Agency Oversight

Bloomberg Government’s report on the 200 largest federal contractors contains few surprises, but reveals a few trends you might not be aware of.

Somebody has to organize all of the considerations and best practices for reopening agencies — the Government Accountability Office.

The firings and shufflings of inspectors general that have occurred recently in the Trump administration have worried whistleblower advocates.

Members of Congress seized on the report’s findings as a wake-up call about gaps in the oversight of emergency pandemic spending and pointed to better data-sharing as a way to prevent the problem.

The General Services Administration awarded proof-of-concepts to Amazon Business, Overstock.com and Fischer Scientific on Friday to provide agencies access to their commercial e-commerce platforms for purchases below the micro-purchase threshold of $10,000.

The new forecast predicts the Postal Service can weather the coronavirus pandemic better than what the agency first told congressional committees in April. Those forecasts predicted USPS would run out of cash anytime between this month and September.

The IRS moved and the Treasury Department rushed to get millions of payments out to the public in the week and months after Congress passed the CARES Act, but in doing so sent more than a million payments to people who have died.

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the CIA’s chief watchdog is pledging independence, saying he will perform his role “in an unbiased and impartial manner, free of undue or inappropriate influences” by Trump or anyone else.

A defense authorization bill amendment proposal would require recipients of Defense Department grants to publicly disclose how they spend the money.

GSA’s inspector general found the government’s landlord would have seen even better results reducing lease extensions and holdovers if not for several administrative hurdles between PBS and its tenant agencies.

The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) is caught between Congress and the administration’s requirements when it comes to the amount of data and the source of the information to collect under the $2 trillion CARES Act.

The Navy has upheld the firing of the aircraft carrier captain who urged faster action to protect his crew from a coronavirus outbreak

Agency inspectors general working under the assumption that the president can remove them for any reason could just as easily stick to routine audits of contracts and programs, rather than delve into controversial subjects.

Federal employees working from home largely report being more productive than when they go into the office, and while large-scale oversight efforts from the Government Accountability Office have only just started, GAO has acknowledged that it’s also seeing improvements from its own employees.