• The White House-led initiative to overhaul the security clearance and personnel vetting process has entered a new phase. The Performance Accountability Council in its latest report on “Trusted Workforce 2.0 said agencies have updated all major policies related to personnel vetting. The PAC is now entering phase three of Trusted Workforce implementation. That includes expanding continuous vetting shifting to more shared services and speeding up the clearance process to get people to work faster.
  (Trusted Workforce 2.0 quarterly progress report - Performance.gov)
• The gap between federal and private sector salaries has shrunk by about 3%. The Federal Salary Council reports that over the last year, feds on the General Schedule earned an average of nearly 25% less than private sector employees in similar jobs. Last year, the federal-private wage gap was closer to 28%. The narrowing gap is largely due to the 5.2 percent raise feds got for 2024. For 2025, most federal employees are likely to see a 2% raise. It would cost an estimated $22 billion to bring General Schedule salaries in line with the private sector.
  (November 2024 report - Federal Salary Council)
• President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team are drawing up plans for a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Government efficiency panels under the Reagan and Clinton administrations saw room to cut hundreds of billions of dollars. But it’s not clear how much Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE may borrow from those playbooks. DOGE leaders Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are pointing to some conventional ideas for cutting government spending like replacing legacy IT systems. But they also support eliminating or drastically reducing the capacity of some federal agencies. DOGE may resemble the 1982 Grace Commission under the Reagan administration. The task force made thousands of recommendations to cut more than $400 billion in government spending.
  (Before Trump, government efficiency panels saw room to cut billions. DOGE envisions trillions - Federal News Network )
• The White House is asking Congress to pass nearly $100 billion in emergency disaster relief spending. The Biden administration’s disaster relief supplemental request includes $40 billion for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund. The White House is also seeking $24 billion for the Department of Agriculture $12 billion for Housing and Urban Development and $8 billion for the Transportation Department. And the request includes $2 billion to replenish the Small Business Administration’s disaster relief loan program. White House officials said the extra funding is needed to bolster the long-term recovery of communities reeling from an historic year for natural disasters.
  (Remarks by OMB director, FEMA administrator on disaster funding needs - White House)

        Learn how DLA, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service and the State Department are modernizing their contract and acquisition processes to make procurement an all-around better experience for everyone involved.

• A bipartisan bill to standardize mail-in ballots is one step closer to becoming law. The House passed the Vote By Mail Tracking Act. The bill requires the envelope of every mail-in ballot to include a Postal Service barcode and meet standards that allow USPS to run ballots through its sorting machines. The bill would also require all mail-in ballots to include an official election mail logo. The bill now heads to the Senate.
  (Bipartisan bill to standardize mail-in ballots closer to becoming law - House Press Gallery)
• The Army is focused on mission command data as it refines its data stewardship roles and responsibilities. Earlier this year, the Army issued a memo formalizing data management roles and responsibilities across the service. David Markowitz, the Army’s chief data and analytics officer, said while assigning data stewardship roles is intuitive in some areas, managing mission command data is less straightforward since it involves multiple stakeholders. “Mission command data of how you actually do C2 on the battlefield has no clear leader.” Army officials are now focused on clarifying responsibilities for the entire mission command data lifecycle management.
  (Army to focus on mission command data as it clarifies data stewardship roles - Federal News Network )
• DoD contracting officers are now required to consider relevant past performance of a small business's affiliate companies when evaluating their past performance. In updating the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement, the Defense Department is meeting the requirements of a provision, Section 865, of the fiscal 2024 defense policy bill. Small businesses can now include the past performance of their parent company or other subsidiaries that can be counted as relevant experience in their contract proposals. This final rule does not introduce any new solicitation provisions or contract clauses.
  (New rule allows small businesses to use affiliate performance in DoD contract bids - Federal Register)
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development didn't wait long to find a new chief information officer. Sairah Ijaz, the deputy CIO since March 2023 and acting CIO since June, assumed the top job earlier this month. Ijaz replaces Beth Niblock, who transitioned to a new role as a senior advisor for disaster management. HUD also transitioned the CIO role back to a career position from a political one. Ijaz said on a post on LinkedIn that she looks "forward to collaborating on innovative solutions, implementing forward-thinking strategies and enhancing our department’s security posture." Ijaz joined HUD in 2016 in the CFO's office and also spent eight years as an IT analyst at GAO.
  (Ijaz promoted to permanent CIO at HUD - LinkedIn)
• Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley will resign from his position at the end of the month. On Monday, O’Malley announced his plans to seek a nomination for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. O’Malley held the top position at SSA for just under a year. Before he departs the agency, he is expected to testify before the House Appropriations Committee this week on the state of SSA's budget.
  (O’Malley stepping down as SSA commissioner - Federal News Network)
• Vendors filed fewer bid protests last year. The number of bid protests contractors filed in fiscal 2024 was down by 11% as compared to the previous year. New data from the Government Accountability Office shows vendors protested just over 1,800 contracts last year, down from filing just over 2000 complaints in 2023. This is the second fewest protests filed in the last five years. GAO said the lower number of protests in 2024 is partly attributed to not seeing the same level of activity from NIH's CIO-SP4 procurement that brought in hundreds of protests in 2023. GAO said unreasonable technical evaluation remains the most common reason for them sustaining a protest.
  (2024 bid protest report to Congress - Government Accountability Office)

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