Congress

  • The Postal Service lost $5.2 billion in the third quarter of this year, bringing its year-to-date tally of red ink to $11.6 billion for the first nine months of 2012. The USPS chief financial officer said the organization's liquid assets are running perilously low. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe faults an "inflexible" business model and urged action by Congress.

    August 10, 2012
  • Federal chief human capital officers should develop a consistent message about the effects of budget cuts on human resources, said CHCO Council Executive Director Kathryn Medina. The goal is to explain the tangible effects of spending reductions on core agency missions.

    August 10, 2012
  • The White House issued the updated Circular A-11 guidance for the 2014 budget development. The performance management section includes some of the most significant changes. In an exclusive interview with Federal News Radio, OMB's Shelley Metzenbaum said agencies have a multi-year plan to improve programs and accountability.

    August 08, 2012
  • 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