Congress’ budget agreement provides some relief for sequestration at federal agencies. But the threat isn’t completely gone. Todd Harrison, senior fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has been looking over the budget deal to see how it will affect the Defense Department.

The deal to end the budget showdown and keep the government operating for almost two years includes a lot of things that one political party or the other doesn’t like. But it doesn’t include much for federal employees to hate.

The chained CPI, higher contributions to your pension and nother pay freeze — none of them made it into the final budget deal. Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says you and your federal colleagues didn’t just dodge a benefits bullet. You dodged a cannonball.

A big misunderstanding could be wasting time and money at the Department of Veterans Affairs. It all stems from the VA’s Center for Verification and Evaluation. They are responsible for verifying the status of Veteran-Owned Small Businesses.

The new budget deal in front of Congress won’t affect current federal employees too much. It will have a big impact on future employees, though, which could create a permanent culture change at your agency.

The new budget deal would ease up on sequestration cuts to the Defense Department in 2014. But the Air Force tells its program managers they shouldn’t expect to see a nickel’s worth of relief to their acquisition programs.

Reverse auctions are off for the second time in the last two years at the Veterans Affairs Department. Congress is concerned agencies are getting ripped off under this approach.