In Depth interviews – August 7

This is the In Depth show blog. Here you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources.

Doug Criscitello — Managing Director, Grant Thornton

Your agency’s Chief Financial Officer is up to his elbows in work right now. Doug Criscitello knows how that feels. He was CFO at Housing and Urban Development, and talks about what his peers are dealing with in government today. Criscitello provides analysis on how the Continuing Resolution would allow CFO’s to plan until March and what their strategy could be to deal with an uncertain budgetary future.

You can read the results of a recent CFO survey from Grant Thornton here.

Tom Shoop — Editor in Chief at Government Executive

The tale of Zero Pay, a $204,000 pension and NASA’s newest star. Sometimes, government can churn out some really interesting stories. And Tom Shoop, the editor of GovExec, talks about this trio of tales from the past week.

NASA’s ‘Mohawk Guy’ draws ‘Curiosity’ of his own” (related story)

You can read more from GovExec on pensions here and the one federal job that isn’t overpaid here.

David Hendel — Partner, Husch Blackwell

The Postal Service’s default may hurt the agency’s contractors…indirectly. Defaulting on the payment will not disrupt mail delivery, or prevent USPS and suppliers from being paid , the Postal Service has said. Hendel tells Francis Rose that the default sends a bad message to vendors about the Post Service’s financial viability. He believes the Post Office will pay its vendors but Congress must act to improve the service’s finances.

Read Hendel’s recent blog post about the default and what it means for contractors here here.

Post office nears historic default on $5B payment (related story)

Michael R. Phillips, — Acting Principal Deputy Inspector General, Tax Administration

Identity thieves may have Five billion dollars in improper payments may have gone to ID thieves in the past year. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration finds the Internal Revenue Service is detecting far fewer fraudulent tax returns than the crooks are filing. Michael Phillips is Acting Principal Deputy Inspector General for Tax Administration explains why the IRS struggles to prevent sending tax refunds to fraudulent taxpayers.

Read the Treasury’s full report here.

IRS missing billions in ID theft (related story)

David Wise — Director of Physical Infrastructure Issues, GAO

The federal government is having a hard time collecting rent. The General Services Administration is responsible for overseeing the government’s real estate portfolio and covers its cost from rent paid into the Federal Building Fund. But the Government Accountability Office says the fund is having a hard time keeping up with costs. Wise explains the GAO’s recommendations.

Read highlights or the full report here.

Federal Pay: Misteakes Wuz Made

Jeff Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Ashton Carter, deputy secretary of the Defense Department, testified before the House Armed Services Committee that sequestration would be devastating, but agencies are now developing fallback plans in case doomsday comes. They said however it’s up to Congress to avert disaster. Under the Budget Control Act, the government would have to reduce spending by $1.2 trillion over 10 years. In Depth played highlights on the show today and we’ve posted the full hearing here.

OMB, DoD remain mum on sequestration’s impact on specific programs (related story)

Panetta throws in the towel on 2013 base closures

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