Federal managers realized that offering transactions online would, to some extent, let citizens do things when they wanted or could, and not accorfding to government field office schedules.

Now people can access countless government services digitally. Just as you can buy a China-made garden hose from Amazon at 3 a.m., citizens can renew their passports, say, on Juneteenth or Sunday afternoon. You don’t print out the passport; it still requires approval, manufacting and mailing.

Like it or not, though, in-person appointments remain a part of what the government must offer citizens. The IRS, Postal Service, Agriculture Department, Veterans Affairs, Social Security and parts of Homeland Security come to mind. Collectively they operate thousands of field locations of widely varying size.  Dramatically as digital services have grown, demand for the in-person experience won’t go away.

In fact, the two work together, if by “digital experience” you include telephone call center operators whose ability to help people is aided by access to comprehensive data about the caller. At the IRS, according to recent analysis by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), agency experts resolve some 30% of questions over the phone — so people avoid the need to make an appointment to come in.

In doing its analysis, TIGTA auditors visited a sample of what the IRS calls special Face-to-Face Saturday Help, posing as taxpayers. The monthly events took place at some 90 locations during the 2023 filing season. (IRS repeated them during the most recent tax season.) At some of the first come, first served events, TIGTA’s Carl Aley said, people waited as long as seven hours. In a few cases, the doors shut before the auditors could get service.

Answers they did get were generally accurate according to tax law. But point is that the IRS has real demand for in-person during times when the average single or family taxpayer has time. Weekdays 9-5, the IRS lets people schedule appointments. In fiscal 2023, TIGTA said, the 363 Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs) conducted 781,748 appointments. That may not match the billions and billions served by McDonald’s, but it keeps rising as the country grows and Congress convolutes the tax code.

As agencies work to modernize their online services and improve customer experience, why not rethink the in-person experience? Why not have regular evening and weekend hours for tax and Social Security questions? Why continue like the restaurant that closes when more people can get there?

You might ask, what about the workforce? Lots of people across the industries like night work, or are fine with weekends that might be a Tuesday and Wednesday or a Monday and Tuesday. 24/7 work occurs in some places throughout government already. Air traffic controllers or border patrol agents work ’round the clock, so why not those knowledge workers who deal with the public? Maybe not 24/7, but at least some time beyond 9-5.

Some states offer off-hours functions. Last year I needed a certain permit from a neighboring state. I made a 6:30 p.m. appointment. I’d applied and received affirmation online, but the permit required obtaining in-person.

It was a longer drive than I expected. Turned out the office was open to something like 7:30. When I arrived after dusk the building was locked. But the guard sensed why I was there, let me in, and directed me to a brightly-lit, first-floor office. A super friendly clerk took care of the matter literally in a matter of minutes. So that’s what’s possible.

Good for the IRS for trying Saturday drop-in tax help. The agency has also offered extended Tuesday and Thursday hours during tax season. It knows its demand signals.  This should become part of every in-person agency’s thinking.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michele Sandiford

Tax form mistakes are 41 times more common on paper forms than through e-filing.

Source: The Motley Fool

The post How about night and weekend customer service — in person? first appeared on Federal News Network.

The General Services Administration (GSA) deals with many governmentwide concerns, including real estate and office space. For more than 20 years, auditors at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have considered federal real property management a high-risk issue. GAO recently reiterated a list of recommendations for the GSA on real estate. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with GAO’s director of physical infrastructure issues, Heather Krause.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin The General Services Administration deals with many government-wide concerns including real estate and office space. For more than 20 years, though, auditors at the Government Accountability Office have considered federal Real Property Management a high-risk issue.  GAO recently reiterated a list of recommendations for the GSA about real estate. We get more now from the GAO is director of physical infrastructure issues. Heather Kraus. Heather, good to have you back.

Heather Krause Thank you, Tom.

Tom Temin And this is a restatement of some longstanding things, some of them going back to 2003, and so forth. Any new recommendations for let’s start there for GSA on managing real estate and property?

Heather Krause We have 27 outstanding recommendations to the GSA right now. And what this recent work did was highlight the five that are priority recommendations. And so among the ones, so you know, they actually closed two of our priority recommendations last year, and we had added (an) additional one this year. That recommendation is focused on looking at the deferred maintenance backlog and GSAs plans to address deferred maintenance backlog. You know, there’s about a $3.1 billion deferred maintenance and repair backlog in fiscal year 2022. And so, we found that GSA did not communicate in its budget documents the amount of funding or timeframes that it would take to address that backlog. And so they did take some steps to address, you know, and provide some information and their 2025 budget justification, (but) we’re still looking for some additional information on those funding amounts and timeframes. And that kind of information is really important to inform decisionmakers about how funding levels could affect GSA’s backlog and really help them evaluate the proposal GSA has to address that backlog.

Tom Temin And that backlog applies to federally-owned properties.

Heather Krause Correct. And I should add too…actually, I think I maybe misspoke. I think the other recommendation — that one was around a little bit longer — but the more recent one was on space utilization data. I guess, just to speak to that. I mean, again, across the board, these five recommendations are really to address, Tom, as you said, up front, where we have seen a real high-risk area for the federal government, which is addressing that federal management federal property portfolio. And so another recommendation we made here was to look at plans to share information on space utilization data. And so what we found, and what we’re looking for is — they’ve taken some steps to share broadleaf information on how agencies can collect or look at methods for identifying space utilization. And they’ve done some things to share that information, but really looking for them to continue to have a documented plan to ensure those efforts are publicized, including to those that do not use GSA space, or portfolio planning services. And so kind of making all agencies aware of the cost and benefits of the various methods and technologies for collecting space utilization data. That kind of information, again, would really help agencies identify cost effective methods for collecting that information, and really informing the kind of decisions on potential changes to their real estate footprints.

Tom Temin Right. But they need the cooperation of agencies though, don’t they? The occupants who are having trouble figuring out who’s going to be in the office, who is not. And what percentage of the time?

Heather Krause Yeah, I think what a lot of these recommendations do is improve that kind of data that’s needed to help agencies make those types of decisions. Again, coming back to that space utilization, how can agencies — so, like, GSA is looking to really work with agencies to figure out: what are tools and ways that they can better understand utilization so they can assess what are we using? What might be opportunities to dispose of property that’s unneeded.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Heather Kraus, Director of Physical infrastructure Issues at the GAO. And that idea of disposal of property. That’s something they talk about for decades at a time. And there are commissions and looks at properties. And sometimes after all of that, they find a garage somewhere they can tear down or sell. There’s a more fundamental issue, though, isn’t there?

Heather Krause Yeah, this disposing of unneeded property has been a long-standing challenge. Sort of managing the property and addressing issues of disposing unneeded property has been a long-standing issue. Another recommendation that we made to help address that was trying to get — again, as you point out, Tom, that there is federal agencies that are also involved in in making these decisions, but looking for GSA to develop a process to collect and share lessons learned from what they had was, which was a temporary approach for reducing the federal government’s real property inventory. So there was a law back in 2016 that set up a process for them to select and prepare unneeded federal properties for sale. The first couple rounds of process did face some setbacks and challenges in carrying it out. So what we’ve recommended, to improve that last round of the process as well as looking ahead, is having a mechanism or a process to share those lessons learned, leverage those stakeholders that were involved — their knowledge and addressing potential challenges with disposing of real property. That kind of sharing of information, I think will provide stakeholders, including the Congress, with insights on how, you know, the federal government might better dispose of its Israel property.

Tom Temin And of course, GSA leases, probably way more space than the government owns for occupancy by agencies. And did you find are there open recommendations on the leasing side of things? Besides the occupancy information?

Heather Krause We don’t have a leasing recommendation when it comes to something that’s priority. But I think, you know, we’re often looking at ways — again, I think key areas is improving that data to help, GSA and agencies make decisions on federal property. Another way that we found in our work to improve that was around the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of some of the street address information that you find in it’s public database. So you know, when we looked at that issue, again, lack of reliable data on federal assets is really one of the main reasons is federal property management’s on our high-risk list. And GSA has a publicly available database, you know, of their buildings, structures and lands. The public can take a look at that for any number of reasons, including finding property that they may be interested in leasing or purchasing from the federal government with a space that the government no longer needs. But when we looked at that there were numerous issues with the database which can reduce that kind of benefit that we’re looking for, from sharing that kind of information. So we made a recommendation, again, to improve that data. And GSA is collaborating with OMB on looking to provide guidance to agencies to help them improve the quality of the data, set up data quality programs. And what we’re looking for is them to follow through and working closely with OMB and federal property officials to complete those inter to other efforts to improve the data. Because that kind of reliable data will really increase its usefulness to the public, and really support that disposition of unneeded property.

Tom Temin And the street addresses. How is it? Do you suppose they don’t have accurate data on street addresses? I just looked it up. And they show the White House at 1601 Pennsylvania Avenue. Just kidding. But it seems like that would be kind of fundamental.

Heather Krause Some of it has to do with kind of formatting and incomplete information. And so, I think some of this is looking to ensure that there’s complete, accurate, you know, formatted information in those data databases to make it more reliable.

Tom Temin And in the 20 years, you’ve been developing these recommendations, and some of them get carried over from, you know, biannual report and so on. There have been a lot of building services administrators, commissioners, and a lot of administrators. Do you get the sense that GSA says, ‘Yeah, we agree, we got to get to this.’ Or what’s the response been?

Heather Krause The GSA has been very responsive to our recommendations. We have a way to measure progress of agencies. So we look back over recommendations made four years ago. And in the most recent report, we found that they had actually implemented 100% of the recommendations that we made four years ago. We have found it similarly in the recent years, they’ve had over 80%, or up to 100% in recent years, as well, of recommendations are implemented. So they are very responsive. I think it’s important to draw attention to the recommendations that we do in this particular report to ensure that we continue to make those types of improvements as we tackle this longstanding challenge of managing federal real property.

The post GSA gets a refreshed set of recommendations for dealing with real property first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has changed a big part of the American landscape over the years. Established during the Franklin Roosevelt administration, TVA has a large cache of what are known as cultural heritage documents. With the deadline looming to present digitized records to the National Archives and Records Administration, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin checked in with TVA’s senior manager for enterprise records, Rebecca Coffey.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  And for this agency, which started you know, in that depression era, as part of that new deal, and so forth, tons of maps, photographs, tell us what you do have that are considered cultural heritage for permanent forever preservation?

Rebecca Coffey  Well, TVA definitely has a rich heritage that we like to celebrate and make part of the American story. So when you think about our charge and our mission, we were really about bringing progress to the Tennessee Valley. It’s a seven state region. And we were charged with controlling flooding, which was a problem back then, or erosion. We did a lot of things with economic development, as well as some unexpected things like progress with malaria treatment. So as we came to the valley, one of the biggest programs we had was to build a dam system to control those rivers. Well, to do that, we had to flood a lot of properties that were belonging to long term farmers here in the Valley. And we had to move cemeteries. So our cemetery collection is probably one of the biggest, most requested books of records that we get people in the public wanting to track down. Hey, where did my ancestors get moved to, not just people who lived on the farms, but we also flooded areas in tribal grounds. And so we have a lot of relations with our Indian reservations and our partners there, where we track and make sure that we know not only where the cemeteries, the burial grounds are, but also some of their ceremonial grounds that were very sacred to them. So that is a big part of the records that we continue to create today. As we go through and make transmission lines as we build plants. We’re always looking to see what is underground, and what might be there that needs preservation. Now, you touched a little bit on our records with mapping. It is such a great story, TVA had just phenomenal people on staff to do some of that work. And we were commissioned a lot of times by other agencies to do mapping, even with World War II, we were sent to map areas overseas for the war effort. And so TVA had a huge collection of those records that we’ve turned over already to the National Archives to make them available to the public. And then in house right now, we have a big digitization project underway under the FADGI standards, to be able to make all of our mapping across the seven state region, not just the maps, but also aerial photography available to the public.

Tom Temin  Sure. I want to get back to those cemetery records, though, for a minute, that type of thing, because what are the forms of the records? I’m thinking construction crews encountered a cemetery? Did they take photographs of the headstones? Do they enter that information into a log book, their coordinates where this stuff was? What forms do they take?

Rebecca Coffey  Absolutely all of the above. And so we have a huge photography collection of the areas that they went into, not just the cemeteries but just life in the valley during that time. But they would go in and try to map talk to the people on the ground about who were in the cemeteries. Back in those days, not every cemetery had headstones. And so it required a lot of research by our TVA teams to figure out whose families are buried here to create the most accurate log. So you’ll have a lot of field books, to smaller books, where they’re out in the field talking to people with their handwritten cursive notes. And then we will have actual reports where we’ve sent back then it was more in letter format, I will say, we’ve sent letters to the President saying, you know, here’s what we’re doing. We’ve also got internal memos that we’ll talk about what we found how many people are there and negotiations for another place to move them to certainly a place that we wouldn’t expect to flood again, so that they are set up and ready to go. We also have some things that we’ve done back around then not teen 80s, where we shared a lot of this information with other agencies as well as schools. And so as we went through a huge digitization project back in the 80s, for some of these records, we digitize things based on of course, the standards in place at the time with a focus on making them sustainable, searchable, and all of that. Technology’s changed. And so we’re looking to sort of bring those up to speed with the FADGI standards of today as well.

Tom Temin  We’re speaking with Rebecca Coffey. She is Senior Manager of enterprise records at the Tennessee Valley Authority. So therefore, that’s involving imaging of these logbooks and photographs and so forth. Those were, of course, film photography, so you can image and scan those. That’s the basic process here.

Rebecca Coffey  Yes, and we’re working to make sure that we’ve got them in the best quality that we can. And so as you know, already, FADGI has been a great partner, lots of agencies involved, but they have released the technical guidelines for digitizing cultural heritage materials. I think at this point, we’re probably on version three of that. And so we always look to those guidelines to make sure that we’re capturing the best images, obviously, for these records, most are permanent. And so we want to make sure that they’re going to be usable for the future. Not only do we have the NARA guidelines that come out about these federal records, but because of the work that we do at TVA, we also have to meet some record standards under the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, the National Historic Preservation Act, NHPA. And the archaeological resources Protection Act, ARPA, specific to the cemetery, ones that we talked about, there’s also a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. And that is one that really has been a focus the past few years. We are a partner in those tribal relations organizations. And so we have completely open the doors to the records that we have, so that they can get a better perspective on their people, and making sure that they feel confident that we are protecting them. As we’re making raster images of some of these, we’re making sure that we’re not just capturing the information in it. Because there’s intrinsic value, sometimes in the paper records, when you think about that TVA person out there in the field, talking to people and making their notes. And there’s always going to be some of those little stories that are captured in slides, you know about people that in and of itself is part of that cultural record.

Tom Temin  Right the picture of the page and not simply the information on the page. And by the way, we’ve been mentioning FADGI over and over. That’s federal agencies digital guidelines initiative for people that may not be familiar. Now, some of these things like maps that we talked about, also. They might be large, and consequently delicate, maybe faded, probably hand drawn, how do you digitize an image, something that’s large like that.

Rebecca Coffey  So we do use some of our partners across the industry, when we have things that we’re concerned about, like is our equipment good enough. And that helps us to be able to ensure that we’ve got the best views. NARA we recently opened up a new digitization center, it’s state of the art. And so as we’re thinking about some of these that they have an interest in as permanent records, it may be that they also get digitized over there, where they do have the best equipment. But in regard to ones that you just, you know, there’s just no way to capture it, it’s handwritten in pencil, it’s faded. Sometimes they will take smaller views, of course of the corners of the map if there’s things in the margins, so that we do have that big picture of exactly what’s there. But then we can focus in on particular areas. And while we’re still able to read it here at TVA, we can make annotations to the record in the metadata of what something says, just in case it’s not clear to everyone. And those are mostly the records that you’ll see NARA reach out to and say, you know what, not only do we want the electronic copy, but we want that paper copy too because of the intrinsic value that it has in their facilities, the federal record centers will have the archives, of course, they have very controlled cold storage, certain humidities that even exceeds the standards required by the federal agencies.

Tom Temin  It seems like in the case of TVA, this is almost a kind of sacred mission to preserve this because it did change the landscape. And if you look at the Tennessee Valley of 2024, nearly a century, since the agency and the corporation were established, it’s probably mostly unrecognizable, from a topographic standpoint, from the towns and roads and so on.

Rebecca Coffey  It is but having these records allows us to also tell that story of progression. We had a meeting on about some of our tree canopies that we’ve mentioned before, and not just tree canopies. But when you think about towns building up, our aerial collection allows you to sort of piece those things together to tell that story. And as we start introducing some AI to write those stories for us. It really allows us to target a particular coordinate on some of our maps that we have geo past, to pull it up and say, Okay, for this little square mile of a town, show us that progress, and it can go out there with those coordinates and know every place that we have a photograph, an aerial map some overlay to pull that story together very quickly, which obviously saves a lot of time.

Tom Temin  And just to put the period on it. You do get queries from descendants of people that were directly affected. Whether their burial grounds were moved or their town was changed, or maybe they worked on one of the big projects.

Rebecca Coffey  Oh, absolutely. One of the most important positions we have here at TVA in our communications department is our TVA historian. She is amazing. Her name is Patty Ezzell, and she will be able to help you in terms of the history of TVA. So if you’re a person and you send an inquiry to TVA saying, Hey, I know that, you know, we used to have a family cemetery. I’ve got records of it, can you help us figure out where it moved, she can point you to resources that are publicly available to track that down. We also interact a lot with universities. So TVA has such a great story that we get so many students who want to do their thesis papers, their research papers on the Tennessee Valley. And so we have a wealth of information, most of it already available publicly, but certainly ones where they can connect with us to find more information.

The post How one agency deals with digitizing its rich trove of cultural heritage records first appeared on Federal News Network.

Few occupations match the many dangers of coal mining. Even to this day, miners experience the dangers of mine collapses.  The Federal Drive with Tom Temin  next guest is a former coal miner and has devoted a federal career to improving mine safety. His platforms: The Bureau of Mines and, more recently, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which is part of the Labor Department. Christopher Mark is now a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals program.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin 
And we should point out I referred to you as Dr. Mark, because you got an doctorate degree in mining. Fair to say?

Christopher Mark 
That’s correct. Yes. In mining engineering, and geomechanics. My specialty is strata control underground, coal mines in particular.

Tom Temin 
All right. And just briefly, you were a coal miner when? And what was it like?

Christopher Mark 
I got a job in the coal mines in southern West Virginia, in Boone County, West Virginia back in 1976. And this was really at the height of the energy crisis. And so there was a lot of expansion going on in the industry, then. It was also a time of major transition in safety in the mines, which I was not really aware of, I just turned 20 years old. But a major landmark legislation, the 1969 Health and Safety Act, had just gone into effect a few years before, and it was still quite a bit of change going on in the industry.

Tom Temin 
All right. And at some point, you decided, well, maybe mining is not the job you’d like to have for the next 40 years. So how did you make the transition to mining engineering and then to the federal government?

Christopher Mark 
Well, I was absolutely fascinated with coal mining when I worked underground. So that’s why I decided to study Mining Engineering. And in particular, the field that I later specialized in, the mine I worked at, we really had some pretty poor roof conditions. So there were roof collapses on a regular basis, nobody that I worked with was killed in any of those, but it certainly intrigued me as a career. At that time, I really wasn’t thinking that far ahead. But ultimately, that became my kind of career goal to learn more about strata control, ground control, and then to try to do something about it.

Tom Temin 
Yeah, that idea of strata control is what causes or lack of strata control. People think that the roof collapses in mines, or from the weight above, and that just gets too much in the roof comes down. I guess your discovery is that there are lateral movements that can cause vertical movements. Is that basically what your chief finding has been.

Christopher Mark 
There’s a number of different aspects to it. That’s one aspect. I hope this isn’t getting too technical. But really, there’s kind of two classes of problems that we deal with. The first one is that you always do have the huge weight of the rock that’s above you. Our coal mines are 500, 1,000, sometimes 2,000 feet deep. And so something has to be there to hold up that 2,000 feet of rock, or it’s just going to smash any workings that you have. And so what you do is you have to leave coal in place strategically in large pillars, maybe 100 feet by 100 feet square. So one big part of my field is sizing these pillars so that you can control the great weight of the mountain above you. So this is what we call global stability. But then you also have local stability, which is dealing with the immediate roof right above the tunnel, the tunnel is typically about 20 feet wide. So it’s that rock directly above you, maybe everything from a small piece of rock, all the way up to maybe 5, 10, 20 feet of rock at the most. But making sure that doesn’t come down when people are working underneath it. And it’s particularly for that local stability problem that the horizontal forces become important. And you’re right, that was a discovery that I made several decades ago. I made the connection, I guess, between the horizontal forces that we see underground, and the plate tectonics that has really transformed the whole earth. All our mountain building and faulting and so on is also related to plate tectonics. And I just kind of connected those two fields and was able to use that knowledge to design better roof support systems for coal mines.

Tom Temin 
We’re speaking with Christopher Mark, he’s a principal strata control specialist at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals program. And more than just discovered it, you codified it in tables and in software to help the industry design mines and mines supports better. Tell us more about that.

Christopher Mark 
That was one of the things from my mining experience. And then my kind of close relationships with people actually working in the industry. I kind of realized, and again, this is decades ago, that to put ones research findings in the form of say a peer reviewed publication or even a textbook, that it was going to be very difficult for people to use those things for professional people. We’re not talking about the coal miners underground here, but the professional people who design the mines, but even they were not going to go straight from some kind of a text to a mine design. But on the other hand, if you could take that knowledge and put it into a computer program that was easy to use, then that would have a lot more impact that people would be much more likely to use it. So that’s been kind of one of the real focal points of my work to try to take the research that I do, and then boil it down into a form that’s easy to use, and then put it into a computer program that is easily accessed by the busy mining professionals that don’t do strata control full time and have to fit that into the rest of the work that they do.

Tom Temin 
And your citation mentioned that you have some 160 published peer reviewed papers. So it sounds as if you didn’t discover something 40 years ago, and that’s it. It sounds like this is an ongoing refinement and discovery process for you.

Christopher Mark 
Absolutely. As you mentioned, when I finished my doctorate, I started working for the US Bureau of Mines, which was an agency that went back to 1910. And the Bureau of Mines was actually closed down back in 1995. But the safety research function, it was a research organization. And the research function was folded into the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). So we became the mining arm of NIOSH. So I continued to do research there up until 2010. So during that time, I was able to address a whole range of issues related to strata control. And in each case, tried to kind of move the boundaries of what the best practices were based on the new knowledge I developed, and then get those concepts transferred out to the mining professionals. And then in 2010, I actually transitioned, as you also said, over to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. So this is the safety enforcement arm of the federal government, which again, goes back to that 1969 Health and Safety Act. So my role there is as kind of the chief technical advisor when it comes to strata control issues.

Tom Temin 
And you and I are roughly the same age, within a year of one another, based on the arithmetic I did that you described. And does your mind, as mine sometimes does, wonder back when you’re doing your work to that initial job you had in the mine, digging the coal?

Christopher Mark
Absolutely. And I’ve actually had the luxury in the last few years of writing a couple of papers that directly address that history. In fact, I just had one published that I kind of dug back into industry literature, the trade magazines and so forth of that era, the 60s and 70s going forward and also evaluating the reports of fatal accidents, to try to see exactly what were the things that killed coal miners in those days. We know it was roof falls, but what were the individual attributes? And then how have we addressed them over the years, because when I started working in the mines, on average, every week, a coal miner was killed in a roof fall underground. And in 2016, we had the first year where we had zero roof fall fatalities. So even though the workforce is a lot smaller, still, that’s a tremendous improvement. So I was able to look back and kind of pinpoint exactly which of the innovations that came in during that time really made a difference.

 

The post Federal effort that reduced coal mining dangers 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)

The post Teleworking DoD employees targeted by House spending bill first appeared on Federal News Network.

Complaints are coming from contractors on the General Services Administration’s multiple-award schedule. They say contracting officers are trying to re-negotiate finished contracts and making unreasonable demands for information. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with federal sales and marketing consultant Larry Allen.

Interview transcript 

Tom Temin  And you have found that this is mainly happening in the information technology part of the Unified Schedules program.

Larry Allen That’s right. And at the outset, you know, I’ve worked on the GSA Schedules program for well over 30 years. And we certainly have seen things ebb and flow over that time. But recently, the level of industry discussion on problems, particularly with the IT schedule, has been pointing up close to an all-time high. And it’s time to get these issues out in front of people… get a little disinfecting sunshine on them, if you will, so that we have a program that works better not just for contractors, but for government customers.

Tom Temin Well, what is happening? What are contracting officers actually doing, that the contractors are complaining about?

Larry Allen  They’re doing several things. I think one of the most notable things, Tom, is that there seems to be no end to the amount of data that contracting officers feel that they are entitled to. Papering the record, just one more set of transactional data, and you know, all of that data…everything a contractor submits, it has to be accurate, current and complete. And the more you’re asked to submit, the more, you’ve got to keep track of everything and make sure you’re meeting that standard. And if you’re not, then you are setting yourself up for some future potential audit problems, not to mention the paperwork that you’re having to provide in an endless stream of requests that come. One of the other things that’s happening is — and you alluded to it in the setup — and that is (for) contracts that are already in place, GSA has already negotiated it, the contracting officer has found that to be a fair and reasonable price. Six months (or) a year later, a company comes in and asks for a contract modification. And the contracting officer now uses that as an occasion to reopen negotiations on everything and say, ‘Well, wait a minute, that maybe wasn’t a fair and reasonable price.’ And the contractor is left saying, ‘Well, wait a minute, this is how I’ve been selling. I’ve been doing this for the last year, people enjoy doing business with me this way.’ You know, there’s only so much blood in the turnip that you can give. And that’s an issue too. I think one of the things that every contractor ought to be concerned about as well, Tom is contracting officers asking companies who have their contract set up through GSA’s Transactional Data Reporting pilot, for contractor-based sales information. That’s not supposed to happen at all. And it’s a real danger for me, I think, look, when TDR was set up, I put a blackbox warning out on it on exactly this issue. And since then, things have you know, mitigated a little bit where TDR has proven to be a viable pathway for companies who can’t use the traditional method to get on scheduled. But if we’re getting into a situation where there’s no standard for what constitutes enough data, or how much data because there’s not supposed to be any data in the first place, that is a moment that every TDR contractor should wake up and say, ‘Stop. What’s going on here?’

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners. I mean, there are legal restrictions on what the government can ask for — correct? — in what are basically totally commercial products. This is not cost plus contracts or development contracts, but simply commercial items available widely.

Larry Allen Right. And I think this is one of the disconnects, Tom. First of all, the Paperwork Reduction Act is a rule that even the schedules program has to adhere to, where the government is only supposed to make reasonable data requests. And in fact, GSA has to go out every so often, and renew its authority to collect data from contractors. Usually, that type of request is rubber stamped at the FAR Council. But right now, I don’t think it should be. It seems like if it just sales through the rulemaking process, then the idea is that whatever we’re asking for is fine, and we’re not asking for anything more than we should be. And that’s manifestly not the case. Ironically, we’re talking about this at a time when GSA is trying to be pro-environment, but there are a lot of trees that are losing their lives to provide the paperwork, the contracting officers want. Are you aware that GSA management is aware of this? And maybe we’ll do something to mitigate it… get some word out to their CEOs? Tom, I think they weren’t aware of it before this, but they’re aware of it now. I know that the schedules program management office is aware of these issues. They’ve already indicated that they want to have discussions with the contracting officer management team at the IT part of GSA. I think that’s a good idea. But I do think it’s going to take some senior level intervention here to say, ‘Hey, look, this program worked best when it’s a partnership. When contractors and GSA work together to serve our common federal customer. This is not a program that works well of contractors have a target on their back.’  And just because you’re doing $20 billions a year today through this program, from the IT schedule doesn’t mean that thus now and forevermore, it shall be. One need look no further, Tom, than the Oasis Plus Program and the fact that Oasis overtook the GSA professional services schedule in terms of sales a couple of years ago. So you can actually kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Tom Temin All right, well, we’ll keep an eye on that one and see what develops. Especially as you say, there’s a lot of G wax around that people can use alternatively to the to the schedules. Also your reporting that whistleblower lawsuits are reaching companies in greater frequency, especially to help enforce the cybersecurity regime.

Larry Allen That’s right, Tom, we’d forecast when all the cybersecurity rules started coming down, that the primary way that they would be enforced would be through whistleblower cases. And we’re just starting now to get some evidence that that’s actually what’s playing out. We had a whistleblower, this time, blowing the whistle against SAIC alleging that on one of their government contracts, they didn’t fulfill all the cybersecurity duties they were supposed to adhere to. We don’t know whether that’s true or not. But what we can say is that once the allegations were made, the contractor in this case acted in a way that is probably not a best practice. You don’t solely isolate the employee, you don’t take away their rights, you don’t fire them for blowing the whistle. There are FAR rules on that type of stuff. And you can actually make the situation worse for yourself. Because now instead of just having to defend against the cybersecurity allegations, you’ve got a retaliation suit that you’re gonna have to settle as well. So it’s just really full employment for your legal staff.

Tom Temin Yeah. So, what’s your best advice for companies then, besides making sure the cyber procedures are in place that are required to start with?

Larry Allen Well, I think at a basic level, if you have whistle — every company has, on paper anyway, whistleblower protections. Those whistleblower protections actually have to be operational. It’s nice to have them on a piece of paper, it’s nice to have them in a policy document, but they actually have to be lived. And don’t fear the people who blow the whistle. Look if, at a minimum, if you’d listened to the whistleblower in this case, you would have an opportunity to know whether or not the allegations were valid or not. Now you’ve got lawyers involved and the Department of Justice, it’s going to cost you a lot of money, it’s probably going to cost at least one person, their job in the company. And you didn’t need to do it. So, my advice is to relax, work through it, follow the rules that you’re supposed to follow. They’re there for a reason. And they can actually save you some time and aggravation.

Tom Temin I guess that’s our theme today. Stay within your guidelines and your lanes of travel, whether you’re government or industry.

Larry Allen I think that’s a good takeaway. These things exist for a reason and they help make sure that we have a good government market. And that’s really what the outline is. We want to be able to have the business of government run smoothly.

The post GSA contracting officers are driving schedule holders crazy first appeared on Federal News Network.

Dogs are more than pets. They assist the blind, the emotionally troubled, and people stuck in hospitals. Dogs do countless tasks in law enforcement, military operations and national security. Now a bill in Congress would instruct the U.S. Mint to make coins that commemorate service dogs. Surcharges would go to an organization called America’s Vet Dogs. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with John Miller, the President and CEO of America’s VetDogs.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  And your organization is concerned with those dogs that can help veterans in their needs and get them matched with dogs that can help the veteran with whatever his or her problems might happen to be.

John Miller  Absolutely. So, our organization, America’s VetDogs has been around for 20 years now. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary last year. And we’ve placed over 1000 Dogs throughout the country, you know, with veterans and first responders. You know, we work throughout the country, all 50 states, and ultimately, our service is free of charge to all veterans and first responders. So, it’s a great service. And we look forward to helping and you’re trying to keep working to get the bill all the way through the Congress.

Tom Temin  And the status of the bill. Now it has passed the House and now there’s a Senate version.

John Miller  Correct? Yep. So, HR 807, passed last week. And now we’re on to the Senate. You know, these coin bills, as we’ve learned have special rules, you need a certain number of co-sponsors before they’ll act on them.  In the house, we needed 290. We wound up right before the vote with 299. In the Senate, we need 67 co-sponsors, all bipartisan, you know, on both the House and the Senate. And currently we’re at 29. But we’ve really just gotten started.

Tom Temin  And what would the bill specifically do?

John Miller  So the bill, as you mentioned authorizes the mint to create a three coin series that basically honors the service of working dogs and military dogs throughout the country, we had the opportunity to be contacted by the House Financial Services Committee to determine your level of interest after they’ve done some vetting, if we’d be interested in working with them to get the co-sponsors necessary to get this across the finish line.

Tom Temin  And do we know specifically what the coins would be that is silver dollars or quarters or what?

John Miller  All the final details are done once the bill is actually the passed by the Senate and signed by the President. But you know, the House version, you know, has it’s a three-coin set gold coins, silver coins, and what they call clad coins, they would have a different design on each and you can buy them individually or as a set. But all of those details really we don’t get into until after the it’s becoming reality.

Tom Temin  Right, but what we know now won’t be like quarters, like the states are silver dollars.

John Miller  No, no, it’ll be it’ll be gold coins, silver coins, and what they call clad coins, which are fairly common in you know, these collectible series that the mints produce.

Tom Temin  Right, collectible series, and then we don’t know what they would charge but all of the money would go to your organization.

John Miller  No, so the way it works is there’s a surcharge associated with these coins. So, each level of coin will have a surcharge associated, the mint sets the pricing and the quantities. Once you know the coin goes to market, we’re anticipating if we stay on track here that this would happen in 2027. And so, you know, for instance, I know the surcharge on the gold coins would be $35. That’s what we would get, you know, the mint, you know, and the government doesn’t really have any financial risk at this, you know, they get fully paid back first. Once whatever it costs the mint to produce, then, you know, we would get the surcharges from the coins.

Tom Temin  So, in other words, the surcharge is what dealers or resellers would charge on top of what the mint basic price is?

John Miller  Yeah, I think the surcharge starts with the mint, the way I understand it. And so that’s what our opportunity would be.

Tom Temin   We’re speaking with John Miller, President and CEO of America’s VetDogs. But your release said that America’s VetDogs would get all of the surcharges. There’s lots of organizations that connect dogs and veterans and servicemembers. How is it that just that dogs of America is the recipient?

John Miller  So, America’s VetDogs as I mentioned was. . . We were reached out to by staffers of the House Financial Services committee to determine our level of interest in working with them and the program. We spent quite a bit of time with our volunteers and veterans up on Capitol Hill to ensure we get the requisite number of cosponsors. And try to get it over the finish line, which we did in the House last week. So, it’s not like we were campaigning for something like that. The opportunity came towards us, and we learned what needed to be done, and learned what needed to be done to move forward.

Tom Temin  Yeah, so your organization has a pretty good ratio of benefit to overhead.

John Miller  Yeah, we’re at 82% And if you look at all the stuff that we’ve done and some of the relationships we’ve had, you know, we have the highest ratings on you know, all of the charity watchdog type of agencies were four stars on Charity Navigator, platinum on Candid and yeah, we’ve had some opportunities to work in different government entities, you know, we had the one of the most famous dogs we’ve had was Sully HW Bush, from former president George HW Bush towards the end of his life after Mrs. Bush had passed away. Sully is actually now at Walter Reed Medical Center, you know. We’ve had a relationship with the Washington Capitals, down there in DC, and their second dog Biscuit is actually with Sully at Walter Reed. We have a facility dog, Charlie, over at the Pentagon. We’re not new to this type of, you know, environment. And it’s really interesting, because, as I mentioned earlier, everything we do is free of charge. So, we have to basically raise almost every you know, every dollar we spend, and you know, each dog costs us over $50,000 to get set. But every part of the process, you know, from breeding, to training, to placing, you know, to making the right match for the veteran and the dog, all of that is covered by the organization. So, there’s zero outlay from a veteran.

Tom Temin  And how does it work, by the way, someone is in need of a dog, and they apply. Are all the dogs the same breed, like golden Labrador Retrievers, or then where do the dogs themselves originate? And how do they get trained and transferred to the recipient?

John Miller  Sure, so we breed all the dogs that we use, and all of our breeds are predominantly Labs, Goldens and crosses of Labs and Goldens. And that’s predominantly because all of our training is positive reinforcement, which means food motivated. And those breeds, you know, have the best temperament and take to the food-based training the best we found in our history.

Tom Temin  Wow. So, you breed your own? And who trains them? And how do you do the match?

John Miller  Yeah, so it’s actually a very, you know, intricate process, you know, we have the capacity to breed about 400 dogs a year. you know, it’s a two-year cycle, you know, for us. So, we’re breeding dogs now for a year from them. And when you look at the cycle, I’ll run you through it. So, for the first eight weeks, the dogs are based, you know, here with us, you know, primarily on Long Island, you know, we make sure that they’re healthy, well adjusted, you know, get the first set of shots, you know. And then we have one of two tracks, you know, that we go on. right track One is we have about, you know, somewhere between 12 to 1600 volunteers across the country who helped us raise the dogs and, you know, their first year of life. or, you know, alternatively, we have 14 different prison programs, you know, we work with, you know, throughout the country, and some of the best dogs, including Sully have come out of prison, you know. Sully came out of a prison in Maryland. So, the dogs will be with them until about the 16-month part, it’s not your exact date specific. Each dog is a little different based on the cycles. And that’s when the dogs will come back here and what we call in for training to be assessed. And that’s really where the matching process begins. For instance, President Bush received Sully when later in his life after Mrs. Bush had passed, and the President was primarily in a wheelchair when he was out in public. So we needed a very certain type of dog for that are very relaxed, very, let’s say, chill, you know, type of dog to work with the President, as opposed to a gentleman who is usually with me on Capitol Hill, who happens to be an amputee, but also now a competitive bodybuilder, who leads a very active lifestyle. So, we needed a very different type of dog for that gentleman. you know, he needed a bigger, more energetic type of dog and then Sully was.  So that’s really the key step in all of this, making sure we find the right match, because if we would have matched those dogs the other way, it probably wouldn’t have worked for either one. So, we take a lot of time and effort there. And so, once we know what that match is going to be, then we have professional accredited trainers, who we work with here will train the dogs custom to what is needed for that veteran.

The post If this bill passes, U.S. Mint would start issuing bite coin first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Navy plans to invest more than a billion dollars over ten years to revitalize an old facility: The 19th century Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head, Maryland. It is where the Navy plans to re-do the infrastructure and machinery to produce munitions. For details, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with the center’s technical director, Ashley Johnson.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin
Give us the brief rundown on what happens now at Indian Head. I’ve actually been there. And it looks a little bit out of the way you might say.

Ashley Johnson
Yes, it’s out of the way. It’s been in Southern Maryland since 1890. But it is out of the way. Probably on purpose, to some extent, because of the nature of the business. But we have been at the forefront of what the Navy’s ability is to produce munitions and energetic materials for well over 100 years. And this evolution is really just the beginning of every modernization and sustainment activity for the capability that’s been in the Navy for over 100 years.

Tom Temin
Right now a lot of the work is testing of devices, for example, the chargers that release ordinance from the bottom of airplane wings, that kind of thing.

Ashley Johnson
It has a full spectrum munitions facility, it’s classified as the Navy’s only public arsenal. So we have activities that range from research and development through manufacturing, engineering, as well as tested evaluation, and even as far as it says demilitarization. So, when we say a full spectrum facility, we really do mean in a cradle to grave sense.

Tom Temin
And you also have a facility to make energetics, the stuff that makes pellets go in what looks like the world’s biggest bread mixer.

Ashley Johnson
Yeah, that’s true. Much of what’s used in the manufacture of energetic materials was borrowed from the baking industry. And that’s based on simplicity and the ability for us to control what is inherently pretty dangerous operation with simple equipment. But it’s obviously not quite that simple. But there’s a lot of similarities. And we have incorporated much of that equipment at very large scale, so that we can support production of not only, as you said, the propellants and the explosives or what I would call, more or less, intermediate materials. But we can make those materials and then put them into finished assemblies, like rocket motors, or warheads or other materials for combat capability.

Tom Temin
And tell us about the modernization then. The Navy apparently is committed to Indian Head. What’s going to happen over the next 10 years?

Ashley Johnson
Well it’s no surprise. So for those who are looking at the news, you’ve seen the pressures that have been applied throughout the world, particularly starting with Ukraine and potential adversaries. There is a renewed awareness of the need for conventional ammunition, and the consumption of that ammunition and munitions over a long conflict. So what we have realized is the United States is our munitions industrial base has shrunk over the last 15, 20-25 years, because of our focus in other areas. And as a result, the pressure that’s being put not only on commercial industry, but also on what we call the organic industrial base, or that which is owned by the government is at a premium, and Indian Head is significant in terms of its capacity. We are a very large part of what we call composite manufacturing, which is the modern way of manufacturing rocket motors and warheads and things of that nature. So the Navy, recognizing this, and the Secretary committing to this idea that it owns an arsenal, and it needs to use it in the context of this whole situation, has committed to a 10-year-program to essentially sustain and restore and to modernize the entire facility. Indian head has a site that’s worth replacement values, five to $6 billion. And it would be difficult to duplicate, even if you have that money. So investing in a facility like this is really much more efficient than trying to accomplish it some other way. So the Navy’s gonna invest first, to restore a lot of things that have been taken care of in a way that’s forced us to make decisions. So there’s some things that we should have been taken care of a little bit better than we have. And so we’re going to fix those things to unlock some latent capacity. And then we’re going to modernize equipment to get to more state of the art manufacturing methods, as well as just simply increasing capacity in the sense of multiplying three or four or 5x times the number of things that we can do. And this will get us down the road. As I said 10 years it will take to accomplish this. But we will start to get returns on that investment immediately. And then we will sort of reset the clock, if you will, for Indian head and into the future.

Tom Temin
We’re speaking with Ashley Johnson. He is the technical director of the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head, Maryland. And sounds like that you will be overseeing the construction of additional buildings or fixing up old ones, and also new equipment, new foundry gear and that kind of thing.

Ashley Johnson
Absolutely. It’s pretty much everything that you might imagine. Something very simple, even as simple as paving roads and facing electrical distribution systems or lighting or steam lines or fire protection systems which at first blush wouldn’t be the first things maybe you’d come to mind when you’re talking about state of the art munitions. But those are the things that you’re required right in order to run the factory. And then you know at the high end, as you said there’s very specific mixing presses, cutters, things that are directly related to the manufacturer of the material. And those need to be modernized and taken advantage of where we can depart from industrial age technology and moving into information age technology.

Tom Temin
I was gonna say even basic ordinance today has electronic components in it that might not have had in the World War II era. Tell us more about what that requires.

Ashley Johnson
Most of the advances, to be honest with you, over the last, say 30 or 40-50 years since major conflicts have been in what I would describe as the front end of a lot of these items for missile systems, guidance and control has been where a lot of advances have been made, and for good reason with regard to precision and accuracy. But a lot of what we still need, or still benefit from and need to improve is the items that are directly related to range, right to speed to what we call terminal effects or what the device does when it gets to its target. We also manage the signature or how well you can see the device as it’s doing its job as a function of energy and materials. So these are the parts that also have to be managed. And frankly, those have been left behind as opposed to some of the investments that have been made, as I said, in this guidance in control, or are more front end electronics of the business. So it’s a business of making sure that we don’t put too much emphasis on one aspect of ammunition, it’s all got to get better.

Tom Temin
And what about the manpower to do this production, it sounds like pretty skilled work. And you only got about 25, 2600 people down there. What about the human capital side of it?

Ashley Johnson
It’s a challenge for not only us, but also the entire industry. There’s a huge swing in these things. As you look over the years. In the United States there used to be 12 tactical rocket motor manufacturers at one point. Now there are only two, that’s commercial. And so the number of individuals that were associated with this in the commercial space, as well as the government space. And I do mean from laborers, to technicians, to engineers to advanced degree folks, the whole numbers down. So as an industry, both commercial and government, it’s a challenge for us to find folks that have any experience in this area, we’re taking on folks that are knowledgeable skilled, they have degrees, they have all that training. But it does require a significant amount of on the job training, as you might expect to handle something that says dangerous, is what it is that we handle. As I finally said, we don’t make toasters here. And that’s not an affront anybody that makes toasters, but the problem is it’s dangerous, and we can’t afford to make mistakes. Because it could be a significant risk to mission or risk to our force. And so we take that training very seriously. And it puts a premium on finding individuals that have the skills, but also on the time that it takes us to get them ready to do the job.

Tom Temin
The toasters are all made in China anyway, so who cares about them, but you’ll have to get more people, you have to increase the workforce, and therefore have a way of attracting them to Indian Head, Maryland, which is beautiful country, by the way. But it’s a little out of the way, relative to the Baltimore-Washington area.

Ashley Johnson
It’s funny you say that. It’s really an issue of first, of course, attraction. We don’t have a lot of problem, honestly, attracting people. The nature of our business is pretty exciting for lots of reasons. You can be a patriot, you can defend your country, you can be a civil servant. And people are excited about that one. So they learn what level of impact that they can have. I think the other is or the nature of our businesses exciting. Things that go wish and things that go bang and it’s an unusual, it’s an off the beaten path. Again, it excites people. The hardest part for us is really the time that it takes to get people to a high level of competence, as I started this on the job training and the patience that it requires to be there. And then also the retention which speaks to what you said, what is the area look around, people want nice things, people want a nice place to live, they want whatever their dunkin donuts or subways or whatever it is that they’re looking for close by. And so they look, and then they determine how long they want to stay. And these is really the issues that address how it is that we can maintain a workforce. And that’s why we work so hard to partner with local and state governments to make sure that we put our best foot forward. Because as we go to all that trouble of attracting and training talent, it’s pretty debilitating or disappointing when when people leave.

Tom Temin
And you have been at Indian Head now yourself for about 35 years fair to say, this must be kind of exciting from a personal standpoint.

Ashley Johnson
It is. Obviously you got some level of commitment to this. But it’s interesting, quite frankly, to see some of the parallels. They’re all story if you want a new idea, read an old book. I see a lot of similarities. I came here in 1987 nearing the end of the Cold War, and I was facing the adversary that was the Soviet Union. I see a lot of parallels. I’m not gonna make any predictions, but I see a lot of parallels to our situations now. And so it’s interesting to watch that happen. And it’s humbling and gratifying at the same time to be able to be a part of this renaissance in this resurgence in a facility that’s one of the oldest the Navy has. It’s got a rich and storied past of being able to deliver what the Navy needs and it’s getting ready to do it again.

The post How the Navy plans to modernize its one-and-only arsenal first appeared on Federal News Network.

• When it comes to speeding up the Defense Department’s acquisition processes for big weapons systems, things are headed in the wrong direction. That is one of the findings of the Government Accountability Office’s annual assessment of the Pentagon’s major procurements. GAO said on average, DoD’s major acquisition programs are taking 11 years to deliver their first capabilities — about three years longer than planned. The report also found slowdowns in DoD’s so-called “middle tier” of acquisition — a pathway that’s explicitly designed for speed.
  (Weapon Systems Annual Assessment - Government Accountability Office)
• The IRS is taking major strides to wean itself off paper. The IRS estimates more than 94% of individual taxpayers no longer need to send mail to the agency, and that 125 million pieces of correspondence can be submitted digitally each year. For taxpayers who still prefer filing paper tax returns, IRS is working on being able to digitize that paper return. “If you choose to send us the paper, we will process it. But we are ushering in some nice tools with the modernization," said Darnita Trower, the director of emerging programs and initiatives at the IRS. "We don't intend to have people continue keying in tax returns manually. We want to scan and extract that data,” Trower said.
  (IRS hit a ‘big milestone’ to wean itself off paper. What comes next? - Federal News Network)
• A National Science Foundation initiative aims to bring better data to the cyber workforce challenge. The Cybersecurity Workforce Data Initiative is out with a new report explaining how many official labor data sources do not fully account for cybersecurity work. That includes classifications used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Education Department. The initiative’s report recommends marrying up cyber workforce definitions with federal labor databases. And the initiative, led out of the NSF, is now preparing to potentially conduct a survey of the U.S. cyber workforce.
  (NSF initiative aims to bring better data to the cyber workforce challenge - Federal News Network)
• The Senate Armed Services Committee has greenlit a number of AI-related provisions in its version of the 2025 defense policy bill. The committee's version of the bill requires the Defense Department to initiate a pilot program that will assess the use of AI to improve DoD shipyards and manufacturing facilities operations. Lawmakers also want the Defense Department to develop a plan to ensure that the budgeting process for AI programs includes cost estimates for the full lifecycle of data management. The bill would also expand the duties of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer Governing Council.
  (Senate lawmakers pushing a number of AI-related provisions - Senate Armed Services Committee)
• Victims of identity theft are waiting nearly two years, on average, for the IRS to give them their tax refunds. In cases where a scammer stole someone’s identify to get that person's refund check, the IRS took about 22 months to complete those cases. The National Taxpayer Advocate said the COVID-19 pandemic drove up wait times when the IRS shut down processing centers. But, so far this year, wait times are not going back down to pre-pandemic levels.
  (Identity theft victims are waiting nearly two years to receive their tax refunds - National Taxpayer Advocate)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency just ran the federal government’s first artificial intelligence tabletop exercises. It involved more than 50 AI experts from government and industry, who convened last week at a Microsoft facility in Reston, Virginia. The exercise simulated a cybersecurity incident on an AI-enabled system. The event will help shape an AI Security Incident Collaboration Playbook being developed by CISA’s Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative.
  (CISA, JCDC, government and industry partners conduct AI tabletop exercise - CISA)
• Senate lawmakers are seeking to limit funding available for the Defense Department's initiative designed to support cyber operations across the military services. It is known as the Joint Warfighting Cyber Architecture (JCWA). The Senate version of the defense policy bill is looking to restrict funding available for the effort until the commander of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) provides a comprehensive plan to minimize work on the current JCWA. The Senate Armed Services committee also wants CYBERCOM to create a baseline plan for a more advanced version of JCWA. House and Senate leaders will begin negotiating the defense bill once the Senate clears its final version of the measure.
  (Senate seeks to limit funding for JCWA - Senate Armed Services Committee)
• The Biden Administration is contemplating a new acquisition policy that would clear up some confusion on when contractors have to follow the government’s rigorous cost-accounting standards. The Cost Accounting Standards Board is asking for public feedback on potential rules that would lay out exactly how those standards apply to indefinite delivery contracts. According to the Government Accountability Office, those types of agreements make up about half of federal contract spending, but there are not clear standards on when the cost accounting standards apply to them.
  (Whether and How to Amend CAS Rule - Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Cost Accounting Standards Board)

The post Major DoD acquisition programs taking too long, GAO says first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently reiterated something it has been pointing out for years: The government wastes billions and billions of dollars on duplicative and overlapping activities. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin‘s guest says the GAO overlooked a crucial way to stop the waste, namely shared services. Steve Goodrich is the Chairman of the Shared Services Leadership Coalition.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  The Government Accountability Office recently reiterated something it’s been pointing out for years. The government wastes billions and billions on duplicative and overlapping activities. My next guest says the GAO overlooked a crucial way to stop the waste, namely, shared services. The chairman of the Shared Services Leadership Coalition, Steve Goodrich, joins me in studio now. Steve, good to have you in.

Steve Goodrich  Thanks, Tom. And thanks for having me.

Tom Temin  And just briefly, tell us about the coalition. You’ve been around for more than last week?

Steve Goodrich  I certainly have. I’ve been around government working on these kinds of reforms for over 40 years. The Shared Services Leadership Coalition was formed to specifically focus on shared services and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government founded by John Marshall.

Tom Temin  And John is still around.

Steve Goodrich  He’s our president and CEO.

Tom Temin  And the idea of shared services goes back. Well, I mean, there’s the National Finance Center and places like that, that go back generations, really of government, but it was called lines of service, I think.  Lines of business. That’s correct. In the George W. Bush administration as a way when electronic government started really becoming something of a thing, and government was going online. Why do you think there has been not so much progress in expanding shared services?

Steve Goodrich  Lines of business.

Tom Temin  And I would think in some ways, shared services would be more efficient now than in the past. If you take something like the National Finance Center, and its counterparts, these are big buildings with capital expenditure and data centers that have to be updated. It’s expensive to operate. Whereas it could all be in the cloud now, where the government pays for it, it still could be a shared service, but without all the capital infrastructure needed.

Steve Goodrich  There needs to be a real focus on building the infrastructure required to get there. There’s nobody in charge. There’s nothing statutory about shared services. And it needs to be brought together. I mean, it really started with a push in the Reagan administration. But every administration has had it, it’s been part of the President’s management agenda in the past, but it hasn’t quite gotten legs yet. Because it is an investment and a transition that has to take place. Well, not only in the cloud, but you have a real opportunity to reduce the number of platforms around government. And with the advent of generational AI, bots, the advanced technologies that are out there, there’s tremendous opportunity for cost savings, efficiency and effectiveness with shared services.

Tom Temin  Now, some agencies do share services, and you’ve got some examples of where it’s working and the savings have been documented.

Steve Goodrich  Oh, sure, absolutely. So if you look at NASA, for example, they’ve saved over $200 million in putting together a shared service. They actually borrowed about $40 million to put it together and paid that back within just several years. You know, almost 90% of large corporations in the private sector are doing shared services now. You know, Johnson and Johnson has saved, with only 150,000 employees, has saved almost $2 billion now.

Tom Temin  That’s a lot of shampoo.

Steve Goodrich  That’s an awful lot of shampoo. You’re absolutely right. So there’s great opportunity for government to do this right.

Tom Temin  And if you look at NASA, what services do they share, and with whom? Or is it among the centers of NASA that had been duplicating the same thing?

Steve Goodrich  Well, NASA is primarily within the walls of NASA. So they’re doing HR and IT and finance and and those kinds of things. You also have, you mentioned NFC, which is external, if you will, in the Interior Business Center, supporting other agencies, PSC at HHS, Arc at Treasury. You have a number of them. They haven’t all yet been required to measure their performance, and that’s absolutely a critical element. You know, Commerce has enterprise services, you know, DoD has defense. So we’ve made, for example, with payroll, you know, back in the early 2000s, when it was reduced from 26 payroll centers to four, over $1.6 billion was saved in doing that. And it’s not just about the money, it’s real opportunity to consolidate and reduce the number of technology platforms we have.

Tom Temin  We’re speaking with Steve Goodrich. He is chairman of the Shared Services Leadership Coalition. And it’s not like this is totally unfamiliar to government in the larger sense. I’m thinking of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. Otherwise, you’d have every agency with a checking account. But no matter who you have been paid for in the government, your check says Treasury.

Steve Goodrich  Your check all comes through Treasury. Payroll comes through four centers. So whether you’re talking HR procurement, IT services, financial services, imagine consolidating and reducing the number of platforms the number of resources required and getting better service. As we all know, this government is overspending and constantly. Now, I get it. No Congressman has ever gotten elected saying, I’m for shared services. That just doesn’t get votes. It’s not the sexy stuff. But the opportunity to increase government performance, serve the mission of agencies and save a heck of a lot of money is there.

Tom Temin  Well, that’s right, too, and even though it’s not a subject of interest in the parades and the speeches back home, Congress nevertheless deals with thousands of such items as it is. Nobody back home on the congressional trail of reelection would be excited by 99% of what’s in the defense authorization bill, for example. All those 800-series provisions on procurement, yet Congress does those. So it seems like they could take on shared services, even though it’s not exciting, because of their track record with a thousand other things that aren’t exciting.

Steve Goodrich  They could, and you know, Congress is very good at looking at individual agency budgets. They’re not very good at looking cross-government. And that’s where we need to focus them. That’s where we need some statutory requirements to get there. And that’s where we need a person, an individual with the accountability and responsibility and authority to make this happen across government. Those are the things that are missing.

Tom Temin  And what would a statute cause to happen, do you think?

Steve Goodrich  Well, one, it’ll make it mandatory, because as I said, it’s not a mandatory factor now. Two, it’ll provide the resources necessary to make the transition from here to there. And, like anything else, an investment is required. But we need to do the analysis. We need to put the business model together. And we need to identify what the ROI is, and demonstrate to the government that is possible.

Tom Temin  Because mandatory is easy to say, but what exactly would be mandatory? Payroll? Or, I mean, we’d have to specify what services need to be shared, and among whom, wouldn’t it?

Steve Goodrich  We do, and I don’t think we boil the ocean. You know, I think we establish shared service for a clear definition of what it is, making it mandatory. And then let’s start with one, develop the business model, make the adjustments that are necessary, and then start migrating that model from line of business to line of business.

Tom Temin  And is there one particular service that you think is particularly ripe for being the guinea pig?

Steve Goodrich  Well, I think there’s a number of them that are ripe, you know. Procurement would work, you can do something small, like travel management. HR is the one a lot of people go to, but it’s very complex. I think we should be working on that. And there are folks like at OPM who are working on building the foundations out for the marketplace, the standards, things like that are getting there, as well as for, you know, grants is another possibility, to really push on grants. Again, you don’t want to boil the ocean, because you want to get this right. And make sure, you know, in Washington, you know, our memory fades after a number of years. We need to keep it in the limelight. And our policy recommendation is to establish a role in GSA at the commissioner level, to have the authority to pull this off and make it happen.

Tom Temin  Because they used to have GSA consolidating all of the information technology procurement. And if you wanted to do it as an agency, you had to get that delegation.

Steve Goodrich  Correct.

Tom Temin  So that went away, I think, when the Brooks Act was repealed.

Steve Goodrich  Yeah, you know, it happens in different ways, because agencies still have the focus and the authority to do what they want, when they want to do it. And so, you know, GSA can come out with a new, great, really efficient procurement vehicle, and agencies can choose to use it or not. Okay. And that’s part of the mandatory part. But there has to be a migration, and this is a 10 to 15 year migration to make it work.

Tom Temin  Are there any members that are sympathetic that you kind of leverage into the rest of Congress?

Steve Goodrich  Well, I think the oversight committees in both Houses are interested in this, as well as, you know, appropriations and budget. They want to figure out how to use shared services to create the efficiencies. And, you know, the TMF, the Technology Modernization Fund, allows for shared services, in fact, specifically states that will support shared services. It hasn’t to date, but there’s real opportunity, because the investment for this isn’t just Congress appropriating funds, and absolutely getting a return. You do have TMF. You do have the savings by not investing in all the many systems that the agencies are asking for right now. Give them the band-aids and paperclips right now, but pull money from existing opportunities in the budget. You know, the TMF and other areas, even customers can help support this and it won’t cost a whole heck of a lot and there is a return.

Tom Temin  Steve Goodrich is chairman of the Shared Services Leadership Coalition. Thanks so much for joining me.

Steve Goodrich  You’re welcome.

Tom Temin  We’ll post this interview along with a link to more information at federalnewsnetwork.com/federaldrive. Subscribe to the federal drive wherever you get your podcasts.

The post Why the government should use more shared services to reduce costs first appeared on Federal News Network.

Lots of people, even those who should know better, often misconstrue the fundamental purpose of the U.S. military. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin‘s guest has written a provocative essay on the subject of deterrence, at a time when not much in the world seems deterred. Melanie W. Sisson is a fellow in the Foreign Policy program’s Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  Lots of people, even those who should know better, often misconstrue the fundamental purpose of the U.S. military. Our next guest has written a provocative essay on the subject of deterrence, at a time when not much in the world seems deterred. Melanie Sisson is a fellow in the Brookings Foreign Policy Program, and she joins me now in studio. Ms. Sisson, good to have you with us.

Melanie Sisson  Thanks very much. Great to be here.

Tom Temin  And you have written, the very first paragraph of your essay is probably a surprise to many, as you say, the mission of the United States Department of Defense is not to fight and win the nation’s wars. And I can’t tell you how many star officers I’ve heard say that it is instead, quote, to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security. Why is that important nowadays, if everyone already knew that or should have?

Melanie Sisson  Well, I think first I’m not sure everybody does know that. And it requires a shift in thinking in terms of what we rely on the military for and why. The United States has had this enormous military advantage now, for decades, the best fighting force in the entire world, no question about that. But of course, we don’t want to have to use it that way and we certainly don’t want to have to use it to the extent that we did in earlier generations. D-Day, for example, that reminds us how terrible these large, in sort of defense circles would call these high end wars, can be. And so the Department of Defense very rightly, has fashioned its primary objective as pursuing, promoting, defending U.S. national security interests without having to fight that kind of battle again.

Tom Temin  Sure. And we had the great Reagan buildup, just to use a piece of shorthand that people use, and lots of technologies to give a technical advantage were developed at those times, and we’re still living off that. I guess, before we get into what deterrence is going to look like in the future, let’s presume that some of the facts going on now. The shipbuilding has slowed so that the replacement rate is not there, and so many ships are in dry dock at a given point. The Air Force says it wants to retire 1,000 planes in the next few years, but it’s not going to buy 1,000 more, and so on and so on. And the Army can’t fill its ranks, even as they are at 475,000 active duty with recruitment. Are we a deterrent at this point? Yeah, there’s autonomy. There is all this robotic, masked clouds of drones and so forth, and the military knows about it, and AI, and they’re trying to pursue it. By the way, we’re speaking with Melanie Sisson. She’s a fellow in the Brookings Foreign Policy Program and has written an illuminating article about the idea of deterrence. And let’s take an example. We would like to deter China from taking over Taiwan. And that gets into all kinds of foreign policy nuance because we acknowledge it’s, you know, and so and so and nobody liked Chiang Kai Shek, and etc. This goes back a long time, however strict logically, we’re dead without Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. I mean, so much of the economy in the military relies on that, more the economy. How do you deter, when that would mean making China say we don’t dare touch Taiwan, because they’ll squash us in five minutes? That would be deterrence. But that’s not the case.

Melanie Sisson  So, you did two really excellent things here. The first is you reminded me I didn’t entirely answer your first question. And then second is to highlight some of these really other important dynamics in the current environment. So you had previously asked about, you know, why ought we be thinking about how the Department of Defense deters today? And the short answer is because the environment we’re now living in requires us to acknowledge that there are other larger states than there have been for the last 30 years whose interests diverge with ours, and that they are becoming more assertive, and in Russia’s case, certainly aggressive in pursuing those interests, even and especially where they conflict with the interests of the United States. And so we don’t have a choice but to start thinking about the role of the U.S. military, in deterring those actors from degrading, eroding or countering our pursuit of our own goals. So that’s one element. The second is then you introduced, what it takes to deter. When you ask about the composition of our forces, the number of service members that we have available, those who might be interested in being available in the future. All of these are very important factors when we think about what kind of pressure or perception we can convey on to or to those sorts of adversaries. So my belief when I look at the U.S. military is that we remain militarily enormously strong, enormously capable, and largely equipped to deter in the ways that we need. That said, there is no question that to protect our interests into the future, and even to a certain extent increasingly in the current moment, we’re going to have to reassess and reevaluate the material and equipment and the people that we have available to do that. There are new and emerging technologies that are very important. And we need to think carefully about how to integrate them into what we have today to well position us into the future.  So first, let’s do exactly as you started and acknowledge just how much nuance there is when it comes to the Taiwan question and just how long that nuance has been a factor in U.S. foreign policy. So not to discount that at all. The second part I would highlight here is that you’re right, the way you described it as being able to squash China, if they were to try, is certainly one convincing form of deterrence. Unfortunately, I don’t think that form is available to us anymore. And I don’t think it will be in the future, either. And so that demands that we think about deterrence in a different way. Now, I tend to look at the dynamics over the Taiwan Strait, and not be as worried as some in the community are about the state of deterrence. I think, in part for the reason you described about Taiwan’s role in the semiconductor industry, the economic implications of the sheer volume of goods that transit through and around the Taiwan Strait, the economic disincentive for violence in that area is already quite high. So it is not the case that we only need to rely on military deterrence in order to dissuade any actor from behaving in a particular way. And in this case, to dissuade Beijing from moving with force against Taiwan, we can use all these other tools of national influence, and some of them that are created by the conditions, right? So the globalized economy and the role of Taiwan in that economy is one such condition.

Tom Temin  Yeah, that’s a big difference nowadays versus the Cold War, because even though the Soviet Union was gigantic, and so on, and I mean, I lived through those years, but we didn’t buy much from them. We didn’t have much economic dependence on them, because everything the Soviet Union made was junk, except for the caviar, China is different. We are completely integrated with their economy. And, you know, no more iPhones and so on. Maybe that’s shifting a little bit. But that seems to be, therefore, acting to deter both China and us because of the economics as much as the military differential.

Melanie Sisson  Absolutely. Look, I think it’s really important to use history as we think about contemporary problems. But the trick is to use history appropriately, and to use it as well as we can. So we don’t want to over draw comparisons between periods. And you may have heard, I’m sure you have, the comparison of oh, you know, we’re in a new cold war with China. Right. And that resonates for us, we get that as Americans, about what a Cold War looks like, because we did it for a long time. And it ended in a way that was very positive for us, right? So I understand the desire to sort of draw that parallel, just to say that we should be cautious about it, for some of the reasons that you rightly identify, that there are some things that may be similar. They’re not the same. And there are many things that are different, and the extent of our economic integration, the extent of China’s global economic integration, those are enormous differences from prior periods. We also need to acknowledge that, you know, there are other differences in terms of China’s domestic politics are not the same as Soviet politics. Chinese leaders are not the same as Soviet leaders. And you can say, you know, similarly here in the United States, history moves on, right?

Tom Temin  Sure. And let’s take a look into the near future. One of two people that nobody wants is going to be the next president. 50% don’t want this one and they’re not happy with what they do have. And 50% don’t want that one and they’re not happy with what they’ve got. So I’ll go that far in politics, and we don’t pick sides around here. What do you anticipate will be the differences in approach, and therefore military policy, acquisition policy and budgeting policy between the Trump side and the Biden side?

Melanie Sisson  So I’ll start with the one that I think is answerable. And that is what would I expect if there is a second Biden administration. And what I would expect is pretty much what we’ve seen thus far. I think that even if I have my own sort of differences with the administration, in terms of some of the ways in which it is pursuing both its competition with China, and its relationship with Taiwan, in terms of, you know, pursuing peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, they nonetheless, I acknowledge, have been quite consistent in their approach, and I would not expect that to change. I would expect them to continue to be firm that the U.S. interest is in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Tom Temin  And they have gone along with some decent budget increases.

Melanie Sisson  That’s exactly right.

Tom Temin  Costs go up even if you don’t acquire any more weapons because of the cost of a volunteer force.

Melanie Sisson  That’s exactly right. So there’s defense budget increases. There’s increasing collaboration and communication on Taiwan about their own defense investments. There’s a lot of work, as you mentioned before, being done in the Pentagon about new and emerging technologies that are specifically applicable to the Taiwan Strait and its surrounding waters. So I would expect more of the same on that. I’m going to be very disappointing when it comes to saying anything about the possibility of a Trump administration, because I think it’s entirely unpredictable. I never make predictions about the future, like someone else that we know has always said. But in this case, I think it’s doubly dangerous to try to make predictions. Trump is mercurial. We don’t know who will be in his administration, staffing which roles. And so to me, the picture is just a big shoulder shrug and hand raise until we have more actual information.

Tom Temin  Melanie Sisson is a fellow in the Brookings Foreign Policy Program. Thanks so much for joining me.

Melanie Sisson  This has been great. Thanks so much for having me.

Tom Temin  We’ll post this interview along with a link to her article at federalnewsnetwork.com/federaldrive. Subscribe to the Federal Drive wherever you get your podcasts.

The post Not-quite-accurate common assumption about military’s main purpose first appeared on Federal News Network.

Fresh from their annual baseball game, members of Congress are back at work on the Hill. Lots of activity centers on the National Defense Authorization Bill, which has, for starters, passed the House. And, strangely, there’s been some movement on the slow-moving, but never-ending topic, surrounding a new FBI headquarters. For this week’s outlook, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  Fresh from their annual baseball game, members of Congress are back at work on the Hill. Lots of activity centers on the National Defense Authorization Bill, which has passed the House, anyway, and, strangely, on the never-ending topic of a new FBI headquarters. This week’s outlook now from WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent, Mitchell Miller. And Mitchell, let’s start with the NDAA. Now that it has passed the full House, will that spur the Senate so they can get started on reconciliation soon?

Mitchell Miller  Yes, a lot of things really moving forward now on the defense bill and on the defense front. The NDAA passed in the House largely along party lines. It includes a 19.5% pay increase for the lowest military ranks. That is going to add billions of dollars into the budget. But overall, $895 billion, and this, of course, is one of the biggest bills that they will take up all year long. And what is interesting about this is there are a lot of similarities as to what happened last year in that Republicans have added a lot of amendments that are clearly going to be opposed in the democratically-controlled Senate. One of those was an amendment that was passed in connection with restricting payment for military officials to have any kind of abortion or reproductive activity. And so that one is among the things that is going to be pushed back on by Senate Democrats, no doubt. There are also a lot of other things in connection with this bill that were taken up. One of the amendments that was easily defeated was one from Georgia’s Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene that would have banned further military aid to Ukraine. So a lot of back and forth here in connection with the NDAA. But I have been in contact with Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, and he is pleased with a lot of the progress that they’re making on the Senate side. So, a lot of things moving forward on this.

Tom Temin  Well, hopefully, they’ll agree on how many bombers you know, and troops and things in the NDAA.

Mitchell Miller  There’s all these little ancillary things that have been added in. But I think on the biggest issues, as you allude to, the weaponry, the military equipment, I think they are making a great deal of progress.

Tom Temin  And that idea of the reproductive rights or abortion rights, whatever you want to call them, kind of mirrors what is happening with in vitro fertilization legislation for the Federal Employee Health Benefit plan. This is something Democrats wanted.

Mitchell Miller  Right. This is another big issue that we’re in the middle of an election year, obviously, and Senate Democrats tried last week to get enough votes to essentially have a national right to IVF in connection with this legislation. And the way it affects federal workers is that it would actually expand the coverage of fertility treatments for the Federal Employees Health Benefits plan. This was included in legislation that also includes some other provisions. But ultimately, Democrats did not get the 60 votes that they needed. This was probably pretty likely, even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer knew that this was probably not going to pass. Interestingly, OPM Office of Personnel Management, did increase the federal requirements for IVF treatments for this current plan year, but the legislation that was proposed last week would have gone beyond that. However, that has not moved forward. And it does not look like it’s going to anytime soon.

Tom Temin  We’re speaking with Mitchell Miller, WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent. And the issue that will not die is the FBI headquarters. And, golly, what’s the latest there now? Whether they’re ever gonna move?

Mitchell Miller  Well, you know, it’s interesting, because I was on a call with Virginia Senator Mark Warner in connection with this, and he was asked about what is happening in the House. And basically, the House Republicans have proposed pulling more than $3 billion that would go toward the early development of this new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt. And he clearly indicated he is frustrated. He said that, you know, the fact that the building in Washington on Pennsylvania Avenue is literally falling apart with netting at the top to catch pieces of concrete, really frustrates him. And of course, he’s even more frustrated by the fact that Virginia lost out to Maryland, but he does want something to happen to get moving. So, the appropriations process is kind of holding things up at the moment for the FBI building. At some point, this will get resolved, because a lot of Democrats obviously are opposing this plan. But all of this is delaying what has already been a much delayed process, as you know. Even if everything moves forward as fast as possible right now, the building would actually not begin for another five years. And it wouldn’t be that federal employees with the FBI would not be actually in that space until 2036. And I think right now, actually, that may be optimistic, but we’ll see what happens as this legislation sausage making grinds forward.

Tom Temin  Yeah, you really marvel at the inflation, because $3 billion just for kind of preparatory work, that’s not the building itself. As opposed to something like I think it was 60 million for the old headquarters they abandoned, you know, back in the 70s.

Mitchell Miller  Right, yeah. I think it’s pretty safe to say this cost is just going to keep going up and up and up. But on the bright side, they did, after more than a decade of battling over where to actually build the headquarters, it is eventually going to move forward.

Tom Temin  Too bad they tore down the Cap Center.

Mitchell Miller  That’s right. They could have repurposed that, maybe.

Tom Temin  With a curvy roof. And congressional pay raise, this is something that’s been kind of a third rail for Congress. But now some members are talking about, well, maybe they should be paid a little more.

Mitchell Miller  Right. There was a proposal last week within the House Appropriations Committee that’s repeatedly come up. Some people that have been in Congress longer as well as some newer members of Congress are actually on the same page on this. Congressman Steny Hoyer is among those who has said there should be at least a cost of living increase for members of Congress, because they have to have two homes generally, here in the Washington area and their home district. The cost of living obviously is going up. But of course, this is kind of the third rail for a lot of lawmakers too, because they know that when a member of Congress is making $174,000, that there’s not a lot of sympathy from average Americans related to those costs. But the pay raise did not move forward in the House Appropriations Committee last week. So once again, they will stay at that level as they have since 2009. By the way, if there had been general cost of living increases since 2009, the average member of Congress would be making close to $240,000 right now, but again, this is on hold and not surprising, I don’t think, since this is, as we mentioned earlier, an election year.

Tom Temin  And we should note too, that the pay for politically appointed members of the executive branch, I don’t think those salaries have risen either in the same period.

Mitchell Miller  No, they’ve all been holding pretty firmly. And that’s really an issue that a lot of the people that are proposing these increases also point out that if you’re going to get people in public service, you’re going to have to eventually raise the pay. Now there is another controversial element to all of this, that Congress kind of quietly, within the last year or two, approved a provision that allows for lawmakers to essentially add to their expenses without having actual receipts. And this is something that was added in because, again, because they say that there are added costs with housing and paying for meals, etc. And that has actually percolated and caused some controversy for lawmakers. Because with no receipts, of course, it’s unclear exactly how much extra money they’re getting. It usually, on the higher end, has been between $25,000 and $30,000. But I have a feeling that will be coming under some more scrutiny too.

Tom Temin  And just a brief word on the baseball game, because it does go for a good cause, even if it seems to be played by people that aren’t liked very much. But as the one of the broadcasters there and we helped produce that here at Federal News Network, how’d it go money wise?

Mitchell Miller  It was really a great event, once again. The congressional baseball game has been raising money for local charities as you know, for many years and they set a record, $2.2 million brought in for charity, which is just absolutely fabulous. It’s just been steadily going up every year that George Wallace and WTOP and I have been doing this from you know, closer to one and a half million several years ago. And so that participation, again, it remains strong. The Republican team, by the way, remains the stronger of the two parties on the baseball diamond anyway. They won pretty handily, 31 to 11. But it was a great event as usual. 25,000 plus people came out and the fact that they’re raising this kind of money, it’s just nice to see a rare bipartisan event and happening right near Capitol Hill.

Tom Temin  Even if they do thump each other with fast balls. Mitchell Miller is Capitol Hill correspondent for WTOP. Thanks so much.

Mitchell Miller  You bet.

Tom Temin  We’ll post this interview at federalnewsnetwork.com/federaldrive. Hear the Federal Drive on demand, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

The post House passed its Defense authorization bill, but there’s a long way to go 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.

Instead of asking Annie if she is okay, what if Annie asked you? That is the case now for veterans receiving treatment from the VA. The mobile and interactive service known as “Annie” is being deployed nationwide to help vets keep up with their healthcare protocols via text message. The service, created by Accenture, has gotten a lot of positive feedback. To learn more, Federal News Network’s Eric White talked with Dr. Ron Moody, Chief Medical Officer for Accenture Federal Services.

Interview Transcript: 

Eric White  Instead of asking Annie if she’s okay, what if Annie asked you? That’s the case now for veterans receiving treatment from the VA. The mobile and interactive service known as Annie is being deployed nationwide now to help vets keep up with their health care protocols via text message. The service, created by Accenture, has gotten a lot of positive feedback. To learn more, we welcome Dr. Ron Moody, chief medical officer for Accenture Federal Services. Dr. Moody, thanks for taking the time.

Ron Moody  I appreciate you having us and having an opportunity to discuss Annie today.

Eric White  Yeah, so first question, why Annie? Is Annie a love lost in your past, or what’s the story there?

Ron Moody  [It’s named after a nurse named Annie Fox.] But why Annie, right? I mean, we have a problem in healthcare. You know, U.S. health care costs have been high. Getting engagement to people has been difficult, improving quality, you know we have a doctor and nurses shortage. So we have to find new ways of doing things. And I have called the VA and their anywhere to anywhere care. They’ve had videos, just last week did over a million video visits. But Annie is a way to engage people in their home in new ways of being addressing the problems that have come up for not only sicker population, but with the veteran with the VA having the PACT Act, making more veterans eligible, as well as the Mission Act for veterans have more access to care. This gives a way for the VA to be a companion in interacting with veterans on a continual basis to improve health care. So eventually, you know, it’d get to the point where we don’t have not enough doctors or nurses, we have a better way of delivering health care.

Eric White  All right, so let’s get into how the service actually works. It kind of nudges those in care of the Veterans Affairs department to make sure that they’re keeping up with their health protocols. What does that mean? And yeah, how does Annie do that?

Ron Moody  Right, so Annie was a project the VA started several years ago, and simply stated, she’s a protocol-based text messaging system. So that basically means she responds, the VA can create protocols, or what in sometimes might be considered care plans, for veterans to be engaged. They get a message from Annie, which can then remind them to do something such as with diabetes to send in their blood glucose. And they would text back … right? So it does several things. It engages them with cognitive and behavioral practices to have them engaged and to remember what they’re doing. So, much more engaging than simply monitoring you. It gives the VA an opportunity to remind people about everything from preventive health services to preparing for procedures, such as the recent colonoscopy study, which showed that improving that ability for that services to be delivered. It can do administrative things also. So the VA can create any protocol based upon a health or administrative need, and then be engaging that veteran continuously. So, the good news is, it can really assist the veteran and be their companion from one place to the other. The studies are showing that often, right, you’ve made the joke, but oftentimes the veterans are perceiving Annie as a real person, because she’s regular, she’s consistent with them. The messages that we’ve worked with the Office of Connected Care to VA are tailored to veterans need to keep them engaged. And these protocol-based messaging systems have been shown in across demographics and across countries to improve medication adherence, to decrease readmission to the hospital, and do a whole host of other benefits. So, evidence-based, low cost, using the most common form of communication on the planet almost, at least if you watch my my grandkids sit around the table, they’re texting and they’re not talking.

Eric White  We’re speaking with Dr. Ron Moody. He is the chief medical officer for Accenture Federal Services. And yeah, on that technology side, I know you’re a medical doctor, but can you just give us the basic overview of how this technology works? Is it just something that the veterans automatically sign up for when they receive care, or is it something they’ve got to jump on voluntarily?

Ron Moody  Oh, great, great question. So Annie uses a, so first the technology behind it, Annie uses a combination of government software and commercial software. It’s using just the Twilio platform for SMS text dialing out to the veteran has that machine. That’s the same way that veterans receive text. We have a very, very awesome program. I’m a veteran myself. To give people appointment reminders through that text, and so that veterans are used to receiving that. For Annie, right, they have to do two things. They can self they can self enroll into Annie using the Annie web app that comes in both a web app, or you can just engage by text. But clinical staff typically register the patient into Annie. They then taken and can assign them a protocol. The veteran could self subscribe to a protocol and that’s a protocol of interest to them or needed for their care. And then Annie would start messaging them with some frequency and those messages can vary, everything from, as we were talking about earlier with blood glucose, to it could be helping with post-hospitalization reminders, procedural type preparation, preventive services, and it can remember your birthday card, and remember your birthday and send you a reminder on your birthday. And although that may sound why would you want to do that, but it’s about engagement, right? Annie as a platform is really about communication, collaboration. And health care is about communication, collaboration and trust. And what the VA has really been invested in, right, and we’ve been supporting them, is that ability to create an extended, trusted health care network to be able to really engage veterans, anywhere they are, anytime. Annie is just one of the tools in that arsenal, to be able to help them do things differently, and to lessen the burden on both the health care system, but more importantly, on that patient having to come to a clinic. You know, the other big thing recently, people talk a lot about remote patient monitoring. Think about Annie as remote patient support device, right? You can text, you can ask them how they’re doing. That’s occurring without human being in the loop until a human needs to be involved.

Eric White  Yeah, on that experience side, you’ve gotten positive feedback from the patients who did use this. I’ll be honest, in this modern world, sometimes I sign up for stuff and nine text messages later, I go, why did I sign up for this and how do I get out of this? How do you maintain that balance when it comes to public health engagement? Because, you know, nobody wants to be nitpicked to death.

Ron Moody  Oh, absolutely. So, in tailored messaging and marketing, and essentially what happens to be a technology company is one of the world’s largest marketing companies. So if you look at how people respond to text, what they want to respond to, again, I don’t need that 17 barrages of messages, I should be able to select what I want. It starts with a trusted relationship, you know, not just that vendor, sending me, you know, 17 reminders that they have something to sell. But this is your health care system engaging and then becoming what Annie becomes, and although it has a name, the studies show that it becomes a relationship that people have. Annie can be become anything from your old drill sergeant, to your teacher back in school, to your grandmother. Being that person that nudges a reminder to you like you want. So the engagement is almost self sustaining, in part because it’s value add. And I think that’s some of the times what some organizations who go into health IT miss, right? It’s just not about communication. It’s communication, collaboration, trust.

Eric White  What does the future look like for Annie? Is this going to be nationwide and become a staple for VA?

Ron Moody  Yeah, so Annie has been out for a while she’s been getting increasing usage in the VA. There’s just over, I think, if my numbers are correct, it’s just over 250,000 veterans who are actively enrolled in Annie as users and about a quarter those are currently on protocols. It’s getting expanded use now that people are searching the evidence come from that. And as you mentioned earlier, people, both the staff, health care has got to change and veterans have to come around. I believe you’re going to see Annie because of its very nature, right? It’s a way to provide health care at low cost, across bandwidth, give equitable health care so no matter where a veteran is, or what their bandwidth, most of us can receive a text. And so you’ll see more of that engagement across the continuum. And Annie will move to involve now, it’s, it is not an AI-based system. Doesn’t need to become an AI. It’s not meant to be a chatbot. It’s meant to be very specific, scientific-based protocols, the tailored messaging, but it can be improved, and that’ll happen. AI will allow it to be multilingual and other things, while maintaining the value that it has. And I see it only expanding across the VA services, used in multiple lines. Again, everything from the Veterans Health Administration where it’s currently mainly used, but it could be extended over to help with, assist with things and Veteran Benefits Association, reminding people about the status of of their benefits. Where their things are in process, actions they need to take. So, a lot of utility, she’s versatile, and she’s valuable. And I look forward to seeing her continued use for all my fellow veterans out there, because again, proven ways to improve health care and health engagement.

Eric White  Dr. Ron Moody is chief medical officer for Accenture Federal Service, thank you so much for joining me.

The post Veterans Affairs hopes non-human entity can help keep tabs on patients 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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