A $200 million program at the U.S. Agency for International Development is supposed to improve security and help stabilize the Afghan government. But USAID has spent $47 million of the money and so far it can’t show progress toward either of the mission goals.

The idea that people are your agency’s most important resource is nothing new. So cutting training and travel costs when budgets get tight seems counterintuitive. Jeff Neal, the senior vice president of ICF International and former chief human capital officer of the Homeland Security Department, has a list of top four ways to maintain your agency’s T and T budget.

Conferences across the federal space are shrinking budgets and sequestration are pushing attendance numbers down. Federal News Radio Senior Correspondent Mike Causey is just back from the Federal Dispute Resolution conference in Orlando, and he says it was much smaller than usual.

The retirement backlog at the Office of Personnel Management isn’t getting worse, but it isn’t getting any better either. OPM is pushing back their timeline to deal with the retirement backlog. Ken Zawodny, OPM’s associate director for retirement services, says the change in plans is because of two things.

Chemical facilities are attractive targets for terrorists. The Homeland Security Department oversees safety regulations for high-risk facilities. But how DHS identifies risk is undermining its mission.

A potential new federal hiring target for disabled employees could help them find more job opportunities with contracting companies. The new rule would affect more than 170,000 vendors, and some are formally protesting the idea.

The Interior Department’s $1 billion cloud computing hosting contract is open for business. The Court of Federal Claims rules against a bid protest by CenturyLink.

Filling the leadership vacuum at the Homeland Security Department won’t be easy, but maybe that’s a good challenge for the department. Before it starts plugging holes, DHS has an opportunity to consider what type of leaders it really needs.