On February 2nd, the President unveiled his new $4 trillion proposed budget for FY 2016. Obviously the federal government was paying close attention, but state and local governments were also on high alert. The reason? Simple: the President’s budget also provides funding to states and localities in several different areas like transportation, education and infrastructure…. Read more »
Today, 54 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. But what about the other 46 percent? Take Carson Valley, Nevada. Population 40,000. In comparison, Nevada’s two largest counties, Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno) have populations of 1.9 million and 650,000 residents respectively. In a state of three million people, more… Read more »
Our top budgeting, forecasting and business analytics posts for the public sector from the week of September 12th!
The White House’s Open Government initiative encourages citizens to become more actively engaged in budget decisions in their communities. How does this work in practice? Do busy citizens actually get involved? Inspired by successful efforts in Brazil and other countries around the world, several U.S. communities have undertaken pilot efforts to allow citizens to directly… Read more »
A coffee, a run, meditation…. We all need one thing to get our brains working early in the morning. For me, it’s a long, scalding hot shower. But as a native of California, which is experiencing one of the most severe droughts in the state’s history, my long morning shower is a thing of the… Read more »
Every year Arkansas Chief Technology Officer, Claire Bailey and her team, create an IT strategic plan. It’s sort of like the wish list kids leave in their stockings for Santa Claus. It contains all the priorities and initiatives the state wants to tackle in the upcoming year and where they are going to need help…. Read more »
With the stagnant economy, cost control has become the new mantra of every business. Businesses are deploying various strategies to contain costs and maintain profitability. Amongst such strategies is control and visibility into spending with external suppliers. Spend analytics is the process of aggregating, cleansing, and analyzing corporate spending data for the purpose of reducing… Read more »
Improper payments are always an area of concern for the federal government. These include overpayments, underpayments, payments made to ineligible recipients, or even payments that weren’t properly documented. While fraudulent payments are considered improper, not all improper payments are the result of fraud. For example, improper payments can be a result of mismanagement, errors, or… Read more »
It was great to see the recent blog of US General Services Administration (GSA) CIO Sonny Hashmi in which he establishes “open source first” as an agency policy: “Simply put, any solution developed using taxpayer dollars should be in the taxpayer’s domain (open source). At GSA, we believe that all code we developed should be… Read more »
Did you ever play the game telephone as a kid? It was one of my favorite games, because no matter how hard you tried, the message always got muddled somewhere along the way. Messages from government leaders can also run the risk of a telephone-esque misunderstanding. In the Best Places to Work in the Federal… Read more »
In the hopes of fostering more Fed participation, please know this survey is approved by the George Mason University Office of Research Integrity & Assurance and Institutional Review Board (703) 993-4121. Thank you in advance for providing your 100% anonymous expertise and insights!
Frustration, Rage, Anxiety, Despair. These are the feelings I have heard from many federal government civilians who have endured hiring and pay freezes, furloughs, sequestration, and government shutdowns, as well as current and pending workforce drawdowns and budget reductions. Add to the mix, the front edge of the Baby Boomer generation became retirement eligible in… Read more »
Dear Industry Partners, You are invited to participate in the Integrated Award Environment’s next virtual industry outreach event on March 24, 2015 from 11:00AM to 12:00PM EDT. Focused on the IAE Common Services Platform, this webcast meeting is intended for audiences interested in learning about our platform-as-a-service approach: what tools we’re bringing to the table… Read more »
Dear Industry Partners, You are invited to participate in the Integrated Award Environment’s next virtual industry outreach event on March 24, 2015 from 11:00AM to 12:00PM EDT. Focused on the IAE Common Services Platform, this webcast meeting is intended for audiences interested in learning about our platform-as-a-service approach: what tools we’re bringing to the table… Read more »
