Congress

  • The payroll tax cut deal made earlier this year included provisions to increase new federal employees' retirement contributions. We've posted a chart detailing how much employees and agencies will contribute.

    August 07, 2012
  • Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) believes a VA contracting program that requires service-disabled vets control 100 percent of their company's decision-making to qualify is too onerous. And he wants to ease the requirements.

    August 07, 2012
  • Too often Congress is left "in the dark" when it comes to inspector general investigations of agency misconduct, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote in a letter to 73 inspectors general. Issa said he wanted to "establish an understanding between Congress and the IG community" for more rapid reporting of agency misdeeds uncovered by their offices. In his letter, Issa asked the inspectors for more information about their reporting practices to Congress and whether any serious problems were ever not shared with lawmakers.

    August 06, 2012
  • A memo by a government watchdog group finds the General Services Administration's ethics program received high marks in a November 2010 study from the Office of Government Ethics. The report was issued shortly after GSA threw the lavish Las Vegas conference that has led to the firings of top officials and the resignation of Administrator Martha Johnson and a slew of congressional hearings.

    August 06, 2012
  • Congress has delayed the online financial disclosure requirement of the STOCK Act for a month. But already this provision that affects 28,000 senior members of the executive branch is deterring high-level feds from joining the ranks of senior executives, according to the Senior Executives Association.

    August 06, 2012
  • August is hot in DC, Atlanta, Houston, St. Louis and Cincinnati and lots of other places too. But those of us inside the Beltway get a break you don't...that's because for the next month...until after Labor Day, tens of thousands of the people who at times make this such a toxic town are away — back with the folks who sent them here in the first place.

    August 06, 2012
  • The rule, aimed at preventing fraud in the VA service-disabled veteran-owned small business program, requires that veterans control 100 percent of company decisions, even if they maintain just partial ownership. VA is taking suggestions for changing its rules.

    August 03, 2012
  • Homeland security has improved, but the reforms mean DHS reports to 108 oversight committees and subcommittees, leading to wasted hours at hearing after hearing.

    August 02, 2012
  • Congress has delayed by a month parts of an insider-trading law that would have required federal employees to post financial-disclosure forms online Aug. 31. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced the measure Thursday, where it was quickly adopted by both chambers of Congress. The vote came shortly before the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Greenbelt, Md., on behalf of 28,0000 employees to block implementation of the STOCK Act.

    August 02, 2012
  • A new Government Accountability Office report found that three main actors in contingency contracting — the Defense and State Departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development — will likely only implement a fraction of the recommendations set out by the Commission on Wartime Contracting. The agencies have either determined their existing policies already address the commission's concerns or they disagreed with the recommendation in the first place, GAO found.

    August 02, 2012
  • BGov's Kevin Brancato explains how tight budgets are reversing a trend from best-value to best- price in government contracting. And the GAO looks at the effectiveness of food recalls.

    August 02, 2012
  • Agencies should not change their spending plans for this year or next, but need to start assessing which programs would be impacted by automatic sequestration cuts if Congress doesn't cancel them, OMB acting Director Jeff Zients told Congress Wednesday.

    August 02, 2012
  • House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee lawmakers were expected to ask the agency's inspector general to look into the 14th Annual SmartPay conference happening this week in Nashville. GSA says all conferences must go through a multi-step approval process, including those already in the planning stages for 2012 and beyond.

    August 02, 2012
  • The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general partnered with both Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel to investigate an increasing number of cases. Leaders of all three reported to a House subcommittee hearing that the collaboration has benefited the investigation process.

    August 02, 2012