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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michele Sandiford

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

Source: The Motley Fool

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

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

Interview Transcript: 

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

Heather Krause Thank you, Tom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interview Transcript: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Daniel Hokanson, who is retiring in September, said sending Guardsmen to the U.S.-Mexico border does little to contribute to their military training, adds stress to their families and impacts the Defense Department’s long-term goals of building the “combat capable National Guard.”

“As I’ve expressed within the building as well, there is no military training value for what we do. This is a law enforcement mission under the Department of Homeland Security,” Hokanson said during the Senate Appropriations Committee budget hearing.

“I know that we’re providing additional support along there. But for our Guardsmen there, they might as well be deployed to Kuwait or somewhere overseas, because they’re away from their families. They’re doing mission sets that are not directly applicable to their military skill set and so it increases their personal operational tempo. And that time, I think, would be better utilized building readiness to deter our adversaries.” he said.

The National Guard  has been providing logistical support to DHS for the last seven years. Hokanson said there are currently 2,500 troops deployed at the Southwest border under Title 10, but the number of Guardsmen stationed there has gone up and down during the last seven years.

Lawmakers and some DoD officials have long expressed concerns over the Department of Homeland Security’s continuing reliance on the Defense Department to support its border-related operations, which is not part of the DoD’s mission set.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who approved the DHS’s request to extend the Pentagon’s border mission through September 2024 last year, said the Defense Department uses its operating budget to fund the deployment of National Guard troops to the border to support DHS’s operations.

“Of course that means that there’s something else that we’re not doing because of that support,” Austin said during a Senate Defense Appropriations budget hearing in May.

“The price tag spent is about $4 billion. But we are supporting the agency, and DHS is a lead agency — it’s important to our country and we’re going to do that.”

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who has criticized the White House’s border policies, pressed Defense Secretary Austin about DoD’s ongoing support of border operations and whether the administration should at all rely on the military to secure the border.

“I agree, [we should not]. But if we’re required to assist, certainly we will continue to do so,” Austin told lawmakers.

Despite the challenges the National Guard faces, including potential budget cuts in 2025, Hokanson said the Guard is still focused on operational readiness and building a force that is “manned, trained and equipped.”

“These are not insurmountable challenges, but they represent risks and vulnerabilities,” said Hokanson. “If we fail to modernize our equipment and force design adequately, we increase the risk of sending America’s sons and daughters into large-scale combat operations with equipment and formations that may not be fully interoperable with the active duty forces we serve alongside.”

The post Guard’s support of DHS adds no military value first appeared on Federal News Network.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agencies often ‘slow to act’

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

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

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

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

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

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

A centralized FEHB database

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

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

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

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

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

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

The agency is tapping into its multi-year modernization funds to hire tax experts from the private sector and staff up its enforcement operations.

It also released a proposed rule Monday that seeks to close tax loopholes used by large, complex partnerships to limit their tax obligations.

The IRS expects this rule, once finalized, would bring in more than $50 billion over the next decade.

IRS Commissioner Werfel said audits of complex partnerships have been “overlooked for more than a decade with our declining resources.”

“We’re concerned tax abuse is growing in this space, and it’s time to address that. So we’re building teams and adding expertise inside the agency so we can reverse these long-term compliance declines,” Werfel told reporters on Friday.

The IRS is trying to reverse more than a decade of declining audits among the highest-income taxpayers, as well as complex partnerships and corporations.

“Our lack of staffing and resources has allowed a growing number of high-income individuals, partnerships and corporations to hide behind complexity and avoid paying taxes. There is a large amount of tax revenue at stake here,” Werfel said.

The proposed rule issued Monday would modify guidance on partnership basis shifting transactions — which the Treasury Department described as “opaque business structures to inflate tax deductions and avoid taxes.”

Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo called the related party partnership a “shell game played by complex partnerships.”

“While depreciation is a legitimate tool used by businesses, these transactions are not tied to any economic activity or create any real economic value for the United States. Their sole purpose is to avoid tax bills by moving assets from one pocket to another and generate deductions,” Adeyemo said.

The IRS already has tens of billions of dollars in basis shifting transactions under audit.

“We need to ensure fairness in the tax system, so that hard-working taxpayers and businesses who play by the rules and pay their fair share, know that others are doing the same,” Werfel said.

The IRS Office of Chief Counsel is also creating a new associate office that will focus entirely on partnerships, S corporations, trusts and estates.

“This new office will allow the chief counsel organization to focus more directly on this complex area and provide additional attention to legal guidance and other priorities involving partnerships,” Werfel said.

This fall, Werfel said, the agency’s Large Business and International (LIB) division will establish a special working group focused on complex partnerships.

Werfel said this working group with bring in outside experts with private sector experience to work alongside current IRS employees.

“The outside experience will be critical, helping give the IRS an inside look at some of the maneuvers taking place with partnerships,” Werfel said. “Hiring this kind of expertise is an area where the IRS has not had the resources to keep pace with the rapid growth taking place with partnerships.”

Werfel said billions of dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act funding are helping the IRS recruit the experts it needs to shrink a growing tax gap.

“We are bringing new Inflation Reduction Act resources to play to beef up our compliance work and overlooked areas of concern involving high-income earners, complex partnerships and large corporations. We are continuing to accelerate our work in this area,” he said.

The IRS has launched audits on 76 of the largest partnerships with average assets over $10 billion. These include hedge funds, real estate investment partnerships, publicly traded partnerships and large law firms.

“With increased resources, the IRS can finally shift its attention to the far complex corners of the tax administration world that have been ignored for far too long. IRS work in this space is critical, with tens of billions of dollars at stake, as well as helping bringing more fairness into enforcing tax laws already on the books,” Werfel said.

The post IRS to boost enforcement staffing, close tax loopholes used by complex partnerships first appeared on Federal News Network.

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

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

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is looking for a new chief information officer. HUD is now one of five major agencies looking for a new technology leader.

But unlike the departments of Defense and Health and Human Services, and the Small Business Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the HUD CIO didn’t actually leave the agency to create the job opening.

Beth Niblock, who has been CIO since July 2021, moved to a new position as senior advisor for disaster management. The reason for the opening is purely political. HUD decided to move the CIO’s position back to a career one from a political one.

“[O]ver the past few years, HUD leadership determined the department would be best served by having a career CIO to ensure steady and consistent leadership, and to better position the department to deliver high-quality, transformative solutions enabling HUD to deliver on its mission,” said a HUD spokesperson in an email to Federal News Network.

HUD posted the CIO job on USAJobs.gov in mid May and applications are due today. In the meantime, Sairah Ijaz will step in as the acting CIO until a permanent career leader is selected.

Political CIOs close to leadership?

The decision by HUD to transition the CIO position back to career from political isn’t that unusual.

Over the course of the last 28 years — January 2026 will be the 30^th anniversary of the Clinger Cohen Act — several agencies ranging from the departments of Commerce, Energy, Treasury and Transportation as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and others have flipped the position back and forth between career and political to suit the needs of the leadership.

But HUD’s decision brought up a long-standing and healthily-debated question of whether CIOs, especially at this point in time of history where technology is at the center of every agency’s mission, are better off being political appointees?

To many, the answer continues to remain as it has for the last almost 30 years: It depends. But what has become clearer than ever is the role of managing, implementing and securing technology puts the CIO and deputy CIO on a higher plane across all agencies. Thus, requiring the federal community to continually re-ask the political appointee question.

“How the agency positions the CIO’s role in theory versus practice for the best possible function is really a question of how the head of the agency and the culture of that agency sets that role up for success,” said Dan Chenok, the former Office of Management and Budget official who helped with the Clinger-Cohen Act and now executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government. “Given the ubiquity of technology today, what is the right balance? My own personal view is a political CIO is more likely to be close to the head of the agency, and a career deputy CIO gives you continuity.”

Finding that seat at the table

But that closeness doesn’t always result in a CIO’s success.

If you look at the January 2024 Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard as one measure of CIO effectiveness, agencies with career CIOs versus those with politically appointed ones faired about the same. Agencies with political CIOs — the departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and HUD — received the same mix of “B” and “C” grades as those with career CIOs.

Simon Szykman, the president and founder of Cambio Digital Transformations and former Commerce Department CIO, said the role of the CIO is inherently not one that strongly aligns with any political ideology.

“Ideally it should not be necessary to make a CIO political appointment in order for that person to support the agency mission, or even the political leadership’s agenda,” he said. “However, the flip side to the argument for career CIOs is that no CIO will be successful if they don’t have that proverbial seat at the table. They need to be able to operate, influence and impact decisions at the senior-most levels. It can be a challenge for career senior executives to fully operate as peers to political leadership, and this challenge can be dependent on agency culture as well the leadership tone set higher up in the administration.”

Many times an agency hires a political CIO because the secretary wants a specific person in that role. That was the case, for example, with Steve Cooper, when he worked at Commerce from 2014 to 2017.

For other agencies like VA, Congress required the position be presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed — one of the few that requires Senate confirmation.

HUD’s great strides

But even then, there is no guarantee of success.

“Moving the CIO to political or a career position is situational and based on the candidates available and what’s going on at the agency at that moment,” said Margie Graves, a former deputy CIO at DHS and federal deputy CIO and now a senior fellow at IBM’s Center for the Business of Government. “A lot of times the decision to bring on a political CIO may be because the secretary wants a specific person on board to do something specific. I would advocate for choosing the best person for the moment. It’s really no different than what you’d do in private sector. And the times I’ve see the decision fail is when the person has no background in the technology management discipline and no expertise. I saw a couple of those at DHS.”

Graves added, at least for the CFO Act agencies, she would prefer to have someone in the C Suite who is “hearing” those political conversations as opposed to someone who is relegated as an “outsider.”

HUD’s reason for moving the CIO back to a career position is not entirely clear. The spokesperson said Niblock and her team have made “great strides over the past few years” to modernize the technology and improve the cyber posture of the agency’s infrastructure. But the spokesperson seems to insinuate there may be some bumpy roads ahead.

“However, HUD’s IT only received 0.5% of the department’s fiscal 2024 budget, which is one of the lowest percentages across cabinet level agencies. HUD is continuing to work with its federal and congressional partners to build on the progress of the past several years, while also continuing to pursue the ability to leverage various funding flexibilities that other agencies are able to leverage, including a working capital fund for its IT needs,” the spokesperson said.

HUD’s IT budget for 2024 is $641 million, of which it is spending only $94 million on development, modernization and enhancement projects. The agency requested $540 million for IT in 2025.

The post Political vs. career: Role of CIO remains unsettled first appeared on Federal News Network.

The announcement from the White House on Thursday came after Gruenberg’s tenure became marred by allegations of workplace abuse that led to him to resign.

A longtime financial regulator, Goldsmith Romero is currently a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the nation’s financial derivatives regulator. She previously worked with the Department of Treasury and was part of the team that handled the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which lent $700 billion to troubled banks during the 2008 financial crisis. She also is a law professor at Georgetown University.

Her previous nominations to the nation’s financial regulators were unanimously confirmed by the Senate.

“She has proven herself to be a strong, independent, and fair regulator who is not afraid to do what’s right,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio and chair of the Senate Banking Committee, in a statement.

Gruenberg last month said he would resign from the FDIC, after an independent report by law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton found incidents of stalking, harassment, homophobia and other violations of employment regulations, based on more than 500 complaints from employees.

Complaints included a woman who said she was stalked by a coworker and continually harassed even after complaining about his behavior; a field office supervisor referring to gay men as “little girls;” and a female field examiner who described receiving a picture of an FDIC senior examiner’s private parts.

Republicans have been calling for Gruenberg to step down since the allegations emerged late last year. The White House and Gruenberg resisted those calls partly because the FDIC is led by a five member board, and his resignation would pass control of the agency to the FDIC’s vice chair, who is a Republican. Gruenberg’s resignation would not be official until Goldsmith Romero nomination is finalized.

“FDIC employees deserve a safe workplace that allows them to focus on their important mission to safeguard our country’s financial security. Unfortunately, under the leadership of Chairman Gruenberg, that hasn’t been the case,” said Sen. Tim Scott, the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, in a statement.

The FDIC is one of several U.S. banking system regulators. The Great Depression-era agency is best known for running the nation’s deposit insurance program, which insures Americans’ deposits up to $250,000 in case their bank fails.

The post Biden to nominate Christy Goldsmith Romero as FDIC chair after abrupt departure of predecessor first appeared on Federal News Network.

If there’s a universal constant among federal agencies, it’s forms. Forms often get complicated and that can impede people’s applications for benefits.  The Federal Drive with Tom Temin‘s guest has been on a sort of crusade to improve and simplify forms. Kyle Gardiner is a senior policy analyst at the Office of Management and Budget and now a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals program.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin And you are on the younger end of federal employees. What on earth motivated you to become interested in federal forms?

Kyle Gardiner You know, that’s actually a good question. And I don’t know if I wasn’t motivated. Before I arrived at OMB, I’m at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. And I joined that position primarily because of our work doing sort of economic analysis related to regulations. And the moment you show up, you find out actually what pays the bills at OIRA is our responsibilities under the Paperwork Reduction Act. That’s a pretty obscure law, but any federal employee probably is familiar with it. And essentially, every federal form, when it is created, or when it is changed, has to go back through OMB for review. So a big part of our job is actually looking at these forms, and sort of understanding why an agency wants to ask this information, how could it ask it better? Is it clear and concise as the information that’s being gathered useful? And so very rapidly, you start looking at hundreds of forms, and I just find that absolutely fascinating.

Tom Temin Basically, then, you’re an economist by training.

Kyle Gardiner I am a public policy master’s student by background. And so I think that is a poor man’s economist. So, a loose economist is how I describe that, sure.

Tom Temin All right. And give us an example of what you discovered when looking at some forms that kind of made the bell go off and say, wow.

Kyle Gardiner Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, one of the interesting things about this law is basically, an agency has to provide a pretty detailed narrative description of why this form is the way it is, right? And the other half of it is that they have to actually quantify how long they think it takes a typical person to complete that form. So, if you actually look at any federal form, there’s some bizarre legalese somewhere on the document that says, we estimate this takes 15 minutes or we estimate that this takes an hour. And what I was finding is that a lot of times, especially in the public benefit space, you would see these forms that were like 12 pages long, but the narrative description of what this form would be would be, oh, this is an application for benefits. And you know, you go to question 67, and say, why are we asking about if they’re also a black lung survivor as a part of this benefits application? Or, you know, why do we need to know this element of who they live with as a part of this benefits application? And a lot of times, there may be good reasons for that, but they weren’t adequately explained. And then you look at the estimate of the time it would take, and they would say, you know, 30 minutes to complete. And I would just put myself in the position of a person going through this and think, there’s no way this takes 30 minutes to complete. And so, you know, for better or for worse, a lot of it involves just sort of that back and forth to try to drive down what is the real motivation for these questions. And then, can we develop a more robust understanding of the time it takes? Because ultimately, you know, my perspective is it may be legitimate to take six hours to complete a form, but we should all be on the level about that fact. Because then that can lead to, you know, better enhancements in technology to try to drive that down, or, you know, regulatory reform to try to improve that. So it’s sort of about developing that baseline in an accurate manner, and then trying to find the solution is to try to make that, you know, minimally burdensome for the public.

Tom Temin Right. So give us an example of some forms you’ve changed. You actually did go on a little bit of a crusade and got some forms changed that enable people maybe with less means, less education or whatever, to make sure that they are equitably availing themselves of federal benefits.

Kyle Gardiner Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing I would always emphasize is that like, literally, it takes dozens to hundreds of people to truly change a form. So, in some ways, I’m really proud of this work, but I’m just like, truly one cog in the machine. But one of my examples that I’m most proud of is the Social Security disability recertification process. So basically, a Social Security operated disability program are really two that provides benefits for I think we’re about 12 million disabled Americans, and it’s a lifeline. It’s oftentimes their only source of income. But typically, the agency will check back in with you between three and seven years to say, are you still disabled in the capacity that makes you eligible for this program? That’s a really stressful form to get from the agency, right? Even if it’s a completely legitimate form to send, this is your lifeline. And what people typically get is, you know, I think somewhere in the order of it’s, it’s a 15-page form, and it requires a pretty robust update of everything in your life since the last time they checked in with you, right? What doctors have you seen? What hospitals have you visited? The prescriptions you’ve taken, and then a whole bunch of questions about sort of what we would call your activities of daily living, so how you function in the world. And we had held some listening sessions, where we had heard people express how traumatizing the form was. The quote that always reverberated with me was somebody who is disabled because of their cancer diagnosis, said that the form to complete for recertifying for disability was worse than the cancer that they had. Right. And that’s profound. And digging into the form, I think one thing that you saw is that historically, there was an estimate, going back to like 2000, right, it just took one hour to complete. And so the first thing you’re thinking in reviewing this is, obviously if somebody finds it so traumatizing that it competes with their impairment, it’s not an hourlong form, right. And then the second thing is it really hadn’t been revisited in a while. And so, sort of the impetus of my review was really, and this is, of course, the luxury of being at OMB, is you work with the agency, and you say, okay, let’s go back into the wild and try to figure out how to improve this more.

Tom Temin So you can almost start over.

Kyle Gardiner Yeah, exactly. And so the first thing that SSA did on this is they went back to the public just via the Federal Register process, and sort of did a much more robust set of questions to stakeholders, advertise that around to who I consider to be sort of relevant advocacy organizations, a lot of legal aid organizations and said, do we have this right? What’s hard about this form that we’re not understanding? What’s a real estimate of the burden, that’s true here? And then they took that initial feedback, and they started doing listening sessions, they started doing user research. And long story short, over about a course of a year, they first took a paper form that was 16 pages, and they brought it online for the first time ever, which is oftentimes a good step. What I think is particularly cool is that they have a lot of information on these people already, because they’re already part of the program. And they were able to pour it in from their records, existing doctor information, existing prescription information, so that when you get this form now, it’s already partially completed for you. And then they did some other cool things that we can talk about later, in terms of eliminating questions that were actually like, really unnecessary for this process, and I think will really improve the experience of people going through this form.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Kyle Gardiner, he’s senior policy analyst at the Office of Management and Budget, and a finalist in this year’s Service to America medals program. You get the impression that fields and information are added, simply because of the risk-averse nature of federal agencies, especially Social Security, and for good reason. But they feel that somewhere at some point, somebody’s going to challenge something, and they’ll need that little piece of information. And so these things organically just grow and grow and grow out of fear of what they might need in the future.

Kyle Gardiner Yeah, I think that’s really good question. I mean, at its core, a form is collecting information that responds to the regulatory environment that the agency is operating in, which is in turn responding to the statutory constraints that are placed upon them. And so I think every agency has a competing goal of trying to make sure they are serving everyone who’s eligible for a program while also minimizing people who are improperly paid who aren’t supposed to be on the program at all. And so I certainly think that a balance in any form is, are we going to ask a question that may weed out one in 100 people who shouldn’t be on the program, but what is the impact then to people who are eligible who also might be weeded out, right? And that’s a constant trade off in any type of information collection activity.

Tom Temin And under the Paperwork Reduction Act, which is very old law, people don’t realize, and it’s really the burden on government to, you know, prove why this paper is needed. Do you have metrics so that you can say this form no longer takes three hours to fill out, but now only takes 20 minutes?

Kyle Gardiner Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I love the story of the disability recertification process, which for Social Security disability nerds is actually called the continuing disability review, CDR. But the end of this process, right was, I think, a form that is like materially better, and oftentimes at OMB, you can be paranoid about, is this really impacting people in the real world? And I will say that every time I’ve tried to gut check this with actual advocates, or beneficiaries, they have said, truly, it is. So I’m really excited about that. But they made all these improvements. And they also increased the burden estimate from one hour to I think, eight hours, right? So we do have a measurement at play to show what I think is a more honest understanding of the burden that exists today. But that’s probably because the original burden was way above eight hours to begin with. So it’s an interesting trade off at play.

Tom Temin And are you going to climb Mount Everest and take on SF 86?

Kyle Gardiner Thankfully, within OIRA, we have assigned our own desks, so I work currently with Social Cecurity and HUD. The SF 86 is not in my purview. The desk officer who does work on that is actually awesome, and has just an amazing depth of experience and knowledge. I will say personally, I just recertified this spring and I did very much note the burden estimate that was present on that against my personal experience going through that process again. So I have my own thoughts on that for sure.

Tom Temin And again, we won’t reveal your age on the air but you are a generation X, I guess, or something.

Kyle Gardiner Millennial, millennial.

Tom Temin Okay, but young end of the millennial.

Kyle Gardiner Yeah, okay. I’ll give you that.

Tom Temin What drew you to federal service?

Kyle Gardiner You know, that’s a funny question. I have literally always wanted to work for the federal government, like at least since middle school and possibly earlier than that. I can’t explain strongly why that might be the case. There is federal service in my family’s history, though, not my parents. I think definitely they had me interested in the news from an early age. I think I had, you know, very typical social studies teachers who got me into current events and government but truly, I’ve wanted to be in the place where I think you can effectuate change, most profoundly, at least as long as I can remember, basically.

Tom Temin  And people could look at the executive office buildings of the President and if they’d ever seen some of the interiors there and understand some of the processes, externally it might look like the most soul crushing place you could find in the hemisphere. Sounds like you have a different experience. You like it there?

Kyle Gardiner Yeah, I mean, I find the bureaucracy incredibly fascinating and to succeed in it, you both need to always be dissatisfied with the status quo, but also tolerant of the fact that you’re building consensus across an organization of millions of people, representing, you know, 350 million people. And so you have to kind of always balance pushing forward with being understanding that timeline’s a little bit slower, processes a little bit more deliberative than like you might expect in the private sector. So it’s a tension for sure.

The post Sometimes, just rewriting a form can improve a federal program first appeared on Federal News Network.

More than 30 county and state election programs were recently honored by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The EAC’s Clearinghouse Awards recognize best practices in election administration. To find out just how those winners were picked and what some of those best practices are, Federal News Network’s Eric White spoke with EAC Chairman Ben Hovland.

Interview Transcript: 

Eric White  Thirty-two county and state election programs were recently honored by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The EAC’s Clearinghouse Awards recognizes best practices in election administration. To find out just how those winners were picked and what some of those best practices are, we welcome Ben Hovland, EAC chairman. Mr. Hovland, thank you so much for taking the time.

Ben Hovland  Absolutely. Thanks, Eric, for having me.

Eric White  Of course. So why don’t we just start with an overview of the Clearinghouse awards, this is the eighth installment of these awards. How does this award program work?

Ben Hovland  First and foremost, it’s really about recognizing the great work that’s happening around the country, in election offices all over the country. One of the reasons that we created the awards, so the Clearinghouse awards, or Clearies, really represent the clearinghouse function of the Election Assistance Commission. You know, the agency was created to serve as a clearinghouse of best practices across the country. And really, that was because each state runs elections a little bit differently. And so one of the things that we do at the federal level, since we don’t run elections, is look at how each state is administering elections and the queries. The Clearinghouse awards are really about recognizing some of those best practices that we see across the country, lifting up the great work that that the professionals who run our elections are doing all across the country. But it’s also a way to share those ideas. It is a way for other election officials to see what their colleagues are doing across the country, and maybe see a program and an idea that they can tweak to their jurisdiction and make a difference for their voters.

Eric White  Are there certain values, I guess, that it seemed, well, just reading some of these award recipients, there seem to be a nod towards innovation towards more communication? Can you just lay out some of the core values that you all were trying to emphasize when picking the winners?

Ben Hovland  Absolutely. So you hit the nail on the head there. It is, you know, we’re looking for innovation, we’re looking for sustainability. We’re looking for cost effectiveness. We’re looking for replicability. And we’re obviously looking for for positive results. But all of those categories really lean into the notion that I was mentioning before that other jurisdictions are able to take these ideas and use them. While we would applaud any idea that’s helping voters, you know, if this is a one-off circumstance, that is only for a particular place, and there’s no way anyone else could do that, probably wouldn’t be graded as highly as something that we know that jurisdictions across the country could benefit from, and in turn, voters across the country could benefit from.

Eric White  Getting away from the voters themselves, let’s talk about the actual, zero in on some of the parts that may be overlooked. Just the fact of getting enough people to work the polls, what are some of the innovations that you’re seeing there as far as recruitment and retainment go? Because that seems to be an issue with, especially, you know, smaller jurisdictions.

Ben Hovland  Absolutely. And there’s a couple things you hit on there. One thing is, we award Clearies for different size jurisdictions. And part of that is recognizing that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach and what what might work for recruiting people in a large city may not work in a smaller community. We definitely want to highlight award winners from different jurisdictions. And we recognize that not all election jurisdictions are resourced the same. And so, again, we want to recognize that innovative work that’s happening in all kinds of communities across the country. As for poll worker recruitment, that’s certainly been an original category. It’s one that we’ve had for a long time, because it is a challenge for election officials across the country. And certainly, that is one that we continue to uplift, we’ve seen things over the years, like adopt a polling place programs, where groups or people who potentially volunteer together to serve a lot of innovative outreach more broadly, and raising up awareness. But so much of that ties into things that we’ve seen, or like the EAC’s national poll worker recruitment day program, because again, this is a challenge for election officials across the country and sort of year in and year out. And part of what we’ve learned in the last few years, is just raising awareness about the need for poll workers and that this is a way that people can volunteer in their community, that they can serve their community. Those people that you see when you check in at the polling place, you know, they’re your friends, they’re your neighbors. They’re people from your community, who are helping to run our democracy. And so encouraging people to do that, letting people know that it is a way that they can participate, letting them know it’s a great way to learn more about the many safeguards that are in place for our elections, are all excellent opportunities. So anyone thinking about that, I encourage them to check out helpamericavote.gov. Again, helpamericavote.gov. That is an EAC website that talks more about serving as a poll worker and can get you to the right place in your community.

Eric White  We’re talking with Ben Hovland, and he is the chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. So let’s go into the one of the ones that’s been probably in the news more than anything, and that is cybersecurity and technology. What sorts of factors led you to award the winners in that category? I imagine, you know, not only innovation, but effectiveness is definitely key more than any other area. Right?

Ben Hovland  Absolutely. And, you know, one of the things, again, cybersecurity has been a focus, has been a challenge. This is a newer category that we’ve had just for the last few years. But really, again, when you think about the notion of why we have the Clearies, part of that is to recognize great work, but part of that is to share great ideas. And so, you know, one of the ones that this was actually, from a couple of years ago, there was a Clearie winner for something called the cyber navigator program. And essentially, that was recognizing that not every jurisdiction, not every smaller community can necessarily afford to have an election cybersecurity specialist. But you could have people at the state level that have regional responsibilities, where maybe they covered several counties, or several municipalities, depending on how a state’s structured. And so, again, that is a completely replicable program. That’s something that that any state in the country could look at. And that was an innovation that we wanted to lift up and share, to improve the security of our elections across the country.

Eric White  Creativity is highlighted as well, as my favorite category was the “I Voted” stickers and who had the best one. How do you how do you judge who had the best first-time voter and all those, you know, “I Voted” stickers that we see everybody usually wearing on election days?

Ben Hovland  It is nice to have the creative “I Voted” sticker one in there, that one’s a little fun. That’s actually the only one that the commissioners judge. The rest of these we leave up to election officials from across the country that serve as our judges. We’ve got judges from from every time zone all across the country. For most of the categories, they’re very much peer reviewed. The stickers winner we keep for ourselves. It’s pretty subjective. We see a lot of great submissions and programs in there. But that’s really just the four commissioners at the Election Assistance Commission, saying which of these programs or which of these stickers happen to be their favorite, and we average that out and have winners. Again, that one’s a lot of fun. And we’ve seen so many great stickers from across the country. So many, you know, it’s really nice. One of the categories there is sort of community flair. And it’s fun to see, you know, the different ways people have chosen to represent their communities all across the country. So that one, as you noted, is a fun one.

Eric White  Gotcha. You know, it’s an election year, obviously a very busy time for your agency. If you can just kind of lay out what sort of other work you’re doing to help prepare election offices across the country for the next big one.

Ben Hovland  Yeah, you hit the nail on the head again. You know, it is a busy time of year. Most largely, the presidential primaries are over, states are transitioning, many states have state primaries that are happening this summer. So they’re transitioning into that. And of course, preparing for November, and election officials across the country. There are a number of challenges, and certainly, presidential election years are when we see the most voters and that puts the most sort of pressure on our system. But you know what, one of the great things about my job is that I get to travel around the country. And I get to see the work that election officials are doing, the preparation that they’re doing, the training that they’re doing, going through very meticulously their processes to get ready for November. And so at the EAC, you know, we’re looking at ways that we can help that. We’re looking at ways that we can find efficiencies and support election officials across the country.

Eric White  Ben Hovland is the chairman of the Election Assistance Commission. Thank you so much for joining me.

Ben Hovland  Thank you.

Eric White  And we’ll post this interview along with a link to more information about the award winners at federalnewsnetwork.com. You can also subscribe to the Federal Drive wherever you get your podcasts.

The post Awarding the best ideas for running elections first appeared on Federal News Network.

The FBI has reinstated the the security clearance of a former employee. Marcus Allen had his clearance revoked and was suspended from his role of staff operations specialist with the FBI back in February 2022, for what it called “questionable judgment” when it came to the agency’s investigations into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. One of the organization’s who defended and represented Allen was Empower Oversight. To learn more about this case, Federal News Network’s Eric White talked with that organization’s president, Tristan Leavitt.

Interview Transcript:

Eric White  The FBI has reinstated one of its former employee’s security clearance after revoking it. Marcus Allen had his clearance revoked and was suspended from his role of staff operation specialist with the bureau back in February of 2022 for what it called “questionable judgment” when it came to the agency’s investigations into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. One of the organizations who defended and represented Allen was in power oversight. To learn more about this case, we welcome the organization’s President Tristan Leavitt. Tristan, thank you so much for taking the time.

Tristan Leavitt  Yeah. Happy to be with you, Eric.

Eric White  So, let’s just start from the beginning. What happened to Mr. Allen, if you can just give me kind of an overview of the events that led up to this point?

Tristan Leavitt  So, Marcus Allen is somebody who had been in the Marines working as an intel analyst and had been deployed to Iraq a couple times. So he knew what he was doing when he’d worked for the FBI for several years down in their Charlotte field office, and he had received awards in there, commendations, so he never had any issues within the FBI. After January 6, Marcus Allen wasn’t present there, by any means, didn’t have anything to do with it. But as most of us in the United States saw, FBI Director Chris Wray came up to Capitol Hill just a couple of weeks after the events of January 6, and in one particular exchange before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Amy Klobuchar said to him, don’t you just wish we had some informants there, some way of knowing what was happening? And you just see the look on Director Wray’s face. He’s navigating that, so he gives a response, you know, understandably, the FBI needs to protect its confidential sources, but this is a pretty significant event. And it’s important for Congress to be able to do oversight of that. So he left the impression there were no informants there. Throughout 2021, there was maybe one Reuters article that came out that hinted that there might have been some informants. And then in late September, The New York Times splashed across the very top story, front page of the Sunday paper, that there had in fact, been at least two informants there for the FBI on January 6. Now today, we know that there were over 20, but at the time, this was very big news, which is why it was so prominent in New York Times. And so Marcus Allen took that information and relayed it to his supervisor saying, we need to be careful, there’s a very real chance that the D.C. elements of our organization may not be fully forthcoming here, based on director Wray’s testimony. That set off alarm bells within the FBI. Even though it was Marcus’s job to forward information like this around, all of the January 6 investigations had been farmed from the FBI’s Washington Field Office out to their various regional offices. And so Charlotte was engaged in that. So this was situational context he believed they needed to know. But after this, his security clearance was suspended, so that’s how we got involved. A year ago, I testified before the House weaponization subcommittee with Marcus and two other FBI whistleblowers we had represented and at the time, the FBI had just put out information the night before saying that their clearances had been revoked. So you know, they were called a security threat by the ranking member of that committee. But we had filed an Inspector General complaint alleging that it was because of whistleblower retaliation. January 6 aside, longstanding whistleblower law protects federal employees’ right to make disclosures about the head of an agency, and to, you know, share that information with one’s supervisors or colleagues. And so in that context, it simply was inappropriate for them to suspend his security clearance over that. But after a long period of time working with the Inspector General, I think the FBI knew that an IG report was probably likely to come out soon, and so they agreed to settle with him. And secondly, they reinstated his security clearance, giving him complete and full vindication.

Eric White  We’re speaking with Tristan Leavitt, he is the president of Empower Oversight. And, you know, as with most whistleblower cases, the idea is not just to punish somebody who maybe went against what the FBI desired, but it is to send a message or have a chilling effect. If I could ask you to speculate, what was that message that was being sent to other potential whistleblowers at the FBI?

Tristan Leavitt  Well, we’ve since learned a fair amount about this. And this is actually the subject of a lot of concern, something that’s actually, we believe, we expect the FBI, the DOJ Inspector General is going to open up a new probe on, which is that after January 6, where it was perfectly legitimate for the FBI to investigate any FBI agents, certainly who were inside the Capitol who are engaged in violence, you know, is appropriate for them to investigate that of the American public, much less people from within the FBI. But after that, it kind of led to this hysteria within the FBI where anybody that got brought to the attention of the security division within the FBI, once they were inside that funnel of suspicion, they couldn’t get out. The disclosures that are coming to us indicate that that office really just said, well, we just don’t want people to have clearances in these instances, even if it’s for completely valid political views. And not long after January 6, one of the things that we highlighted recently in a letter to IG Horowitz, just from this week, we reminded him of a letter we sent last summer where we had provided an affidavit from an FBI supervisor who was on a call with all special agents in charge from the FBI about a month after January 6, and said, if you don’t like the way the FBI is approaching this, you don’t need to be in the FBI. The FBI, you know, we don’t need people like that here. And so we’ve seen is that the security division asked questions about things. We just released a document where they asked questions specifically like, of an employee’s coworker. So to be clear, this is an instance where you’re under suspicion, they suspend your clearance, they go to do interviews with coworkers of the individual whose clearance is suspended, and someone’s required to answer those questions. You’re told at the beginning of the interview, failure to, you have a duty to reply to the issues. Should you refuse to answer or fail to reply fully and truthfully, actually it’s your own clearance may be taken. So people were being asked to rat out their coworkers and the questions for them were, did you, after being asked if you’ve ever socialized with them, so it’s asking about, even outside of work, did you ever hear them vocalize support for President Trump? Did you ever hear them vocalize objection to the COVID-19 vaccination? So these are entirely inappropriate questions for the security division to be asking. I mean, for anyone in the FBI to be requiring answers to, much less as a basis for revoking someone’s security clearance. And so this is the real, you know, the chilling seems to have been where people came into this funnel suspicion with the security division. They pushed out people that had views that were not in keeping with those and in the mainstream, you know, in the leadership of the agency there, including just support for President Trump even. Now, for someone like me, I’ll say, right, having been at the Office of Special Counsel where you enforce the Hatch Act, right. The whole goal of creating a nonpartisan civil service system at the end of 1800s was to get rid of things like loyalty tests and patronage. And so this idea that, in an effort to keep the FBI pure, they’re going to ask questions like this, it goes exactly to what the civil service system was designed to prevent, is really, really dangerous.

Eric White  Well, can I come at it from the other side here, as saying, you know, January 6’s unprecedented attempt to really subvert the U.S. government, there was probably a lot of speculation regarding how the agency should react? And obviously, the agency had not seen anything like this before. So are you saying that this was maybe an overreaction? Or could they have handled it a little bit better in trying to decipher, you know, we have to make sure that none of our people were actively trying to support this movement, that, you know, once again, was something that the government had never seen before.

Tristan Leavitt  I think asking questions like, do you support violence? I mean, security clearance process, do you support the overthrow of the US government? Were you present on January 6 inside of the Capitol? All of that is completely legitimate, in my view. When you step beyond that, to just political views, did the employee ever vocalize support for President Trump? I mean, people had a First Amendment right to go and hear him at a rally. And again, if they are outside of the Capitol, that’s just not the FBI’s place. And again, the COVID-19 vaccination questions, even if they might overlap among a segment of the population that did express objections to the vaccination. Keep in mind these questions were asked three months after the federal employee vaccine mandate was suspended. So there’s no legitimate purpose for them to ask a question like that. When I was at the Merit Systems Protection Board, as we tried to implement the executive order that came out, we put a lot of thought into making sure that these questions about someone’s personal medical health information weren’t spread all over the agency. So we were very careful in making sure that went to just one designated individual within the agency to have the security division of the FBI ask this of someone’s colleagues, again, that goes way beyond the events of January 6, which again, people should have been punished for engaging in violence for breaking laws. It’s a very different thing to ask someone’s political views. Those are not one in the same.

Eric White  Tristan Leavitt is president of Empower Oversight. Thank you so much for joining us.

Tristan Leavitt  Thanks for having me, Eric.

Eric White  And we’ll post this interview along with a copy of those documents that Tristan had mentioned at federalnewsnetwork.com. You can also subscribe to the Federal Drive wherever you get your podcasts.

The post FBI reinstates its removal of FBI staffer’s security clearance 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.