Federal Newscast

Group of federal employees still pushing for more fertility benefits through insurance program

In today's Federal Newscast, a group of federal employees continues to push for expanded fertility benefits through the government's health insurance program.

Eric White@FEDERALNEWSCAST

July 24, 2024 10:50 am

< a min read

A group of federal employees continues to push for expanded fertility benefits through the government's health insurance program. The Department of Justice Gender Equality Network is urging the Office of Personnel Management to step up its requirements for health carriers to cover in-vitro fertilization. OPM already requires carriers to cover the cost of some IVF medications. But now the employee group DOJ GEN is asking for OPM to mandate coverage of both IVF medications AND treatments for plan year 2025. Dozens of DOJ employees have also come forward to express the importance of the change, detailing the financial and emotional struggles they faced in the absence of IVF coverage.
(Letter to OPM on IVF - Department of Justice Gender Equality Network)

The Judicial Branch would need to open up at least some of its records to the public under legislation introduced this week. Right now, federal courts are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. The Judicial FOIA Expansion Act would change that. The bill, led by California Congressman Adam Schiff, would mostly apply to the courts’ administrative records. Records dealing with ongoing cases would still be private. It also wouldn’t apply to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
(Schiff introduces bill to extend FOIA transparency to judicial branch - Rep. Adam Schiff)

There may be one key way to address persistent federal leadership vacancies. Turning some Senate-confirmed roles into career positions in the Senior Executive Service could be an effective way to minimize vacancies. Already, career SES members often fill in for those positions in an acting capacity, the Partnership for Public Service says. They also have better institutional knowledge of their agency. But at the same time, good government organizations say bigger reforms are needed for the SES system as a whole. Associations are calling for the White House to address pay compression that SES leaders experience. They're also asking for reforms to how agencies conduct SES applications and assessments.
(Amid political leadership vacancies, calls for SES reform continue to rise - Federal News Network)

President Joe Biden will nominate David Samuel Johnson to be the next Inspector General for the Tax Administration for the Treasury Department. Johnson is currently the assistant inspector general for investigations at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He previously spent 10 years as a federal prosecutor, as an assistant chief in the Fraud Section of the Justice Department's Criminal Division and as the assistant US attorney and health care fraud coordinator at the U-S Attorney's office for the District of Columbia. Heather Hill has been the acting IG since J. Russell George, the longest service TIGTA IG, passed away in January.
(David Samuel Johnson nominated to be Inspector General for Tax Administration - White House)

Vendors will need more patience when it comes to two governmentwide acquisition contracts for IT services. The National Institutes of Health’s IT Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) is extending the CIO-SP3 contracts for a second time in 2024. CIO-SP3 unrestricted and small business contracts are now open for agencies to award task orders on through April 29, 2025. NITAAC originally scheduled CIO-SP3 to sunset in May 2022. Over at NASA, the SEWP program management office decided vendors needed another month to respond. Bids for SEWP VI are now due Aug. 28 instead of July 25. Part of the reason for the extension is the program management office received nearly 7,000 questions about the final RFP.
(CIO-SP3, CIO-SP3 small business extended through April 2025 - NITAAC)

Accenture Federal Services has a new CEO and chairman of the board of managers. Ron Ash will replace John Goodman as of September 1. Goodman will step down as CEO and chairman of the Accenture Federal Services Board of Managers on August 31 and will retire on March 31, 2025. Ash has been AFS's chief operating officer since 2022 and has worked for Accenture since 1996. Goodman has been CEO and chairman of the board of managers since 2017 and with the company for more than 25 years. AFS received $2.9 billion in federal contracts in 2023 with its biggest customers being the departments of Defense and Energy.
(Accenture Federal Services appoints Ron Ash as CEO - Accenture Federal Services)

The top U.S. intelligence official is directing spy agencies to catalog their data and follow common data tagging standards. That’s according to a directive signed by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines last month. The directive says agencies should automate the management and sharing of data whenever possible, too. The data directive comes as intelligence leaders are also developing a new artificial intelligence strategy for the IC.
(IC directive: Intelligence community data management - Office of the Director of National Intelligence)

The Department of Veterans Affairs has a big budget shortfall this year and next, and Secretary Denis McDonough says Congress needs to act by September to make sure veterans’ benefit payments aren’t delayed. McDonough says the shortfalls are driven entirely by more enrollments in VA’s health and benefits systems. The department faces a $3 billion cash shortage this year, and a projected shortfall of $12 billion in fiscal year 2025.
(VA chief says increased outreach, utilization drove massive budget shortfall - Federal News Network)

A top official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is stepping down. CISA Executive Director Brandon Wales will leave the agency next month after three years on the job. In a statement, CISA Director Jen Easterly thanked Wales for his service, and said Assistant Director for Integrated Operations Bridget Bean would take over as executive director. Wales served in the Department of Homeland Security for nearly two decades. He previously served as acting director of CISA, notably leading the cyber agency’s response to the SolarWinds attack.
(CISA executive director to depart after three years - Federal News Network)