Budget

  • The Government Accountability Office looked at two initiatives that are supposed to help get information technology spending under control. GAO found that both initiatives are coming up short.

    November 12, 2013
  • Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, took to the Senate floor this week calling on House-Senate budget negotiators to look at replacing the across-the-board sequestration cuts for at least two years.

    November 08, 2013
  • A coalition of more than two dozen federal-employee unions and advocacy groups is calling on budget negotiators to come up with a way to undo the across-the-board sequestration budget cuts that are poised to slash agency spending by billions more this year. But following three years of a pay freeze and the recent 16-day government shutdown, the groups are equally adamant that changes to federal employees' pay and benefits should be off the table.

    November 08, 2013
  • The 16-day government shutdown forced federal employees to miss millions of days of work, agencies to forego millions of dollars in revenue and programs to grind to a halt. In a new report, the Office of Management and Budget estimates that federal workers missed 6.6 million days of work and the shutdown cost more than $2.5 billion in pay and benefits for employees, most of whom didn't work.

    November 07, 2013
  • In part two of our Agency of the Month interview with Peter Spencer, deputy commissioner for Budget, Finance, Quality and Management at the Social Security Administration, Spencer says lessons learned in 2013 will help the agency moving forward in 2014 and beyond.

    November 07, 2013
  • Former top staffers say current members of Congress no longer have a stake in any particular appropriation or authorization bill making its way through the legislative gauntlet — one reason why DoD and the rest of government continue to stumble from one continuing resolution to the next.

    November 07, 2013
  • On this week's Agency of the Month show, Peter Spencer discusses how budget uncertainty is negatively impacting the agency.

    November 01, 2013
  • When House and Senate lawmakers kicked off formal budget negotiations this week for the first time since the government shutdown ended, both Republicans and Democrats said replacing sequestration, the blunt across-the-board budget cuts, with an alternative plan would be a top priority. The sticking point remains how to pay for it. Federal-employee unions and advocacy groups fear federal pay and benefits will once again be on the table.

    October 31, 2013
  • CBS MoneyWatch columnist Allan Roth will share investment strategies for the TSP, and Federal Times senior writer Sean Reilly will discuss what's ahead for federal workers and retirees. October 30, 2013

    October 30, 2013
  • Attorneys Thomas Barletta and Paul Hurst from Steptoe and Johnson LLP will discuss the Civil False Claims Act, and what contractors can do to make sure they are delivering the services that the government is paying them to deliver. October 29, 2013

    October 29, 2013
  • For the first time since the government shutdown ended two weeks ago, House and Senate lawmakers are sitting down at the table to negotiate about the fiscal 2014 budget. At the top of the agenda will be what to do about the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration that have ensnared what remained of the traditional budget process this year. However, budget experts and insiders say sequestration is likely to stick around -- at least in some form -- and about the best agencies can hope for is a small-bore deal that grants them some greater flexibility in implementing the cuts, these experts said.

    October 29, 2013
  • On this week's Capital Impact show, Bloomberg Government analysts will examine the impact of the 340B Drug program on so-called "safety-net" hospitals, and how the government shutdown has affected the economy. October 24, 2013

    October 24, 2013
  • Financial planner Arthur Stein will discuss what you can do to protect your assets in the event of another government shutdown, and Sean Reilly will talk about the possibility of another shutdown, and what's ahead for feds. October 23, 2013

    October 23, 2013
  • Army officials say the service is facing uncertainty times after weathering a series of continuing resolutions, sequestration and a partial government shutdown. Meanwhile, a new round of automatic budget cuts may be on the horizon if Congress doesn't pass a new budget come January.

    October 22, 2013
  • Eighty-three percent of respondents to a Federal News Radio online poll said morale at their workplace is now worse than before the shutdown. Another 5 percent of respondents said they didn't feel personally affected but the morale of their co-workers had worsened. Federal workforce experts and employees, themselves, say the the two-week government shutdown has opened up a rift of resentment between groups of federal employees which, in part, is fueling the morale drain.

    October 22, 2013