to office policy

Democrats and the Office of Management and Budget are defending agency leadership to make decisions for how often federal employees need to come into the office based on what’s best for their agency’s mission.

Brian Elliott, executive advisor around the future of work and an expert on workplace culture, said both sides are missing the point and talking past each other.

“I think a big part of this is what you’re getting, is there’s no one size fits all for this because different jobs and different roles have different requirements. They always have and they always will,” Elliott said in an interview with Federal News Network. “The private sector has been grappling with this for a while too, and I work with companies that have a wide range of practices. But they figured out the moments that matter for a sales team are different than those for an engineering team or a finance team. But you would never apply one uniform set of rules to everybody and expect it’s actually going to work the same.”

Exactly why Grothman’s cheese manufacturer analogy or Ernst’s comments on what federal employees are wearing are the type of comments that rankle so many people and stops the real discussion from happening.

First off, as Jason Miller, the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, told lawmakers at the April 30 hearing four different times, over half of the federal workforce can’t telework because of their job responsibilities. That means more than a million federal employees — those who protect the border, secure the airports, inspect food and provide medical care to veterans at hospitals — are commuting, most likely are wearing business clothes — though hospital scrubs could be considered pajama-like — and working outside of their homes.

Miller said of the remaining 40% to 49% of employees working in everything from technology to human resources to processing tax returns or disability forms, about 80% of them are in the office at least half the time, which equates roughly to two-to-three times a week.

But just like before the pandemic, just being in the office doesn’t necessarily mean work is getting done.

Gauging productivity remains difficult

Elliott said it’s this reason and the concept of work being what you do, not where you do it, is why public and private sector employers have to change how they gauge productivity. He said this new view is a struggle no matter what sector you are in.

“We have to stop trying to measure activity, stop trying to measure the number of days a week somebody shows up, or the number of keystrokes they hit, and start figuring out what outcomes you’re trying to drive,” he said. “With most organizations, when we get deeper into this, you realize that you might be able to define productivity for a subset of the jobs, like customer service, which is one that you can usually put a yardstick against. You can measure quantity of output and quality of output. But you can do that regardless of where the human being is doing that customer support. It literally does not matter. But other work is much more complex. The important stuff is interdisciplinary, cross functional in nature, complicated problem solving and really hard to put a yardstick on.”

Elliott pointed to a story from an executive at the National Science Foundation who said the number of grant applications that came in peaked during the pandemic, but they were able to serve them just as well during that time period.

The focus, he said, is what is driving mission outcomes, not “sweating telework classifications” or other meaningless proof points.

“We’re very used to communicating, collaborating, doing work and even building relationships online. I have talked with senior agency leaders who will talk about the fact that the people above them, in the appointment suites as well, aren’t in the tools that their teams are using on a day in, day out basis. If your only familiarity with the digital tools your teams use is the occasional Teams call or Zoom call, and you’re not in Teams or Slack itself, watching the work happen, then it’s not surprising that when you come back into an office space and you don’t see a lot of activity, you’re then worried, are they really working?” Elliott said. “The same thing has happened in the private sector. The thing that I’ve done with a number of executives is literally show them how these tools work. We get into it enough so that they feel comfortable, so they can actually see the work that’s happening, that otherwise they’re missing out on. There’s definitely a transition here that has to do with generational differences in how we communicate.”

Elliott said it’s more than just using communication and collaboration tools. It’s the transformation across many sectors and in many offices that occurred over the last four years.

Fairness doctrine, not really fair

He said this entire discussion comes back to this core issue of how do agencies or companies know if their employees are really working if they’re not physically in an environment where they can monitor them and put my eyeballs on them?

“That is the least effective way of measuring productivity and outcome that exists. It’s an input-driven mechanism. The equivalent would be if I’m going to put keystroke monitors on people’s laptops because the way that they actually produce something is through typing. So once you measure the number of keystrokes, you can go on Amazon.com and buy a mouse jiggler for $25, stick it into the side of your laptop and it will keep your mouse active for eight hours a day or however many hours you want to. And you can actually program in the number of pauses you want it to have. These systems can easily be gamed. You’re much better off instrumenting outcome driven metrics on top of this,” Elliott said.

Elliott added the other side of the argument is often referred to as the “fairness doctrine.” He said what’s fair to office workers should be what’s fair to frontline employees. But Elliott said that so-called doctrine is faulty.

“Frontline workers have to show up on the front line, and office workers don’t have to, and some will say that is unfair. There is an equality versus equity set of things that’s happening within this though. We already pay office workers more than we do frontline workers. That’s been true for eons,” he said. “What it’s really about is how do I attract workers for what is often the hardest jobs to fill these days? It’s those call center jobs. It is the fact that you’re investing a different type of flexibility for those workers, not just work location, which you can’t always give them, but flexible schedules. Giving people the ability to swap shifts, giving people flexibility when it comes to how many shifts they take per week, helps you attract more people into those jobs and retain them. What you’re after is, can I measure how good a job they’re doing at delivering for my customers? Not that they show up.”

That gets us back to the land of cheese and whining. If Grothman, and other lawmakers, want to make sure federal employees are using taxpayers’ money appropriately, serving citizens effectively and not abusing their privilege of working from home, they should demand to see the data and hold agency leaders accountable for meeting mission-focused goals. The workplace has changed, the remote work cork isn’t going back in the bottle, so both supporters and detractors should stop arguing over what was or used to be, and focus on measuring agency mission success in serving citizens.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michele Sandiford

The term “telecommuting” was first coined in 1972 by Jack Nilles. At that time, Nilles was working remotely on a complex NASA communication system.

Source: Allied Telcom

The post Whine, cheese make the return-to-office debate pungent first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The number of cybersecurity incidents in 2023 grew by almost 10%. Agencies reported more than 32,000 cyber incidents to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in fiscal 2023. The latest Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) report to Congress from the Office of Management and Budget showed an increase from more than 29,000 cyber incidents from the year before. Of those 32,000 incidents, 38% — or more than 12,000 — were due to improper usage, which means someone violated an agency's acceptable use policy. The second biggest attack vector, once again, was email phishing, which saw more than a 50% increase in 2023 as compared to 2022. The good news, OMB said, is 99% of all incidents in 2023 were considered "unsubstantiated or inconsequential event[s]."
  (Most cyber events in 2023 were 'unsubstantiated or inconsequential,' OMB says - White House )
• Federal office space remains a top priority for the General Services Administration to address. GSA has started taking steps to address the challenge of federal office holdings. But the Government Accountability Office said GSA needs to make a full plan of action to help agencies fix their underutilization of office space. Managing office space post-pandemic has been on GAO’s list of the top priorities for GSA to address since 2022. GAO said its recommendations could help agencies make better post-pandemic decisions for potential changes to their real estate holdings.
  (Priority open recommendations: General Services Administration - Government Accountability Office)
• The House Armed Services Committee’s bipartisan proposal to require the Defense Department to study the establishment of a cyber force is bringing back a long-running debate over the U.S. Cyber Command’s organizational challenges. The measure in the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the 2025 defense policy bill seeks an independent study of establishing a separate armed force dedicated to cyber. If passed, the measure would require the Defense Department to enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct the evaluation. The provision has a “prohibition against interference,” which prohibits the Defense Department’s personnel from interfering or exerting influence to alter the findings of the National Academy of Sciences. If passed, the Academy will have nine months to complete the study.
  (House lawmakers seek independent study on separate cyber force - Federal News Network)
• A new playbook will help agencies set up neurodiversity programs. The "Neurodiversity@Work Playbook Federal Edition" includes best practices and addresses key questions for agencies. The playbook was release in May by the University of Washington, MITRE and D.C.-based nonprofit Melwood. Its authors say the playbook can help agencies be more inclusive for people with autism and other neurodivergent conditions. It builds on pilot programs started by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
  (Federal neurodiversity playbook pushes inclusive hiring, retention practices - Federal News Network)
• New legislation in the House would prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from buying batteries made by six Chinese companies. Sponsors of the bill said it will help decouple the U.S. supply chain from a geopolitical adversary. The ban would go into effect on October 1, 2027. China produces about 80% of the world’s batteries, including about 70% of all lithium-ion batteries. The new legislation would give the secretary of homeland security the power to waive the prohibition if there are no viable alternatives.
  (Chairman Giminez, Green, Plfuger, Moolenaar introduce bill to ban DHS from procuring batteries manufactured by six PRC-aligned companies - House Homeland Security Committee)
• The government’s inventory of federal retirement claims is at its lowest level in eight years. The Office of Personnel Management currently has about 14,000 pending claims from retiring feds. That is the lowest number that OPM has seen since May 2016. But it is still about 1,000 claims above OPM’s goal of having 13,000 claims in its hands at any given time. OPM also received slightly fewer new retirement claims during May than it did in April.
  (OPM retirement claims backlog at lowest level since May 2016 - Federal News Network)
• The Pentagon has a new series of “overlays” meant to help Defense components adopt zero trust approaches to cybersecurity. A new document published last week laid out how existing security controls — the National Institute of Standards and Technology 800-53 series DoD components already use — map onto the “pillars” DoD defined in its zero trust strategy last year. Defense officials said it is likely that most system owners have already implemented most of those controls, but the new overlays will help them identify the gaps between their current posture and zero trust.
  (DoD Zero Trust Overlay - Department of Defense)
• U.S. Cyber Command is standing up a new program executive office to support its Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture (JCWA). The command launched the effort five years ago to consolidate disparate systems across the military services into one single platform. The JCWA currently encompasses six programs of record across the military services. This year, the command is working to get more acquisition authority over program management shops within the services. CYBERCOM also wants to reduce redundancy, including reducing the number of software factories that are delivering capabilities for the JCWA.
  (CYBERCOM standing up new PEO, seeks to get more acquisition authority for JCWA - Federal News Network)
• The Energy Department has given agencies another tool to get federal buildings to reach net zero emissions by 2045. DoE recently published the National Definition of a Zero Emissions Building, which will become the standard for federal leases beginning in 2030. Through the new standards, agencies have criteria to determine that a building generates zero emissions from energy use in building operations. The new definition follows several other policy and standards efforts by DoE to meet the Biden administration's federal sustainability plan. In late April, the Energy Department also finalized a rule requiring agencies to phase out fossil-fuel usage in new federal building construction or major renovation by 2030.
  (Energy Dept. finalizes new net zero emissions standards for federal buildings - Energy.gov)

The post Agency cybersecurity incidents grew by almost 10% last year first appeared on Federal News Network.

A group of former senior officials is making a new and near last-ditch call to action aiming to prevent the possible resurrection of the controversial Schedule F executive order from the Trump administration.

The five former national security officials, who sent a letter to congressional committee leaders Thursday, are approaching the years-long Schedule F debate with what has been a steadily growing angle: They proposed a middle-ground answer to the question of federal workforce accountability.

Along with warning of what they said would be a dangerous return of Schedule F, the former officials are calling on Congress to enact specific reforms to modernize the civil service. One of their goals is to hold federal employees more accountable — the same goal the Trump administration said was the intent of Schedule F. But unlike Schedule F, the group’s recommendations would maintain merit system principles and long-standing job protections for federal workers.

“We contend that the Congress must forever preclude anything that has the potential to make partisan political loyalty the litmus test, whether express or implied, for any personnel action affecting a federal career civil servant, including senior career executives,” the former officials wrote in the letter to committee leaders. “However, at the same time, we believe that the Congress must also dramatically simplify the well-intentioned but too-cumbersome, too-attenuated and too-complicated processes that we are currently forced use to hold those same civil servants accountable.”

Former CIA Director Mike Hayden, former Homeland Security Deputy Secretary James Loy, former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, former Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and former Navy Secretary Sean O’Keefe — all senior officials during previous Republican administrations — signed the letter.

“We believe that our career federal civil servants must be accountable to the American people and those that are elected to represent them,” the group wrote. “But while that core principle is essential to the effective functioning of our democratic system of government, it is in desperate need of reform and modernization.”

Schedule F, a now-overturned Trump administration executive order that aimed to reclassify some federal employees to make them at-will workers and easier to fire, has recently gained more attention. Former Trump administration officials have been revisiting plans to revive a new policy akin to Schedule F, should the presidential election go in their favor.

The urgent call to action from the former officials is far from the only effort various stakeholders have made in the months leading up to the presidential election this fall. Separate from the letter, a new working group has recently stepped up on the topic of Schedule F as well. The group, composed mainly of academics and former public sector executives, outlined five areas — agility, accountability, collaboration, outcomes and capacity — that the next administration should focus on for creating lasting civil service reform.

“The ideas put out by Project 2025 and Schedule F are certainly worth considering. But we think that they’re the wrong solutions to the problems that we’ve got,” Don Kettl, former dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, and a leader of the working group, said in an interview. “What we wanted to do was to put together an alternative set of ideas from across the political spectrum as an alternative to think about what it is that we might be able to do to make government more efficient, more effective and ultimately more responsive.”

Moving away from a ‘status quo’

In the letter to Congress on Thursday, the former national security officials said while they don’t believe Schedule F is the answer, they also don’t want to continue what they said is the “status quo” for federal employee accountability. The group recommended striking a balance that takes action to fix the problems, while avoiding the reenactment Schedule F.

“The blueprints proffered by both sides of the political aisle are problematic,” the group wrote in the letter. “One side is firmly rooted in a status quo that inadvertently impedes accountability, while the other, if implemented, may end up politicizing the very civil servants we all want to be politically neutral.”

Ron Sanders, former chairman of the Federal Salary Council appointed by former President Donald Trump, resigned from his position in 2020 in direct response to the Schedule F executive order. For the last several months, Sanders has been working with former officials to create a plan of action to recommend to Congress. Although only five Republican former officials signed the letter to Congress this week, Sanders said the group is bipartisan and much larger.

“They’ve all had to deal with poorly performing or misbehaving employees, and they know how hard that is,” Sanders said in an interview. “They don’t think politicizing the civil service is the answer. They don’t think political loyalty should be the criterion. But they also think [the current system] is too hard.”

The letter comes just as House and Senate lawmakers are taking up the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The group said the NDAA is the best, most likely vehicle that can propel forward the proposals in the short-term.

“In part because that’s the only ‘must-pass’ bill likely to move this session — but also because, in theory, those are the committees that worry about national security, and the former officials have said this is a national security issue,” Sanders said.

Last week, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) introduced a bipartisan amendment to the 2025 NDAA that would in effect prevent a presidential administration from creating Schedule F or a similar type of excepted employee classification.

At this point in the process for the 2025 NDAA, any further changes to the legislation would have to come from a Congress member introducing a floor amendment. NARFE National President William Shackelford urged lawmakers to move Connolly’s amendment to a floor vote.

“It is clearly germane to the NDAA due to its application to DoD civilian employees, 700,000 of whom make up more than a third of the federal workforce,” Shackelford said in a June 4 letter. “Moreover, past NDAAs have routinely included governmentwide federal workforce provisions due to their impact on the DoD civilian workforce.”

A spokeswoman for House Oversight and Accountability Committee Democrats declined to comment on whether any committee members had plans to introduce an amendment on the floor related to the further civil service reform recommendations in the letter. But she expressed agreement with the intentions of the former officials.

“[We] agree with this impressive bipartisan group of public servants that public service must be based on qualifications and merit, not political fealty,” the spokeswoman said in a statement to Federal News Network. “Wholesale firing of federal experts who use data, science and law to improve federal government is not acceptable. We hope our Republican counterparts will join Democrats in discussions to revitalize and improve the federal workforce rather than blindly following Trump into causing irreparable harm to essential government services.”

The approach to civil service reform

In the letter sent Thursday, the former officials proposed to Congress a three-part approach to both block Schedule F and create a more efficient way to manage the accountability of federal employees.

The first part of the proposal recommended modernizing the performance management system of federal workers. Simplifying and expediting the adverse action process, the former officials said, would make it easier and faster to hold federal employees accountable, while still maintaining merit-based protections.

Part of the problem, Sanders said, is how long it can take to resolve employees’ cases with the often-lengthy appeals process.

“On taking an adverse action, on appealing it and on adjudicating it — everybody, I think, can agree there need to be time limits, so that the system moves along,” Sanders said.

Another component of the group’s proposal focuses specifically on keeping national security, intelligence and law enforcement positions free from what they said is partisan influence.

“For example, you may want to consider a statutory ban on any measure that potentially threatens to undermine those merit-based principles,” the former officials wrote.

And lastly, the group proposed instating periodic reviews of the balance between political appointees and career civil servants in the Defense Department, as well as other national security and intelligence agencies.

After President Joe Biden repealed the Schedule F executive order in early 2021, the Biden administration took further action to try to hedge against the policy’s return in a future administration. In April, the Office of Personnel Management finalized a rule aiming to reinforce worker protections for the classes of federal employees that Schedule F targeted.

It’s one of the strongest steps possible from an administration, but James Sherk, former special assistant to the President on the White House domestic policy council, and the policy lead on the original Schedule F executive order, said OPM’s final rule would not stop a future administration from reviving a similar policy down the road.

In May, Acting OPM Director Rob Shriver defended the agency’s final rule and warned Oversight committee lawmakers that the return of Schedule F would have a “chilling effect” on career federal employees.

The new recommendations from the former officials somewhat diverge from other views from some federal unions and advocacy groups that have said the government’s performance management system is not broken, and that instead focus more on maintaining the protections for employees that Schedule F sought to remove.

But strategically, Sanders said, the approach to preventing a return of Schedule F may be to take a “positive” action rather than simply trying to ban Schedule F from coming back. For instance, he said, even when Democrats held the majority in both the House and Senate, they were unable to pass legislation aiming to block Schedule F’s return in a future administration. Instead, a better path may be to try to enact legislation akin to OPM’s final rule.

“I’m not sure an outright, overt ban is going to prevail,” Sanders said. “But you could do something like the OPM rule, which in law would make it almost impossible to hire or fire somebody on the basis of their political ideology.”

With just months before the presidential election coming this fall, the clock is ticking for Congress to take action and find a possible compromise to civil service reform and on the topic of Schedule F.

“That’s the reason why we are rushing. If Biden wins, it’s status quo, they don’t have to change anything. If Trump wins, it’s Schedule F and Project 2025,” Sanders said. “Republicans are going to have to give on Schedule F. Democrats are going to have to give on accountability. But our main objective is to just get people talking publicly about this instead of hiding behind the two extremes.”

The post Former senior officials join rising calls for an alternative to Schedule F first appeared on Federal News Network.

As House appropriators outline plans to make steep government spending cuts for fiscal 2025, Democrats are warning that reduced agency budgets would lead to federal employee layoffs, and by extension, worsening federal services.

The fiscal 2025 financial services and general government appropriations bill is now heading to the full appropriations committee for consideration. Members of the GOP-led House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee advanced the legislation — along party lines and without amendments — during a markup Wednesday morning.

But Democrat subcommittee members opposed to the spending cuts said they’re concerned about the ability of the relatively small agencies included in that specific appropriations bill to handle large budget cuts.

“Our agencies often have smaller budgets, and thus less flexibility to deal with the cuts,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday during the subcommittee’s markup of the legislation. “Larger agencies under the jurisdiction of other subcommittees can scale back grant programs and shift funding around to make ends meet. It’s tough, and perhaps may not be appropriate, but it is easier than this bill.”

Hoyer warned that the House GOP bill, as is, would leave many agencies with no choice but to implement staff reductions to make ends meet.

“Our agencies have to lay off staff, severely undermining their ability to function at the most basic levels,” Hoyer said. “That has direct consequences on the American people.”

Under the 2024 enacted budget, which included significant spending cuts, some agencies are already limiting new hires and in some cases considering plans to reduce their workforces. The State Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs, for example, are looking to make staffing cuts in the Foreign Service and the VA health care workforce.

The House appropriations legislation comes in stark contrast to the White House budget request proposed in March. House Republicans proposed a discretionary spending allocation totaling $23.6 billion, which is close to 20% below the Biden administration’s request. The bill would cut spending to 10% below the enacted level for 2024.

Subcommittee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) called the spending levels and several GOP policy riders “unacceptable.”

That steep of a budget cut, Hoyer added, “belies the importance of the agencies for which we appropriate money.”

For the government’s lead agency on all things workforce, House Republicans’ spending plans would give the Office of Personnel Management a budget of $477 million for 2025. It’s an increase of $29.1 million over the enacted 2024 level — but the number still falls $31.4 million short of the White House’s request for the coming fiscal year.

At the same time, House Republicans, in the bill are calling for OPM to specifically aim to modernize IT and strengthen the government’s acquisition workforce.

The bill doesn’t include any language related to the federal pay raise for 2025, appearing to align with Biden’s 2% raise proposal for most General Schedule employees next year.

The draft bill also includes IRS spending cuts and proposes completely defunding IRS’ free Direct File platform. The legislation would cut the budget for IRS for 2025 to $10.1 billion, which is $2.2 billion below the enacted level for fiscal 2024.

The cuts would be most severe for IRS enforcement, which would see a $2 billion reduction in funding, House appropriators explained in a summary of the draft 2025 spending bill. Hoyer took particular issue with that component of House Republicans’ plans for IRS.

“The authority to transfer funds are not provided for in this bill,” Hoyer said. “In other words, we’re cutting our collection department by $2 billion. That’s the very essence of trying to be able to afford that which we’re buying and not paying for.”

The General Services Administration would see spending cuts for its use of the Federal Buildings Fund in 2025, according to the draft legislation. Lawmakers are calling for a cap of $8.9 billion to come out of that fund, which is nearly $1.8 billion below the 2025 budget request.

In one policy rider on the appropriations bill, House Republicans rejected the Biden administration’s request of $3.5 billion to build a new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland. The draft bill would also withhold current funds allocated for the massive construction project.

Already, GSA has said construction on the new building will take more than a decade. Construction on the new FBI headquarters is not expected to begin until 2029, and FBI employees would not be working out of the new space until 2036. But in the spending bill, House Republicans said GSA should either continue operating out of the current building, or choose an existing, federally owned building in Washington, D.C., as a new headquarters.

The Executive Office of the President would receive $815.5 million for 2025, according to the spending bill. That’s $105.6 million below the budget request. As part of that appropriation, the Office of Management and Budget would get $126 million.

Several of the bill’s other policy riders specifically target Biden administration policies that Republicans have opposed for years. The legislation in its current form would ban the implementation of President Joe Biden’s executive orders on climate change, as well as diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA).

Additionally, the Small Business Administration would not be able to fund any climate change initiatives under the bill. In total, the House subcommittee proposed about $854.1 million for SBA, a cut of $117.1 million from the White House’s request, and $187.6 million below the enacted level for 2024.

Once the Senate subcommittee releases and votes on its version of the draft appropriations bill, House and Senate lawmakers will have to reconcile any differences between the two versions of the bill before voting on it, or sending it to the president’s desk for a signature.

The post Democrats warn layoffs ahead as House GOP proposes agency spending cuts first appeared on Federal News Network.

The IRS announced last week it will make its Direct File platform a permanent option for taxpayers to file their federal tax returns, after piloting the system this year with 12 states. The agency will invite all 50 states and the District of Columbia to participate in Direct File during next year’s filing season.

But the House Appropriations Committee released a fiscal 2025 spending bill this week that would cut IRS funding by nearly 18% and zero out funding for Direct File.

The FY 2025 fiscal services and general government appropriations bill would give the IRS a $10.11 billion budget — a $2.2 billion cut from current spending levels. The cuts would be felt mostly by IRS enforcement, which would see a $2 billion cut in funding.

The spending bill also “prohibits funds to be used for the IRS to create a government-run tax preparation software that Congress has not authorized.”

The bill cleared the financial services and general government subcommittee on Wednesday, but Congress is still in the early stages of crafting a spending deal for next year.

Lawmakers cut $20 billion in multi-year modernization funding the IRS got in the Inflation Reduction Act, as part of a comprehensive spending deal for the rest of this year.

Treasury Department spokesperson Haris Talwar said in a statement that the House Republican proposal “would increase the deficit by allowing wealthy and corporate tax evaders to avoid paying taxes owed, while increasing costs for many American families by blocking a free IRS tax filing option funded by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.”

“This proposal sides with high-end tax evaders at the expense of the American people,” Talwar said.

Republican lawmakers have criticized the IRS for piloting the Direct File platform this year without seeking authorization from Congress.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told the Senate Finance Committee in April that the IRS has the authority under the Internal Revenue Code “to provide taxpayer service to taxpayers and update the tools and the solutions that taxpayers use to file.”

“We lived in a world where we had only paper forms and we moved to a world where, for example, we can put a PDF form on the web, and people can fill out that PDF form on the web. We didn’t need congressional authority to do that,” Werfel said. “We worked to develop … a partnership with the Free File Alliance, with commercial software providers, to add and work with them and support their efforts to support free electronic solutions. We didn’t need congressional authority to do that.”

Congressional Republicans are also challenging the IRS for calling Direct File a “free” way to file, since the project is funded by taxpayer dollars.

Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) called Direct File “wasteful and duplicative,” at the April hearing, since some tax software companies already allow taxpayers below a certain income threshold to file online for free through the Free File Alliance program. 

“Were the IRS to use this year’s Direct File spending to pay third-party providers to prepare and file returns instead, literally hundreds of times the number of taxpayers could file for free,” Crapo said. “The IRS spending hundreds of millions of its finite funding to simply test the utility of doing something that can already be done more efficiently, with better outcomes, and without the very real conflicts, while simultaneously pleading for more funding, calls for more oversight.”

Werfel told reporters last week that launching Direct File cost about $31.8 million. The IRS spent about $24 million on the project while the U.S. Digital Service spent more than $7 million of its own funds.

The IRS is asking Congress for up to $75 million in its fiscal 2025 budget request to support its expansion of Direct File, depending on how many additional states opt into the program.

Subcommittee Chairman David Joyce (R-Ohio) said at a markup hearing Wednesday that the spending bill “reins in wasteful spending and take steps to prevent agencies like the IRS from unfairly targeting hardworking Americans.”

Joyce added that the IRS still has about $40 billion in multi-year funds remaining from the Inflation Reduction Act.

A Treasury official said in a statement that the IRS in FY 2023 collected $86 billion through enforcement programs, a return on investment of about $7 for every dollar in its budget.

Subcommittee Ranking Member Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said cuts to IRS enforcement would hamper the agency’s ability to collect taxes owed.

“Make no mistake, the IRS cuts in this bill will cost taxpayers billions of dollars,” Hoyer said.

Hoyer said the IRS, “at a minimum,” needs 2025 funding next year that matches its current $12.3 billion annual budget.

“If the government requires Americans to pay their taxes, we ought to also give them a free and easy way to do so,” he said.

The overall 2025 fiscal services and general government appropriations bill proposes a nearly 10% cut to covered agencies.

Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said those proposed cuts go further than the 1% cut to nondefense discretionary spending agreed to, as part of a bipartisan debt ceiling deal last year.

DeLauro also challenged the proposal to defund the IRS Direct File platform.

“There is no logical reason why private industry must be the middleman between Americans and their government, period. Americans of all income levels should be able to cop confidently file their taxes directly with the IRS without corporations skimming profits off the top,” DeLauro said.

Werfel said last week that taxpayers who used Direct File generally spent less than an hour to file their tax returns, and that many completed their returns in as little as 30 minutes.

The IRS estimates the average American spends $270 and 13 hours filing their taxes each year.

In a survey of 11,000 Direct File users, nearly half said they paid to file their taxes last year — while 16% said they didn’t file last year at all. About 90% of respondents rated their experience with Direct File as “excellent” or “above average.”

The post House GOP propose defunding IRS Direct File, further budget cuts to enforcement first appeared on Federal News Network.