The House on Tuesday approved two amendments to the fiscal year 2014 defense authorization bill that would ban the Pentagon from furloughing civilian workers for that fiscal year, GovExec reports. Kellie Lunney writes one amendment applies to civilian defense workers placed on unpaid leave and the other amendment covers employees falling under working capital funds.Read… Read more »
By Stephanie Sullivan, Consultant The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is developing a framework to reduce cyber risks to critical infrastructure as part of the Executive Order 13636. As part of the development process working groups have been formulated to gather feedback from industry and relevant stakeholders regarding the development of the frameworkRead… Read more »
by Rick Antonucci, Analyst In a press interview, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, representative from Maryland, stated that he did not believe there was any chance Congress would pass a budget before October. The budgets passed by the Republican led House and the Democrat led Senate have a $91 Billion disparity and Hoyer says that theRead… Read more »
Policymakers are fixated on short-term budget austerity measures such as furloughs, pay freezes, and conference and travel spending. However, there is a small, but growing effort to take a longer, more strategic look at how to manage austerity by finding what works and targeting dollars there instead of to programs that cannot demonstrate effectiveness. ThisRead… Read more »
I’ve been closely following the federal budget for more than two decades, and at no point have things been more confusing, not only to observers like myself, but more importantly to federal managers and executives who are trying to plan their department budgets. A grand bargain on the budget would be welcome news not onlyRead… Read more »
Can things get any worse for the embattled IRS? Like any large business, the federal government is not immune from good investments going bad, or making bad investments altogether. Unfortunately, this stereotype continues to plague public perception regarding the business of government. The entire IRS imbroglio just makes a bad situation worse. No Room forRead… Read more »
What ever became of the new statutory provision requiring agencies to “identify low-priority program activities?” The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 requires agencies to annually “identify low-priority program activities based on an analysis of their contribution to the mission and goals of the agency and include an evidence-based justification for designating a program activity asRead… Read more »
by Lloyd McCoy Jr., Senior Analyst I recently attended a luncheon where several deputy CIOs from the Defense, Agriculture, and Interior Departments, as well as the GSA IT Transition Executive, spoke about their cost saving initiatives. Besides providing progress reports on their consolidation and optimization efforts, they called on vendors that had extensive footprints withinRead… Read more »
The partisan environment in Washington has resulted in a near paralysis of logical decision making. The sequestration is just the latest, perhaps most egregious, example. Is this the best our leaders can do? What will it take to change things for the better? How should CIOs and other Federal executives execute their missions under theseRead… Read more »
On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER: The Centers for Disease Control have launched a new app – Solve the Outbreak – to help teach people about disease outbreaks. The interactive game allows users to track, solve and prevent future outbreaks. Find out why they’ve turned to gamification for education. Click here for the full recap. The SEVENRead… Read more »