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Agency Oversight
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Charles Edwards, the Homeland Security Department's deputy inspector general and acting IG, calls recent allegations of nepotism and improper travel "baseless" and says he's convinced a Senate subcommittee investigation will clear his name. Speaking exclusively to the Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp, Edwards said he has provided complete documentation to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight.
July 23, 2013 -
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In responding to a list of wartime contracting changes Congress ordered last year, agencies cited many advances, but acknowledge challenges remain. Recent audits show major problems in how the Defense and State departments, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, continue to spend billions of dollars in Afghanistan.
July 18, 2013 -
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In the past few weeks, competing draft proposals have been circulating on Capitol Hill. But at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday, Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) took a step toward compromise. Issa agreed to make changes to his draft plan, including adopting several measures proposed by Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) in postal reform legislation he separately introduced Wednesday.
July 17, 2013 -
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The Office of Personnel Management's proposed changes to the Combined Federal Campaign, the annual federal fundraising drive, are getting a frosty reception from local charities. OPM wants to do away with the local volunteer coordinating committees and put in place a set of more centralized regional committees established by OPM. It also wants to require charities to pay an application fee and eliminate cash and check donations in favor of electronic donations. However, some charities say the proposed changes would likely lead to fewer charities joining the program -- and fewer total donations.
July 10, 2013 -
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The Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration spent almost $3 million to remediate a cyber attack that really didn't happen. Commerce's inspector general found the attack infected only two outgoing email servers and not more than half of EDA's systems. Two cybersecurity experts say other agencies can learn from EDA's year-long unnecessary and expensive recovery.
July 08, 2013 -
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A recent report from the Office of Inspector General found a State Department bureau paid $630,000 to boost its number of Facebook friends.
July 03, 2013 -
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The Energy Department's Office of Environmental Management (EM) faced scrutiny in a hearing Thursday that questioned EM's contract management. DOE has been on the GAO's High Risk List for contract management since 1990.
July 01, 2013 -
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The law, which goes into effect today, expands reprisal protections to subcontractors and lets contractor employees report wrongdoing to supervisors within their own companies. Previously, contractors would have to go to government agencies or Congress to report waste, fraud and abuse.
July 01, 2013 -
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Patrick McFarland, the inspector general of the Office of Personnel Management, confirmed to a Senate subcommittee Thursday that his office has been investigating USIS, the government's largest contractor for background-investigation services, since late 2011. He said at least 18 security clearance investigators have been convicted of falsifying investigations since 2007. McFarland said there may be "considerably more" fraud that hasn't been uncovered due to "alarmingly insufficient oversight" of the security-clearance process.
June 20, 2013 -
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A new commission, proposed by David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general, would recommend ways to streamline government by removing duplication and extraneous spending from government agencies. Federal-employee unions criticized the proposal and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee lawmakers expressed skepticism that such a proposal could gain congressional approval.
June 18, 2013 -
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President Barack Obama's pick to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) pledged to clear up delays in the regulatory process if confirmed by the Senate. Appearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday, Howard Shelanski said improving the timeliness of OIRA's work -- which has come in for criticism from Republican lawmakers and transparency groups, alike -- is among his top priorities.
June 12, 2013 -
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The Veterans Affairs Department has been compromised by at least eight different nation state organizations that stole data from its systems, House lawmakers and other experts say. VA officials say there always are risks, but their computer security is better than ever before.
June 05, 2013 -
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The Internal Revenue Service held 225 employee conferences between 2010 and 2012, at a total cost of $49 million, according to a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The report also revealed the embattled agency used funding originally slated to hire front-line employees to foot most of the bill for a $4.1 million conference held in Anaheim, Calif., in 2010.
June 04, 2013 -
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The Pentagon will begin tracking how much time its acquisition managers spend performing and responding to oversight in an effort to remove "non-value-added" processes from the procurement system.
May 28, 2013
