As the Army restructures its forces around the world, some new challenges are showing up on the horizon. The Army’s Maneuver Force will look at new strategies for the future at the Maneuver Warfighter Conference. Lt. Col. Andrew Hilmes is Chief of the Maneuver Center of Excellence Operations Division at Fort Benning, Ga.

The retirement backlog is shrinking at the Office of Personnel Management. Overtime is back thanks to some left-over money at the end of the fiscal year. Tammy Flanagan, senior benefits director at the National Institute of Transition Planning, says they’re getting ahead of the curve at the right time because OPM will likely see another surge at the beginning of 2014.

Some of the greatest treasures in the federal government are coming back from their summer vacations. $100 million worth of artwork and historic pieces go back on display Monday at the State Department. Every summer the reception rooms close down to clean and renovate the State Department’s collection of historic objects.

Civilian agency acquisition workers must now use one system to track how they are meeting their training requirements. The Federal Acquisition Institute Training Application System also will make it easier to find education opportunities across the government. Joe Jordan is the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. He tells executive editor Jason Miller how his new memo mandating these changes will consolidate and simplify civilian agency acquisition worker training.

Overtime hours at the Office of Personnel Management are taking a chunk out of the retirement case backlog there. OPM’s fiscal-year-end review uncovered money the agency is putting toward cutting the backlog.

The conflict in Syria is already spreading to the United States through the cyber domain. The Syrian Electronic Army hacked the Marine Corps recruiting website to try and persuade the military to hold off a military strike against the country.

Agencies are wrapping up fiscal 2013 and gearing up for fiscal 2014. But whether or not sequestration will continue is still a great unknown. Peter Spencer, deputy commissioner for budget, finance and management at the Social Security Administration, tells Federal News Radio’s Sean McCalley the possibility of sequestration extending into fiscal 2014 is a daunting scenario.