• Federal employees can contribute more money to their Thrift Savings Plan accounts in 2025. The IRS raised the maximum contribution to $23,500 for next year. That's $500 more than this year. The increase also applies to private sector 401k and similar retirement savings plans. For those feds between 50 and 59 years old, however, the catch up contribution to the TSP will not increase. The IRS said it will remain at 75 hundred dollars. But if you are between 60 and 63 years old, the catch up contribution increases to $11,500 as allowed under the SECURE 2.0 law passed in 2022.
  (TSP limit increases to $23,500 for 2025 - Internal Revenue Service)
• Another legal challenge to one of the government’s largest service contracts. Maximus said it’s suing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over its decision to re-bid its contract to run call centers for Medicare and the federal health insurance marketplace. Maximus won that contract in 2022 – it was supposed to run for nearly a decade, but HHS officials decided to re-bid it in an effort to avoid future labor disputes. The Government Accountability Office partially sided with Maximus in a bid protest decision earlier this year. The company is now looking for more relief from the Court of Federal Claims.
  (Maximus sues over re-bid of 1-800-Medicare contract - Maximus)
• There's a new leader at the General Services Administration (GSA) with a "green thumb" for federal buildings. Jason Hartke will be the new director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings in the Office of Governmentwide Policy at GSA Hartke will replace Kevin Kampshroer who is now GSA’s Chief Sustainability Officer. He starts Nov.18. Hartke comes to GSA after spending the last five years as the executive vice president of external affairs at the International WELL. He also has worked for the Energy Department as the program manager for commercial buildings integration and in the Building Technologies Office. Additionally, Hartke worked for nearly a decade at the U.S. Green Building Council, where he aided in the passage of historic federal investment in green building, new federal leadership programs in energy efficiency and a fourfold increase in green building policies at the state and local level.
  (GSA names Hartke as new director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings - GSA email)
• The Department of Homeland Security has completed its first three artificial intelligence pilots. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services used GenAI to train immigration officers to conduct asylum interviews. USCIS is now considering how else GenAI could be used in training. And FEMA is planning out its next steps after piloting a large language model that helps communities develop hazard mitigation plans. The third pilot involved Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) using an LLM to search through law enforcement reports. HSI is continuing to test other uses for how AI could assist law enforcement investigations.
  (DHS completes first phase of AI technology pilots - Department of Homeland Security )

        Join us Jan. 27 for our Industry Exchange Cyber 2025 event where industry leaders will share the latest cybersecurity strategies and technologies.

• The Defense Innovation Unit is seeking a chief technology officer (CTO) to support the development and deployment of autonomous systems across the Defense Department. This person will set strategic direction, source best commercial solutions and ensure seamless integration of hardware and software solutions across major autonomy programs and initiatives, including Replicator. The CTO will work with the military services, combatant commands and industry to ensure integration of systems across services. Applications are due by Nov. 15.
  (DIU seeks chief technology officer to support autonomous systems - Defense Innovation Unit)
• The Coast Guard’s first-ever operational posture statement highlights the service's operational strains to successfully execute its mission. The new document will serve as an overview of the service’s missions and its global operational reach. Vice Adm. Peter Gautier, Coast Guard’s deputy commandant for operations, said the operational statement is not a “pitch for money” but rather a realistic assessment of the Coast Guard’s readiness challenges. “We really do struggle and our path is going to be really challenged unless we get the kind of budget support that we need to keep ourselves on a sustainable track.” The expanding global role of the Coast Guard now includes Arctic patrols, weapons and drug interdiction, and cybersecurity. That's in addition to the service’s traditional duties.
  (Coast Guard’s posture statement sheds light on service’s challenges - Federal News Network )
• The Pentagon’s science and technology office will focus its efforts on space capabilities and collaborative autonomy for unmanned vehicles through the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve. RDER was launched in 2021 to bring critical capabilities through field experimentation into the military services. RDER has taken on 23 projects, with 11 having a firm transition path. Four projects transitioned to the services and about six projects won’t transition right away.
  (DoD S&T to invest in space, collaborative autonomy - Hudson Institute)
• Advisors to the National Institute of Standards and Technology are urging NIST to secure more resources for its National Vulnerability Database. The NVD has racked up a huge backlog of vulnerabilities this year. The Information Security and Privacy Board in a new letter to NIST said the standards agency should work to keep the database “current and accurate.” The board is also recommending NIST work with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, as well as the vulnerability research community, to support the NVD. The database is relied upon by the software community to discover and prioritize critical cyber vulnerabilities.
  (ISPAB letter to NIST on National Vulnerability Database - ISPAB)
• The National Security Agency’s (NSA) long-planned hybrid cloud is now a reality. The NSA’s new Intelligence Community GovCloud went live earlier this year. It’s part of the NSA’s Hybrid Compute Initiative, which brings both top-secret commercial cloud capabilities and hardware-as-a-service to the intelligence community. Jennifer Kron is chief financial manager at the NSA. “It's all about finding the right compute solution for each mission, the right option for every distinct problem and for every distinct purpose,” Kron said at the DoDIIS conference Oct. 29.
  (NSA goes live with ‘Hybrid Compute Initiative’ - Federal News Network)

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.