• 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)

The post Rep. Hoyer warns of ‘freezes, furloughs, layoffs’ first appeared on Federal News Network.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Telework, office space in 2025 spending bill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continuing a few longstanding provisions

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

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

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

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

IRS pilot, FBI headquarters and more

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

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

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

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

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

Tasked by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate has formulated a plan for the agency’s investment goals in specific research areas. This Innovation, Research and Development (IRD) Strategic Plan is DHS’ first ever. To learn about what it calls for and how it came together, Federal News Network’s Eric White talked with Jon McEntee, who is operations and requirements director with DHS S&T.

Interview Transcript:

Eric White  Tasked by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate has formulated a plan for the agency’s investment goals in specific research areas. This innovation research and development strategic plan is DHS’s first ever. To learn more about what it calls for and how it came together, we welcome Jon McEntee, who is operations and requirements director with DHS S&T. Mr. McEntee, thank you so much for taking the time.

Jon McEntee  Oh, thank you for having me.

Eric White  Of course, of course. So why don’t we just start with getting an overview of what exactly is this document? As I mentioned, it’s the first ever from DHS. Is it just calling for where you want to put specific research dollars, or what’s the deal here?

Jon McEntee  So we refer to it as IRD. So it’s innovation, research and development. So, the IRD strategic plan is the department’s blueprint of priorities and associated resourcing decisions. It’s put together to prepare DHS and the homeland security enterprise to address future threats and hazards. And the homeland security enterprise includes federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, as well as private entity partnerships, those that want to protect the homeland. So it was put together to not only internally coordinate and collaborate investments across the department, but also as a demand signal to our external partners within industry, international, interagency, and academia, to showcase the IRD needs through FY 30. It really looks to collaborate, again, not only internally, but externally. And we also performed internal analysis to help with that demand signal. It’s going to show the major muscle movements where the department wants to be, and these cross cutting IRD things make up what we call the strategic priority research areas. And those are optimal mission impacts the department’s going to be facing over the future years to come. We identified eight of them, and we call them, we refer to them as SPRAs. They include advanced sensing, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, biotechnology, climate change, communications and networking, cybersecurity, data integration, analytics, modeling and simulation. And finally, digital identity and trust.

Eric White  Yeah, we’ll get into a couple of those in a little bit. I just wanted to take a step back. And, you know, you mentioned how you looked at the internal priorities of where the department wants to be, how did that decision process go? Because it’s so hard to see what the next threat is going to be, especially when your area of coverage is as large as the DHS’s is. You know, how did you come up with those strategic priority research areas, or SPRAs as you mentioned?

Jon McEntee  It was absolutely a collaboration across the department. We spent about eight months working with all the DHS components. And you know, we had to first inventory all of the IRD activities. We conducted a SWOT analysis, which is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. We held a futures workshop. We collected component future trends assessments that included risks, threats, challenges. And we also reviewed all the existing national DHS and component IRD strategies and guidance. So what we ended up putting together as a culmination of of information that identifies where improvements are needed to stay ahead of the threats. It speaks to the “what,” not necessarily the “how,” meaning technology evolves rapidly. And we want to perform a technology solution analysis as close to the implementation here as possible. And we have to continue to monitor the evolution of technology throughout the lifecycle with any effort that we do. For example, if we do a technology solution too soon, in looking at FY 30, we run the risk of obsolescence. So it’s a delicate balance between out year planning, as well as current year execution.

Eric White  I want to zero in on just one other part of your first answer, which you’d mentioned your partners in industry. So this is kind of you putting up the flag as well, saying, hey, this is what we’re going to be interested in in the future if you want to work with us. Right?

Jon McEntee  Exactly. And it’s that demand signal. When I say the homeland security enterprise, and it’s every entity that wants to protect the homeland. And we know that there’s a lot of innovation and investment that has gone into that, and we want to be able to tackle it and to partner with those external entities. We actually held a technology innovation network event back in October, to present some of our initial findings of our analysis and to gain additional feedback. At the event, we also had our Office of Procurement operations there. And S&T’s office of industry partnerships, to help answer the question how to do business with DHS, because you know that linkage is very important. And once we gain that level of networking that enables us to work with them in the future as well. And so we did a showcase also at the Consumer Electronics Show. We’re doing another event in Monterey, California at the Naval Postgraduate School later this month. It’s with the Military Operations Research Society. And we have a number of other, you know, engagements planned the balance of the year. But again, the important piece is, hey, let’s leverage a lot of that great innovation the industry is already working and tailor it to Homeland Security enterprise needs.

Eric White  We’re speaking with Jon McEntee. He is operations and requirements director with DHS S&T. So this is the first one you all have ever done. How will this document change the way that S&T does invest its dollars, and what was the difference before this document was formulated? Were you just kind of playing whack-a-mole and saying, well, we definitely are going to need to do this, let’s put money there? Or was it, you know, a little bit more structured than that? I’m sure it was.

Jon McEntee  Right. Traditionally, a lot of what we did in the past was individual component IRD analysis. And what this does, it looks across the department. And it takes a different tack. It’s a collaborative approach. And identifying and leveraging leveraging each other’s investments internally, but then it helps us to plan across the department together, and to focus our limited resources on the department’s highest priorities. And again, this allows us to complement one another, and also to avoid duplication and effort. And this is why we develop those themes, the SPRAs, so that we can identify those major muscle movements that impact multiple components, not just singular components.

Eric White  Yeah, let’s get into those SPRAs. It just speaks to, once again, the vast amount of coverage that DHS is responsible for. The ones that stick out the most to me probably are cybersecurity and AI, just because those are definitely the talk of the town. But you know, bringing back in biotechnology, which, that used to be one of the number one threats everybody was afraid of, but it’s coming back into the realm it seems, and as well as advanced sensing. I mean, it is all here, you know, how are you going to dictate which ones require more attention, I guess?

Jon McEntee  And that’s one thing we’ve developed internally within the department. We actually stood up what’s called the IRD Coordination Council. It’s co-chaired by the undersecretary for science and technology, as well as the undersecretary of management. And the council’s goal is to ensure that the most pressing challenges the department faces, have appropriate and effective investments to support those mission areas. And you know, and through that, that helps us with prioritization as well. And the IRD helps us to filter into those common themes, SPRAs, and also identify those areas that we need to tackle first. And so during the first year of investment, what we plan to do is look at all the SPRAs across the board, and develop roadmaps and determine where the department currently is, and also where we want to be through FY 30. And so that’s kind of the goal the first year, because this enables us to better complement each other’s investments. And so in looking at this helps us to identify those areas that have no investments. And we call those IRD deltas. And again, now that the plan is released, we also want to enhance our external partnership and leverage those existing and future IRD investments. Because in those areas where we have IRD deltas, industry or some of our external partners, interagency, academia, or even international may have solution sets or capability enhancements that we can look at, and to look at these common denominators that we’ve identified. And so this is that demand signal. We see this as a target market opportunity for those external investors to make their own business decisions.

Eric White  Jon McEntee is operations and requirements director with the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate. Thank you so much for chatting with me.

Jon McEntee  Of course.

Eric White  And we’ll post this interview along with the link to the document on our website at federalnewsnetwork.com. You can also subscribe to the Federal Drive wherever you get your podcasts.

The post How DHS plans on spending its federal research dollars first appeared on Federal News Network.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The GOP-led House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal 2025 general government spending bill rejects a $3.5 billion proposal from the General Services Administration to finance a new FBI headquarters building in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The spending bill passed out of the general government and financial services subcommittee along party lines on Wednesday morning. It’s now slated to be considered by the full committee. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) reportedly urged House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) to prohibit taxpayer funding for any new FBI headquarters facility.

The Biden administration nominally ended a decade-long disagreement over the future of the FBI headquarters when GSA announced the new Greenbelt site last November. GSA selected a Maryland site over competing sites in Virginia.

But ever since, lawmakers have been scrutinizing GSA’s site selection and the broader plan for replacing the crumbling J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown DC.

GSA’s budget proposal

GSA’s fiscal 2025 budget request proposed the $3.5 billion as an upfront investment in the new FBI headquarters building.

Agency officials want to allocate the investment through a new Federal Capital Revolving Fund that would “fully fund the costs of very large civilian real property capital projects that are difficult to accommodate in the annual appropriations process,” GSA’s budget request states.

Under the proposal, GSA would then pay back into the revolving fund in annual payments of $233 million over the next 15 years.

GSA would also draw on funding that Congress has already appropriated for acquisition and construction of a new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt. Lawmakers have approved about $845 million for the project so far, including $200 million in the fiscal 2024 spending deal reached in late March.

But in addition to rejecting the $3.5 billion funding request, the House Appropriations Committee bill would also prohibit previous funding from being spent on the FBI headquarters project until GSA sends the committee a “spend plan to continue operation of the current headquarters or to identify another existing, federally-owned DC building to serve as the headquarters.”

While House appropriators have started to move their spending bills, appropriators in the Democrat-led Senate have yet to start marking up their corresponding 2025 spending legislation.

Wray talks FBI headquarters

Meanwhile, FBI Director Chris Wray told lawmakers this week that his agency is supporting GSA’s work to establish the new Greenbelt site.

“We are working closely with GSA,” Wray said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. He noted GSA submitted a report to Congress in March detailing its plans for site acquisition and design of the new facility.

Wray had called GSA’s decision-making into question shortly after last November’s announcement. He told FBI employees in an email that he had “concerns about fairness and transparency in the process and GSA’s failure to adhere to its own site selection plan.”

Wray’s email cited concerns about then-Public Buildings Service Commissioner Nina Albert’s decision to override the recommendations of a selection panel that had recommended Springfield, Va., for the new FBI headquarters.

In a statement at the time, GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan pushed back on Wray’s claims. She said his “suggestion that there was inappropriate interference is unfounded.”

Carnahan also said GSA stands behind “the process, the decision, and all of the public servants who carefully followed the process and made a good decision on behalf of the FBI and the public.”

During this week’s hearing in the Senate, Wray did not raise any further public concerns about the decision to locate the new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt.

“We are working closely with GSA, in cooperation with them, in full compliance with the law,” Wray said. “The specifics of exactly what conversations, what meetings – that part I couldn’t tell you right here right now. But my understanding is that we continue to work closely with GSA on the project.”

The post House appropriators reject GSA’s $3.5B plan for new FBI headquarters first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), one of the longest-running external good-government groups, has a list of items its watching for in the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. A House committee has already passed one version. For details, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talks with POGO Public Policy Director Liz Hempowicz.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin So this markup, everybody in town is kind of looking at it. It hasn’t gone to the full house yet. And then there’s the Senate and blah, blah, blah. Long way to go. But what did you notice from the POGO standpoint that should be watched in? What is the first glimpse we’re getting of a possible NDAA?

Liz Hempowicz Sure. We’ve got a couple of things that we’re keeping an eye on. The first is what Congress is doing with a couple wasteful weapons systems. You know, the bread and butter for Pogo. And so, what they’re doing with regards to the F-35 program and the constellation for both emblematic of some of the systemic issues that we care most about at the Pentagon. And we’re also looking at if policymakers can make good on efforts to make it harder for defense contractors to fleece taxpayers in contracting negotiations, and whether a small group of dedicated, bipartisan members can lead Congress into a more responsible way of dealing with budget needs from services and combatant commands by getting rid of the unfunded priorities list. And then last but not least, we’re looking at the impact of recent investigations by Pogo and others and what they’re going to have on policymakers and how they address critical housing quality issues that so many military families are facing right now without sufficient recourse.

Tom Temin All right. And, you know, the United States, as a country faces a rising threat militarily from several places around the world. And does the NDAA seem to address the issue of the fact that some rearmament is really necessary if it can be done in some reasonable fashion?

Liz Hempowicz Yeah. You know, I think that’s exactly the reason why we’re so focused on two of these issues. One, the wasteful weapon systems that we do find ourselves in, you know, decades long contracting issues with. And then also some of those root systemic issues with contracting and procurement that allow us to get into these longstanding, challenging issues with weapons programs that end up, you know, we’re sold a bill of goods that they don’t end up being, and then they can’t meet our readiness needs. And so, then we’re out trillions of billions of dollars. We you know, there’s not a lot of accountability. And we’re not even meeting our readiness needs. And so, there’s no accountability, there’s no readiness. And so that’s really why we care about issues like the F-35, which Congress is now finally cutting back some of the buy on and is delaying delivery on a couple of them, about ten, I think, this year. And basically, they’re doing that because they’re having so many issues with this program that we have now been underway for almost three decades, definitely over 20 years. And performance. We’ve got a fleet wide mission capable rate of only 30%. When we’re talking about the full mission capable rate of F-35s, they’re assigned to combat squadrons. We’re talking only 48%. That’s less than half of them are able to meet our mission needs. And we are 20 years into the program. And so, I’m glad we’re finally cutting back. But we just approved these F-35s for this full rate production. Even though we don’t have the accountability we need, we have all of these issues still, the top testing official at the Pentagon has still not. We don’t want the classified version, of course, of their testing report, but the unclassified version leaves so much to the imagination when there’s all these testing issues. And so, we’ve got both ends of the spectrum here. But yes, we are talking about incredible readiness needs. We have threats coming out of nowhere and ones that we can see. But until we get a handle on procurement as well as who is making decisions and what information they’re making those decisions based off of, which is some of the issue that we’re seeing with all of these things, from housing to these weapons acquisition, is who’s making decisions at the Pentagon, what policymakers are overseeing those decisions, and what is the case, sure, that they’re making those decisions on.

Tom Temin And you mentioned housing, which is a troop issue, a troop quality of life and a troop readiness issue. What does the NDAA that you’ve seen gleaning through this thousands of pages? And what are they saying about it?

Liz Hempowicz Not enough, not enough, especially if you’re going to build this. You know, I think the official title of the bill is The Quality-of-Life Bill instead of the NDAA this year. And I think you let’s take a step back. You know, one of the issues that POGO has uncovered here is that so many of the issues with military housing have come up because the system was privatized. And so, there’s this accountability vacuum, and it leaves service members and their families to suffer from long term exposure to things like toxic mold. That’s what Pogo just uncovered in our latest reporting. And so, because it’s been privatized, it’s hard. But they don’t have recourse. They don’t also have information to who can make this better for them. And often, you know, they’re stuck in this bureaucratic system of back and forth and back and forth. And we profiled some service members who ended up leaving the services because it was too difficult to try to deal with these issues that were affecting them in their families. And so, when we look at this issue of toxic more than the privatized military housing, we’ve got some efforts in the House. NDAA, led by Representative Jacobs, to limit funds for the Secretary to use for travel. And. Till the department has implemented this complaint database that they are supposed to have implemented years ago. That’s supposed to help families kind of understand what they are walking into and just arm them with a little bit of information. The bill also requires a couple studies to better understand the problem, and there are a couple other initiatives here and there to deal with it. But again, it’s not widespread. The problem will not be fixed, but there are members certainly also trying to address kind of the specific issue here that would at least allow service members to fight back on some of these issues with the quality of the housing standards not meeting just basic standards. They would have to meet anywhere else just because we’re talking about military housing.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Liz Hempowicz, its director of public policy at the Project on Government Oversight. You mentioned a, you know, specific program which has been, as you pointed out, troublesome, the F-35 program. But in the 800 series of clauses in the NDAA, that’s where they talk about procurement reform. Anything stand out to you that they’re actually reforming?

Liz Hempowicz Well, let’s say reforming in a bad way. There are some provisions in the House NDAA that would make it a little bit harder for the Pentagon to, again, would not give them the information they need to make smart spending decisions and smart contracting decisions. And so instead of focusing on those bad provisions, though, let’s focus on the amendments that the House Rules Committee will hear to strip those provisions out. And so Representative Schakowsky has an amendment to remove both section 811 and the House bill. And 812 in the House bill. Those are the two ones we’re talking about, and they talk about the definitions of commercial items and what information needs to be provided, essentially to contracting officials at the Pentagon so that they’re dealing with, you know, certified information, data that they can use that is reasonable and comes in before they make contracting decisions, which, you know, common sense would lead people to assume is what’s happening now. Unfortunately, it is not often folks at the Pentagon receive this information after they’ve made contracting decisions, after they’ve awarded contracts. And all of a sudden it turns out that we are now contracting for much different items than we had initially anticipated, and we’re paying a lot more.

Tom Temin Right. So really, it’s a cost. Affordability is still the fundamental issue, even as we need to recapitalize the military because their air force, for example, is talking about retiring hundreds of aircraft. And, you know, how do you lessen the threat of China with 500 or 1000 fewer aircraft?

Liz Hempowicz Well, you certainly don’t do it by making it harder to kind of track accountability. And when it comes to different items in the supply chain for all of our different weapons systems, let’s take the F-35 program, for example. There’s thousands of suppliers from around the world involved in that F-35 supply chain. And when we’re talking about these contracting issues and procurement issues, to oversimplify it, these weak standards for those technical terms like commercial items and certified cost pricing data, means that every one of those contractors along the way has an opportunity to price gouge the military. And lawmakers keep making it easier and easier for them to do so. So, like these provisions that are in the House bill that would require less information to go to the Pentagon before they make these contracting decisions. We need those provisions taken out. And that’s why we are very much in favor of Representative Schakowsky. Amendments to remove those sections 811 and 812 in the House bill. I believe those are also in the Senate and their efforts in the Senate to get those taken out. But as you know, the Senate is a little bit less transparent with their bill language and what they’re doing before they mark it up in the Senate Armed Services Committee. And so, a lot of that is going on behind the scenes over there.

Tom Temin So a long way to go. Yet before there’s anything finalized to vote on even.

Liz Hempowicz Yes, the NDAA is taken, you know, takes longer and longer every year. And so hopefully who knows who knows how long it will go this year? Hopefully not as long as last year.

The post Focus of one watchdog group regarding upcoming defense authorization bill first appeared on Federal News Network.

After a governmentwide update to the Pathways Program, the Department of Health and Human Services is already looking at how to start implementing the new flexibilities into its program.

But many of those flexibilities, which the Office of Personnel Management finalized in April, are optional, rather than required. That means it depends on an agency’s resources to make them a reality, and in many cases, requires agencies to think creatively.

“It really is being strategic in how we do outreach for recruitment to make sure that we are maximizing our resources,” Kimberly Steide, associate deputy assistant secretary for human capital at HHS, said in an interview with Federal News Network. “The interest is there, the passion is there, it’s really just finding the time and the resources to do as much as we want to do … and thinking about where we can get the most impact for the resources that we have available.”

Higher starting salaries, for instance, are now a possibility for employees that agencies hire through Pathways. Under OPM’s new regulations, agencies can offer a starting salary up to a GS-11 rate, rather than being capped at GS-9 rates as they were previously. Though offering a higher starting salary isn’t a requirement, Steide said she expects HHS will use the flexibility as much as possible.

“Salary is a big draw for many people early in their career,” Steide said. “A lot of that will be driven by budget, of course, but at the end of the day, we have a huge interest in ensuring that we have a solid pipeline of talent. And we have to start that with early-career talent.”

Governmentwide, the Pathways Program lets early-career employees take a temporary position at an agency, with the potential to later convert into a full-time position in the career civil service. OPM’s final regulations changed many different aspects of Pathways, intending to open the doors to more diverse applicants and alleviate the challenges agencies have historically had with the program.

For HHS, like many agencies, the program is central to early-career recruitment overall.

“Early-career talent is really important, and we’ve been strategically trying to do much more to engage and advance recruitment using many of these flexibilities,” HHS Chief Human Capital Officer Bob Leavitt said in an interview. “We have to be extraordinarily creative and innovative in how we share practices across the department to help us all move forward collectively. There’s so much that the human capital side is responsible for across the board. And one way of being efficient with those resources is really building up those communities of stakeholders, communities of practice.”

OPM’s recent updates to Pathways also reduced the requirements to complete the program, offered part-time options, and made candidates who have completed career or technical education programs, in place of a college degree, eligible for the program.

“I think that flexibility will be attractive for a lot of people,” Steide said.

HHS has used Pathways for over a decade, which is as long as the program has been around. Departmentwide, HHS hires roughly 600 employees annually through Pathways in a combination of the three programs: recent graduates, interns and Presidential Management Fellows. HHS’ main human capital office works with each agency subcomponent to determine their staffing projections and help them monitor the program.

“Many of our subcomponents are very well-branded and known. Some are not as well-known,” Steide said. “So it’s just ensuring that when people interact with HHS, they understand everything that we have to offer in terms of all of the different missions, and how they can build a really successful career with HHS.”

Leavitt and Steide said it’s also important to make sure Pathways is a good experience for anyone involved — starting from the recruitment aspect, but also extending to the entire time employees are involved in the program at HHS.

“We really try to bring them in in a cohort style, where we provide programming for them,” Steide said. “We try to have activities where we bring them together, so that they have a sense of community.”

But keeping Pathways participants within the agency full time isn’t always the end goal. In some cases, OPM’s final regulations now let Pathways employees, when converting to a full-time position, move to a different agency than the one with which they completed the program.

OPM added that flexibility, in part, because Pathways participants nearing the end of the program may not always find a full-time opening at their agency that’s a good fit. In those cases, the agency can then place that employee on OPM’s applicant talent portal. The online platform lets other agencies review available candidates and, if they’re a good fit and the employee is interested, hire them.

“That gives them some sense of security, in the sense of being able to be converted anywhere across government, as opposed to the agency that picked them up,” Steide said. “I think one of the best things that OPM did was to develop this portal because it demonstrates for the government that while we might not be able to place you where you were originally picked up, we do want to retain you.”

In general, Leavitt and Steide said OPM’s support of early-career hiring is “palpable.” OPM also has a governmentwide community of practice specifically focused on early-career talent recruitment.

“We have significant support through those communities of practice, through the technical tools that OPM helps provide us all,” Leavitt said. “There are a lot of opportunities to collaborate — collaborate with OPM, across government and within the departments to advance these areas.”

“I personally have seen a lot of synergy with OPM in the sense of trying to help governmentwide, bring resources together and strategically look at ways to approach recruitment and how best to reach early-career talent,” Steide added. “And it goes further than just recruiting them. It is really about [what] you provide them once they come on board.”

The post HHS thinking creatively to implement new Pathways flexibilities first appeared on Federal News Network.

It is budget season on Capitol Hill and agency leaders are busy defending their 2025 spending plans in front of the appropriations committees. And it’s possible the House could finish its appropriations bills this summer. But it’s still very unlikely we’ll have a full budget passed before the end of the fiscal year. For more on where things stand, Federal News Network’s Deputy Editor Jared Serbu spoke with longtime budget watcher Larry Allen on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin . He’s president of Allen Federal Business Partners.

Interview Transcript: 

Larry Allen Jared I think what we’ve seen is a significant delay in allocating money, and even in some cases, agencies not going right up and doing all the things that they potentially could have done before getting that final piece of the puzzle, which is their appropriated dollars. They were things that people anticipated were going to happen. And now we’re kind of really trying to play catch up. And I think we’re going to be playing catch up between now and the end of the fiscal year. And, simply put, I’m not sure that everybody’s going to be able to catch up. Some of the things that are critical spending, of course, those are going to get done. But, if there are some use it or lose it money, that’s going to things that would be nice to do, but you don’t have to have them. They may not get done this year.

Jared Serbu Meaning that we may actually run into some under execution issues in 2024 just because of time.

Larry Allen Oh, I think definitely, if you listen to what the three acquisition heads of the different DoD service branches said just last week on Capitol Hill, all three of them are looking for more acquisition professionals. And then if you look over at GSA, you look at their assisted acquisition portfolio. That’s done nothing but grow. All of that tells you that there are not enough acquisition professionals to go around in government. And if you don’t have enough of those, then you’re not going to be able to get everything out the other end of the business line in a very truncated fiscal year.

Jared Serbu It’s almost like you need a seasonal workforce at this point, since there’s so much work in the back half of the year.

Larry Allen That’s right. Nobody needs to wrap presents at Macy’s, but they need to award contracts.

Jared Serbu Let’s talk about 25 as well. From what you can tell, do we stand a better chance of getting something closer to on time appropriations for next fiscal year?

Larry Allen Well, I think it’s very difficult to tell at this point, Jared. I think the signs so far, though, are encouraging. Congressman [Tom] Cole (R-Okla.), he is one of the top appropriators in the House. He has said publicly that he’d like to get everything done by December. He’s hopeful that the House will be able to get its appropriations work done prior to the end of the current fiscal year, and that it’ll just take the next 2 or 3 months after that to square everything up with the Senate. I think that’s the best that people can hope for. December appropriations. Of course, I think the election in November will have a lot to say about that. If you see party control changing in one or more chambers, that could increase pressure to kick the can down the road into the next Congress in calendar year 2025. But I think that, look, if we can get December, if Chairman Cole is accurate, then everybody should be happy with that.

Jared Serbu Yeah. I was going to ask you if the election could play an impact in the other direction, in the sense that we’ll folks want to get things done before they have to focus on the last stretch of the campaign. But it sounds like you’re saying it’s more likely that they’ll say, let’s see how things go.

Larry Allen If you look at the what the Senate’s been doing, they have they’re not nearly as far along as the House. And usually it’s the other way around. So it’s kind of interesting to people who follow appropriations like me. But you also look at the fact that the summer brings both the Democratic and Republican conventions, which means that we’re going to lose a lot of time in session to those two events. And that plus the early leaving time for people to go back and get reelected, leaves a very short amount of time to get everything done before October. So I think November, December. That’s realistic.

Jared Serbu And speaking of calendar issues, as you point out in the newsletter this week, GSA was supposed to release the RFP, for Alliant 3 sometime in the third quarter, which, their end of the third quarter is coming up here. Do we know what’s holding things up and what are the implications if they don’t make that deadline?

Larry Allen I’m not really sure exactly what is holding the release of the RFP, Jared. What I would say, some speculation is that if you look at other large scale IDIQ contracts that have been put up, not just by GSA, but other agencies. There’s been a lot of discussion, a lot of protest activity over joint ventures, over, who gets credit for past performance in a joint venture or teaming situation. I suspect these are some of the same issues that the Alliant 3 team is trying to grapple with before the RFP comes out with the hope that they would reduce the protest activity after the solicitation hits the streets. The consequences here are that we actually have a pretty short runway in order to get Alliant 3 done. It’s technically possible that the Alliant 2 team could go back internally and seek a justification to extend those contracts, and I think they’ll have to do that. But I think it’s important that industry and government know, first, that’s not automatic. And second, you rarely get everything that you want out of that if you have to go through that process on the contract side. So if you’re looking for, let’s say, five months, you might end up with three months. That’s still not going to buy a lot of time to get Alliant 3 contracts negotiated and up and running. So I think it’s pretty short runway.

Jared Serbu All right. Last thing I want to talk about is, bid protests. And you have a good perennial reminder in the newsletter this week, which is if you are the winner of a contract and it is protested, the government is not your lawyer. I guess the Court of Federal Claims weighed in on this recently.

Larry Allen Jared, they did. And that’s really kind of what caught my attention. It was nice of the Court of Federal Claims to chime in and say what I think a lot of us have been thinking all along, and that is if you’re the winning contractor on a project that gets protested, it’s an established best practice for you to have your own legal counsel in there as an intervenor, to make sure that your interests of the original awardee are protected. I think that’s established, but not everybody does it and not everybody does it. Because, look, it does cost money to hire legal counsel and defend yourself. However, the Court of Federal Claims pointed out, quite rightly, that the government’s charge in a protest is proving the validation of its own acquisition process. And they may have different priorities from the initial winner. And they certainly have different priorities from the protester. So if the protester and the government both have their interests represented, so too should the original awardee.

Jared Serbu And I think we do see those interventions happening pretty regularly at the Court of federal Claims, especially with big companies involved. Is it less common at GAO and with smaller procurements?

Larry Allen I think it really depends Jared. A lot of times if you see a GAO decision, down at the bottom, you’ll see three sets of attorneys, usually one for the government, one for the protester or one for the intervenor who’s the original awardee. And certainly it’s easier to justify getting legal counsel at a jail protest, because it’s going to be, on average, less expensive than a protest at the claims court. So, if you’re a very small company you might not want to do that, or you might want to just rely on the government to get everything straightened out. But you kind of do that with a big risk. And the risk is that the government may decide that it needs to re complete the contract, and then you’re going to be back to spending more proposal dollars to get something that already won and thought was yours. And in that case, if you look at it that way, hiring outside legal help to represent your interests is a good idea.

The post Looking ahead to the no-surprise, likely-late 2025 federal spending bills first appeared on Federal News Network.

The National Labor Relations Board is at a crossroads: Within the same moment, the agency is trying to manage a growing caseload, while also dealing with relatively low staffing numbers.

In the last decade, NLRB field staffing has declined by a third, while in the same timeframe, the case intake per agency employee has surged by 46%.

“So, you can do the math,” NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said in an interview.

The lion’s share of NLRB’s casework gets handed to employees working in the agency’s field offices. They’re in charge of reviewing and processing incoming cases and petitions, but at the same time, those employees have been struggling to get enough staff on board to handle a continually rising workload.

To try to manage the increasing work, Abruzzo said NLRB is prioritizing hires in field offices, while also getting creative in the agency’s pooling of resources and other employees.

“We are using headquarters personnel more to assist the field with investigations and with litigation and with representation cases,” Abruzzo said. “A lot of our headquarters staff are researchers and writers, so that’s certainly within their skill set.”

In just the last six months, the disparity between workload and staffing has become even more noticeable. The number of union election petitions filed at NLRB field offices has risen 35%, in comparison with this time last year. In numbers, that’s 1,618 petitions filed, compared with 1,199 petitions last year.

NLRB is also seeing a spike in unfair labor practice (ULP) charges, which have risen from 9,612 to 10,278 between this year and last year — a 7% increase. Between both petitions and ULP charges, the agency has seen an increase of 10% in the workload at its field offices. A spike in both employer-filed and employee-filed petitions largely drove that uptick, NLRB said, as a result of a decision the agency made in August 2023 that gave more leeway to private sector unions.

The caseload has impacted staff burnout as well. In the 2023 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), just 48% of NLRB employees agreed that their workload was reasonable, compared with 62% agreement governmentwide.

“We’re not seeing a mass exodus of folks [and] our board agents are as committed as they’ve ever been,” Abruzzo said. “But of course, they are doing more with less. And they are more stressed as a result of not only the increased caseload, but also of the more complex matters that we’re dealing with.”

In the long run, being able to handle all the work ultimately comes back to the agency’s budget, Abruzzo said, which has been a challenge at NLRB for years. For fiscal 2025, the White House is requesting $320 million, an increase that Abruzzo said would at least begin to help rebuild NLRB’s staffing capacity and address some of the agency’s immediate technology needs.

“But we really need over $400 million, frankly, in order to staff up appropriately, so we can address the needs of the public in real time, and improve our infrastructure, which not only includes our external website to make it more user-friendly, but also our internal electronic case filing system, which really is on its last legs,” Abruzzo said.

NLRB has received flat funding in nine of the last 10 years, but the agency did get a slight budget increase of $25 million during fiscal 2023, which let NLRB move past a hiring freeze and at least begin addressing some issues, Abruzzo said.

The agency isn’t alone in its challenges, either. For fiscal 2024, like many agencies, Congress opted to give NLRB a flat budget of about $299.2 million.

Moving forward, Abruzzo said it will require steadier and even higher budgeting to progress further, rather than just stay afloat.

“That just basically kept our lights on,” Abruzzo said. “It did not allow us to do the necessary hiring of critical positions that we needed, and it did not allow for us to upgrade our infrastructure. Our caseload continues to outpace our staffing capacity.”

The post NLRB ‘doing more with less’ between growing caseload, stagnating staffing first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Senate managed to pass an important bill last week, authorizing the Federal Aviation Administration. That makes the House “it,” so to speak. The Senate will move onto some federal bread-and-butter issues, though: Telework and technology procurement. For an update, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Bloomberg Government Deputy News Director Loren Duggan.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin And Loren, let’s start with those Senate bills that are looking at some teleworking. And as we said it procurement matters for the government. What’s going on with the telework. Let’s start there.

Loren Duggan Sure. This is in the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which oversees government wide operations. And they have a markup coming up this week where they’re looking at, as you said, it’s and telework bills. One of them is a bill by Jim Lankford and Kyrsten Sinema that’s looking to put a little bit more structure around telework and also to try and help military spouses and, and others, and maybe even set aside jobs that are better for off-site work if they’re, you know, if you’re a veteran or you’re following your spouse overseas or at a remote location to potentially do one of those jobs. So that’s one of the bills. There’s another one by Joni Ernst that’s looking for, I think, just some more information about telework. But continuing with this theme of Congress looking at how agencies are staffing downtown or not, and maybe even talking about some things they’d like to see differently with that. And then the other bill that they’re doing is about, federal technology procurement. Part of, you know, larger pushes there to just, change how the government buys and sells important things and the workforce that’s doing that. That’s the kind of legislation that you could see moving potentially on its own. But I could also see it brought up later this year in the context of the defense policy bill, because acquisition is such a big part of that. And sometimes when they think about those broader issues, that they, they look to that bill to perhaps advance that. So, you know, important federal worker bills moving through a committee this week.

Tom Temin Yes. The industry is often disappointed when the 800 series of provisions in the NDAA don’t have lots of items because there’s not much to chew on. You know, for the coming year, although often those things come out and it takes the government five years to implement them too. So maybe they need a breather there. With respect to the FAA. That was a little bit of contention, because it looks like Reagan Airport is going to get stuck with more flights that the Virginia and Maryland senators did not want. Could that get amended in some way to reduce that flight addition in the House version?

Loren Duggan Well, nothing’s over until it’s over, but this is a pretty baked cake at this point. What the Senate passed last week, at the heart of it was a compromise that the House and Senate negotiators had reached and handed to the Senate to sort of process first and send over to the House to clear for the president. That Senate, as you said, got that done pretty late on Thursday night, sent it over to the house. There was an expiration on Friday night, but there was a one-week extension also process at the same time to prevent the agency from having to furlough staff so it could continue to collect the taxes it uses to pay for its operations. That Reagan issue was the sort of last mile concern. Virginia senators in particular, were opposed to adding these five additional long-haul flights because of the broader safety concerns they have at the airport. But at this point, given that it wasn’t in what the Senate passed, and the House is trying to take it up is to take it or leave it proposition for members, it’s unlikely that change will be made. But, you know, as I said, it’s not over till it’s over. But I think the chances are pretty slim.

Tom Temin But as it stands now, then the flights are coming to the airport.

Loren Duggan They will be coming to the airport. Right. And there’s some big backers like Ted Cruz, who I think is getting one of those to Texas eventually. And he was the ranking member in the Senate. He was trying to fight to keep it in there. So, there was a that dynamic at play.

Tom Temin If you look at those ramps at Reagan National, and sometimes it looks like the planes are going to back into each other. There’s so much traffic in that, and it’s not a real big airport. As a frequent user of that, I would say not such a good idea to add flights there anyhow, but not up to us. We’re speaking with Lauren Dugan, deputy news director at Bloomberg Government. The FAA is not the only authorization that still has to happen, right?

Loren Duggan There’s a couple of others coming up in the house this week. They were looking at one for the Coast Guard, which moves separately from the broader defense authorization bill because of its location in the Homeland Security Department. But that’s kind of a perennial or every other year type of issue. And then we’re also potentially seeing one on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which plays important roles in the Commerce Department and, tech regulation, things like that. So, you know, these are things that committees work on. Behind the scenes turnout in the House was looking to act on both of those this week with, you know, another bunch of hodgepodge bills, kind of as the major things are not ready to go quite yet.

Tom Temin I guess academically, someday we’ll try to figure out why NTIA doesn’t go with the rest of Commerce Department, and FAA doesn’t go with the rest of transportation.

Loren Duggan Well, I think these the some of these committees have such wide jurisdiction that biting off a little bit here and there makes it easier. Certainly, we have a five-year highway bill usually, or six years, and then this five-year FAA bill. So, it gives them a little bit of time to work on different issues.

Tom Temin And getting back to the National Defense Authorization Act, that kind of goes hand in hand with budget appropriations for 20. 25, whether they get the appropriations done by the end of the calendar, we don’t know. But NDAA, is it going to be? It came down to the wire to the end of 2023 this past year for 2024. Does it look like they’ll make it in time once again for 2025 by the end of this calendar year?

Loren Duggan I’ve always said that no one wants to be the Armed Services chairman who doesn’t get that bill done. They’ve done it for like six decades plus now. So, I do think that’s one of the issues that they’ll try to resolve before the end of the year, making it a big target for other issues like the ones we discussed. It’s likely that final action would slip till after the election. I would think just looking at the calendar, but you could see both Armed Services Committee marking up and then trying to get those across the floor sometime this year. But just a reminder, they’re off for a week in July for one convention, off all of August for another and to campaign. And then they won’t be here in October. So given that kind of chunky schedule, I think they’ll try to make progress on that bill where they can. But that’s likely an end of the year proposition.

Tom Temin And I wonder if there will be action other than just resolutions and discussions in either the House or the Senate with respect to the Biden administration’s claim to withhold weapons from Israel, when the bill that funded all of that was such an enormous lift on the Congress’s part to get done in the first place.

Loren Duggan I mean, for now, it probably will be more on the rhetorical aspect with people pushing back on that decision. We’ll see if there’s legislation around that. To your point, that the Israel aid did have bipartisan support in both chambers, also had some bipartisan criticism, but certainly, the decision having to send all this money over not to send weapons, as it were, was criticized pretty widely by members of Congress.

Tom Temin And what about the campuses? Again, a lot of discussion in Congress, a lot of condemnation, a lot of lack of condemnation of what’s going on the campuses. Anything legislatively can do or would consider.

Loren Duggan I think we’ll see more hearings. First. There’s at least one this week in the Judiciary Committee, more presidents being called to the Hill next week by the education and the Workforce Committee. One area where we could see something is just education. Institutions get a lot of federal research dollars, and there could be some discussion about that or to withhold it if there’s found to be some wave of anti-Semitism on campus and an inability to deal with it by administrators. So, I haven’t heard what that exact legislative proposal is, other than the one that the House passed about investigating anti-Semitism claims. But, you know, if there is a need, I’m sure they’ll look into it as the weeks go on here.

Tom Temin Yeah. So that could really devolve down to the many, many, many, many grantmaking agencies where lots of the grants go to academia, potentially.

Loren Duggan And I think that’s where the wide reach of academia into different programs. That might be one of the topics of discussion. And as we wrote last week, educational institutions pay a lot for lobbyists to help them navigate all that and navigate in particular the situation where they’re under the gun from committees.

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Data from the Office of Management and Budget shows that between fiscal 2022 and 2023, the number of federal interns increased by 33%. And in just the last couple of years, there’s also been a significant uptick in the number of federal employees under age 30.

“We’ve grown that by 13%, but we still have a long way to go,” OMB Deputy Director for Management Jason Miller told lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee during a hearing last week.

It’s a different data point than the proportional share of federal employees under age 30. In the Biden administration’s fiscal 2025 budget request, OMB reported an increase in the percentage of employees under age 30, rising from about 7% to now about 8.6%.

But overall, expanding early-career employees is a clear part of the White House’s fiscal 2025 budget request, and it’s been a growing priority for at least the last few years. OMB’s Miller told the Oversight committee he believes agencies are positioned for even more growth of early-career employees going forward.

“We are encouraging and creating platforms for agencies to hire interns across agencies so that open roles can be filled by people who have proven their skills in an internship,” Miller said during the hearing.

For instance, agencies just recently got access to a new intern conversion database from the Office of Personnel Management. In March, OPM launched the “intern talent program,” an online database for federal managers to look at all Pathways Program interns who are currently eligible for conversion into a full-time position. The database is available through the “Agency Talent Portal” on USAJobs.

Additionally, OPM recently updated the Pathways Program, aiming to expand opportunities for early-career employees. The new regulations place more emphasis on paid federal internships, allow for higher starting salaries for recent graduates, and allow credits from career and technical education programs to count toward Pathways hours.

Later this year, OPM also plans to create a governmentwide mentoring program for federal interns to connect across agencies and work more closely with senior leaders.

“Building a deeper pipeline of workers at the beginning of their careers will ensure that the government can meet its mission without interruption as workers retire,” Miller wrote in his Oversight testimony last week.

But agencies are still struggling to make that transition in their recruitment strategies. OPM said in its Workforce of the Future playbook that agencies often view early-career employees as short-term hires, and don’t necessarily incorporate them into their long-term workforce planning, or set aside positions specifically for younger talent.

Moving forward, OPM is still angling for agencies to take better advantage of early-career employees and make it an upfront priority, rather than an afterthought.

To reach more entry-level employees hired into government, OPM is aiming for agencies to “align early-career talent hiring with mission-critical occupation skills gaps, use Pathways and other avenues to bring in new hires, and ensure funding is set aside for paid internships and full-time employment for interns to convert into permanent positions,” OPM said in its playbook document.

A focus on skills for early-career employees

Part of the development of early-career talent also involves encouraging agencies to focus on skills-based hiring. It’s something that could be especially useful for the federal IT workforce, which has an even more distinct age gap than the federal workforce overall.

That’s part of the reason cyber leaders across government are now pushing for more skills-based hiring — or in other words, focusing on job candidates’ talents and abilities, while de-emphasizing education.

“We’re moving away from purely degree attainment as a proof point for accessing jobs,” Miller said during last week’s hearing. “Do you have the skills to do the work and the ability and the energy to come in and serve people? Our federal government should reflect the people that it serves. And frankly, I believe that would strengthen our performance on an ongoing basis.”

The White House has just committed to using skills-based hiring for most federal IT jobs, with OPM taking on the task of transitioning nearly 100,000 federal cyber and IT jobs to skills-based hiring by next summer.

“We’re competing for talent,” Miller said. “We increasingly need a set of highly technical skills.”

Still, there’s a long way to go. Currently, the share of the federal workforce with master’s degrees and above is significantly higher than that of the overall workforce. But the numbers have been slightly declining in recent years. At the same time, the portion of the federal workforce with only a high school degree is slowly rising.

On Capitol Hill, skills-based hiring strategies are a priority as well. Two bipartisan bills have recently cleared the Oversight committee, one aiming to push agencies, and another federal contractors, to recruit for their workforces using actual hands-on skills, rather than education.

“There are thousands of vacant federal IT jobs, and the federal workforce has four times as many IT workers over the age of 60, than under the age of 30,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who introduced the two bills, said during last week’s Oversight committee hearing. “One part of the solution, I believe, is more creative hiring, thinking outside of the box.”

When asked about the legislation’s skills-based focus for federal recruitment, OMB’s Miller said, “it’s absolutely the right approach that we should be taking.”

Miller added, “If we’re leaving some of the country on the bench and not giving them access, we’re missing out on potential skills and expertise that could serve the American people in these roles.”

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“We don’t have agility that we would like to have for military construction,” Col. Jeff Hammond, the deputy commander of the Marine Corps Installations Pacific, said during the Modern Day Marine conference on Wednesday.

For instance, the service recently transitioned the 12th Marine Regiment into the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment at Camp Hansen, Okinawa, spending a sizable amount of its budget to make sure the transition happens on time since it’s a capability the service needs to have by a certain time.

“That’s not negotiable. So we’ll go down that road. But what it comes down to is it’s a sacrifice. We can do anything; we just can’t do everything. So the ruthless prioritization of funding with that [operations and maintenance] process,” said Hammond.

Rear Adm. Dean VanderLey, commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, said the biggest challenge for agile MILCON is the program budget process.

Budget submissions for all military construction projects for fiscal 2026 are due in August. It means that any project that will be included in the 2026 budget is already well underway. 

And if a new requirement comes up at any point in the coming fiscal year, the first chance to inject it into the budget will be in the 2027 budget cycle. The earliest the service can deliver a particular capability within this process would be fiscal 2029. 

“There’s nothing magic about construction for the Marine Corps that’s fundamentally different from construction in the private sector. The challenge is the program budget process,” said VanderLey.

“If you come to me today saying, ‘I need x,’ and we try to inject it in the normal MILCON process, I’m going to say, ‘I’ll get that to you by 2029.’ And most of that’s not the construction period. It’s the programming process that goes through DoD and ultimately through Congress.”

While there are emergency MILCON authorities that allow the Marine Corps to inject funds into urgent construction projects outside of the regular budgeting process, it will most likely come at the expense of other planned projects.

Within the contracting process, there are flexibilities to bypass bureaucracy and expedite project delivery, but there are trade-offs in terms of cost, schedules and capability.

For example, the Navy had a major issue with the seismic vulnerabilities in its dry docks in the Pacific Northwest, to the point where the dry docks got decertified.

Through undefinitized contract action, the service was able to complete almost $400 million worth of repairs to the dry docks in about four months.

“We put somebody on contract in a day, got them working, figured out the scope while we were doing the work, and then we’re able to definitize and then complete that very fast,” said VanderLey.

“Obviously, there’s some trade-offs there because that’s generally a fairly expensive way of doing business. But it is a way that we can do business to get that sort of resiliency.”

VanderLey said these are not necessarily ideal solutions to build truly resilient installations, but these expeditionary tools can be a way to achieve some agility within the MILCON process.

“I think we do do a good job of the being steady and stable inside the MILCON environment, but we need more authorities to be more reactive across the board,” said Brig. Gen. Jason Woodworth, the commanding general of the Marine Corps Installations West.

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Last year, the department requested $17.8 billion — its largest-ever ask for science and technology initiatives.

Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu said it is due to the department’s shifting priorities from basic and applied research to expediting technology transition from the laboratory into operational use.

“That is primarily driven by the fact that a lot more of the requests in terms of priorities went into the 6.4 bin as opposed to 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3,” Shyu said during the National Defense Industrial Association event.

The 2025 S&T budget request is 2% of the total budget request at just under $850 billion, a 0.1% drop from the previous year. That total is only 1% more than the department requested in 2024, which aligns with the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed by Congress in 2023. 

Almost half of the $17.2 billion request for S&T projects would fund Shyu’s office, the Defense Innovation Unit, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the DoD’s Strategic Capabilities Office, the Missile Defense Agency and the Test Resource Management Center.

Additionally, 16% of the total S&T funding would go toward projects within the Army, another 16% would fund initiatives within the Air Force, 15% of the budget would fund S&T projects within the Navy and 5% is allocated for the Space Force.

Almost half of the funding would go toward the development of advanced technologies budget activity. Only 14% is set aside for basic research and 34% for applied research. 

Funding for basic research across the department would remain at $2.5 billion while funding for applied research would drop from $6 billion in 2024 to $5.8 billion in fiscal 2025. 

Almost $5 billion of the total funding would go toward trusted artificial intelligence and autonomy efforts.  Last year, the department requested $629 million for its AI projects.

“That’s not going to be surprising,” said Shyu.

A large portion of the request is allocated to space technology projects and integrated sensing and cyber efforts. 

Those three categories of funding make up almost 65% of the S&T budget. At the same time, the department is asking Congress for $752 million for its four emerging technology areas, including $414 million for advanced materials, $224 million for biotechnology, $38 million for future-generation wireless technology and $76 million for quantum sciences. 

In 2023, the department allocated about $2.6 billion to the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs. Unsurprisingly, most of this funding went toward artificial intelligence, sensing and cyber projects and space technologies.

Shyu also said there has been a 33% increase in the number of small businesses participating in the SBIR and STTR programs that have transitioned their technologies to SBIR and STTR Phase III, or commercialization phase, since 2021.

“This is where we are focusing on transitioning more of the technologies that we’re developing from with small businesses as well as universities to push it over into the services. The 33% increase in SBIR/STTR transition into Phase III since 2021 shows an increase of $954 million in fiscal 23 — that’s a really good story,” Shyu said.

There has also been a 53% increase of new vendors participating in SBIR and STTR programs since 2021, Shyu added.

The post Pentagon cuts science and technology funding request first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Service members are apparently not getting enough sleep each night to properly do their jobs. A watchdog organization found that service members are consistently getting less than 6 hours of sleep. Military personnel say they fall asleep on the job, which Government Accountability Offce said creates serious safety concerns. The GAO wants the Pentagon to conduct an assessment of DoD's oversight structure for fatigue-related efforts. And the Defense Department recommended that troops get seven hours of sleep each night.
  (Service members don’t get enough sleep, putting their lives at risk - GAO)
• Attention vendors, who provide grants services to the government, this RFI's for you. The Grants Quality Service Management Office (QSMO) is ready to expand its marketplace of service providers. But first, it is taking the pulse of the vendor community to gauge the capabilities of the sector. The QSMO's new Request for Information (RFI) is asking vendors for details about their grants management system, including whether it is set up as a software-as-a-service, whether it integrates with SAM.gov and login.gov and whether it is highly configurable and does not require code changes. Responses to the RFI are due by April 30.
  (Grants shared services office kicks off marketplace expansion - General Services Administration)
• Agencies have likely escaped budget cuts due to sequestration for another year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed the fiscal 2024 spending bills and estimated that the discretionary budget authority for defense and non-defense agencies falls under the caps established in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. CBO, however, said the final decision about whether cuts are needed under sequestration will come from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), based on its own estimates of federal spending. OMB told Congress in August it did not think sequestration cuts would be necessary based on current estimates, but it will send another letter to Congress later this year with the final decision.
  (CBO estimates sequestrations cuts not necessary for fiscal 2024 - Congressional Budget Office)
• There is a new artificial intelligence chief at the top U.S. spy agency. John Beieler has been named the chief AI officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He also serves as the top science and technology adviser to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Beieler now leads a council of chief AI officers across the 18 components of the intelligence community. One of the first tasks for that group is developing an AI directive for the IC. Beieler said it will cover everything from data standards to civil liberties and privacy protections.
  (Intelligence community gets a chief AI officer - Federal News Network)
• The Postal Service may soon ask for a sixth rate increase, since November 2020, that would go into effect this summer. But the Postal Regulatory Commission is taking a closer look at whether this new pricing model is actually helping USPS improve its long-term finances. The regulator is asking for public feedback on whether the current pricing model is working for USPS and its customers — and if not, what modifications to the ratemaking system should be made, or what alternative system should be adopted? The regulator will accept comments through July 9.
  (Postal Regulatory Commission seeks feedback on USPS pricing model - Federal News Network)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is preparing to host its biggest biannual cybersecurity exercise. Dubbed “Cyber Storm,” the event will kick off this month with more than 2,000 participants from government and industry. The weeklong exercise simulates the response to a cyber attack on multiple critical infrastructure sectors. This year’s Cyber Storm comes as CISA rewrites the national plan for responding to major cyber incidents. CISA expects to release the updated plan by the end of 2024.
  (CISA’s ‘Cyber Storm’ will help it update National Cyber Incident Response Plan - Federal News Network)
• The IRS is looking to take the next steps in its most ambitious project under the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRS is letting taxpayers in 12 states test out its “Direct File” platform this filing season, as it gets feedback from earlier users, in the hopes of scaling up the pilot program. In a roundtable discussion with Direct File users, the IRS said all participants said they would recommend Direct File to eligible friends and family. Roundtable participants included college students, military veterans, as well as nonprofit and government employees.
  (IRS' direct file platform receives positive initial feedback - Treasury Department)
• The Air Force wants to bypass governors in seven states and transfer the National Guard space units to the Space Force. Air Force officials are calling for legislation to bypass existing law requiring them to obtain a governor’s consent before making changes to a National Guard unit. It would allow the service to transfer 14 Air National Guard space units located in New York, Florida, Hawaii, Colorado, Alaska, California and Ohio and make them part of the Space Force. Not surprisingly, the idea is facing criticism from governors.
  (Air Force wants to override law in 7 states, transfer Guard units to Space Force - Federal News Network)

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The Biden administration’s 2025 budget request includes $1.6 billion for the Census Bureau and an increase of $218 million from what was just enacted for 2024. Good but not enough, according to The Census Project. For more on that, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with project co-director Howard Fienberg.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin Maybe store it out for us. The importance of 2025 request both to the Census Bureau’s current operations and the programs they run between the Big Ten-year counts, which is pretty heavy load. And how this contributes also or should to what they have to do in 2030.

Howard Fienberg Most listeners probably are aware that a ten-year buildup to every decennial headcount. I mean, obviously the biggest amount of money is spent in the year zero. In this case, it’ll be FY 2030. But there’s a lot of preparations that go into it, and it is a funding cycle that of course, Congress struggles with, because it’s a very regular one by logic standards, but hard one based on how Congress funds things. But you know, year zero you spend a ton of money and then you go down to very little for a few years and you start ramping back up again. And we’re in the point where they should be dramatically ramping back up, because this is when the bureau is deciding on its design. It is figuring out what major tests it’s going to need to run, both behind the scenes and in the field in order to prepare for an accurate count of the population at the end of the decade. So, a lot of the major decision making is going on in FY 25.

Tom Temin And in the meantime, though, they have their regular economic surveys that they do. People don’t realize how much they do. So, getting to that request for 2025, do you feel that the blanket covers the bed, so to speak, for what they need to do currently and also what they need to do as set aside activities leading to 2030? Are they got enough.

Howard Fienberg Next to really know? So, I mean, the census project has put out our own budget recommendation prior to the president’s budget urging 2 billion. A lot of that is based on the needs of the American Community Survey, which, of course, part of the decennial program. But it was originally the census long form. And in order to run the ACS every year and continue to get accurate data, it needs some more investment because the sample size, for example, has not increased since probably in 2010. I forget exactly the date, but they’ve not increased the sample size in well over a decade and a half at least, and they have not been able to invest in non-response follow up as well, which is a huge part of this that we found that probably less than a third of the households that need to be contacted for follow up are actually receiving any kind of follow up. So the accuracy and the ability to deliver the most accurate data for the country is impaired, absent some more investment in this critical survey and ACS and decennial together, they are the manner in which, you know, funding is derived and delivered geographically for the country and demographically for hundreds and hundreds of federal and state programs.

Tom Temin Right. So, they need then it sounds like maybe a technological push also because people respond less and less to various forms of mail, even email. Now nobody trusts anymore. Is that a fundamental problem they’ve got to overcome is just making people trust the delivery of the medium that asks for the data that the Census Bureau needs.

Howard Fienberg That’s a piece of it. And certainly, it’s common across any survey, and research studies in general. In my day job, I’m a lobbyist for the Insights Association and the market research and data analytics industry. You know, response rates depending on how you define it, because it’s different across media. But response rates are not what they were ten years ago or 20. So the automatic assumption that everybody under the sun is going to respond to the ACS, and you can’t just make that assumption and the response rates don’t reflect that. You know, it’s something that used to get, you know, 90 to 95% across the board. It’s not really hitting that anymore. And, you know, there is a lack of trust. Certainly, we talk with congressional offices, and they hear from their constituents on a regular basis. Oh my God, what is this that I was sent? And so that’s a normal thing for any congressional office to receive from their constituents, because, you know, people just lack that basic trust in what they’re receiving.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Howard Fienberg. He is co-director of the Census Project. And getting back to the budget request for 2025, you mentioned they have to beef up the American Community Survey. So, it sounds like that’s an expensive proposition. Would helping response rates to that lead to understandings that could help them in 2030 where response rates, that’s going to be an issue also of course.

Howard Fienberg Yeah. And the ACS has always been the test bed and where you test out. What are your messages going to be for reaching the population? How are you going to do the follow up? What kinds of questions can you ask? All the questions that are going to be asked and how they’re going to be asked on the headcount. Those are all seated and tested on the ACS and other surveys and all the back end work that’s going to go into their modernization of their technology, infrastructure, all the things that go on the back end that is really implemented through a survey like the ACS, because the ACS is happening every year.

Tom Temin And the sense that the bureau is on the ball for 2030.

Howard Fienberg Maybe that’s it’s hard to say at this point because we’re still early on it. This is where things started to fall apart in the last few decades, not necessarily because of funding levels per se, but because of the timing. And you can see it happening here just like prior decades. You’re getting sequestration where it’s just an across-the-board meat cleaver approach and just hacking away stuff, but also continuing resolutions. And, you know, like any agency, they have to juggle priorities. And all right, we’re going to put, you know, more things over here. And this activity is going to go by the wayside. That’s not a big deal in some agencies. But at the Bureau over the long term in, you know, say the last decade, the CR is directly resulted in the cancellation of most of their field testing before the 2020 census, and we do not want to see that happen again. So in 2020, they ended up only doing a field test in Providence, Rhode Island, which is not representative of a whole lot of the country and all the rural testing suburban areas, urban areas, all tribal reservations, all these things got wiped out, and we don’t want to see that happen again.

Tom Temin That’s outside of their control in a lot of ways.

Howard Fienberg Correct. But the more that can be done to fund each fiscal year as the decade wears on, that gives them more flexibility to be able to get those activities planned and executed.

Tom Temin And outside of the budget request. How do you think that the influx of illegal migrants that are being shipped all over the United States, and we’ve got this big, huge hairball of a problem? It’s a logistics problem. It’s a political problem, you name it. But those individuals are subject to counting wherever they might be. Correct? The Census Bureau doesn’t count citizens. It counts every person in the United States. Do you think that’ll be a challenge for them just because of the numbers?

Howard Fienberg Yeah. No, it’s always a challenge because yes, they tend to be moving around less likely to respond to government entreaties to, you know, provide their information. It’s a challenge every time. And in particular, at this point, they’re going to be moving around perhaps more than in the past. And it looks like there are a whole lot more of them than there were ten years ago.

Tom Temin Right. And it could introduce the danger of double counting if the migrants that are in are moving around, they could get counted twice or maybe more than once, just because of the mobility that’s available to them now.

Howard Fienberg Presuming they’re responding? Yes.

Tom Temin Presuming they’re responding. Right. So yeah, I don’t know how you figure that one out, but and you know, this is going to be something that Congress is going to have many minds about also.

Howard Fienberg Yes. And there will be battles in Congress about a citizenship question about how the apportionment counts should take account of citizenship or residency, legal, illegal immigration, and so forth. You know, we don’t have a dog in that fight that’s going on already. It’s outside of the Census Project’s concerned.

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