Budget
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Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe says his number one priority is seeing legislation passed in the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress that will help the U.S. Postal Service get out of debt. In an exclusive interview with Federal News Radio, Donahoe details the latest on the agency's financial situation, buyouts, the consolidation of mail processing centers, and its plan to cut window hours at half of its post offices across the country.
November 01, 2012 -
Agencies have identified 98 opportunities where they can save real money by consolidating IT systems or by implementing better buying processes. In an exclusive interview, federal CIO Steven VanRoekel said most fall in the commodity IT areas of email, servers and other areas where agencies tend to spend a lot of money for IT.
October 29, 2012 -
Pentagon makes one more plea for a resolution to sequestration. A regular budget, an annual authorization bill and a resolution to the fight over cybersecurity laws would be helpful as well.
October 26, 2012 -
An inspector general report found that while the Energy Department "moved swiftly" to reduce travel spending by its employees following a White House directive, it omitted a sizable chunk of its workforce from those efforts: contractors. The IG recommended the agency take steps to reduce contractors' foreign travel spending. Because contractors greatly outnumber federal employees at DoE and make up the lion's share of foreign travel, they should be included in cost-reduction efforts, the IG said.
October 24, 2012 -
John Montague talks about life insurance and Sean Reilly discuses the U.S. Postal Service's finances and more this week on Your Turn.
October 24, 2012 -
During Monday night's debate, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney discussed their different approaches to cutting the budget, particularly in the area of military spending. Romney criticized the Obama administration for proposing cuts to military spending, particularly through sequestration. Obama countered sequestration would not happen, and he said he would maintain military spending based on the needs of the Defense Department.
October 23, 2012 -
In wonkier parts of the Washington area, the talk of the town is about fiscal cliffs and sequestration followed by sex and the Redskins, not necessarily in that order. But beyond the Beltway, folks seem to have a firmer grip on what's important, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.
October 23, 2012 -
Employees have until Nov. 9 to apply for a Voluntary Incentive Separation Payments (VSIP) and they must leave the agency by Dec. 31. Employees have until Nov. 30, 2013, to apply for a Voluntary Early Retirement Authority.
October 22, 2012 -
What does the curse of the Mayan calendar, the threat of sequestration and the always jittery stock market have to do with your TSP account balance? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. Dust off your crystal ball and buckle up, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.
October 22, 2012 -
Steve Bauer from the Federal Employees Education and Assistance Fund, and Joan Melanson from Long Term Care Partners will talk about the services offered by their organizations. October 19, 2012
October 20, 2012 -
The U.S. Postal Service hit its $15 billion borrowing limit for the first time late last month, the agency confirmed. The Wall Street Journal first reported earlier this week that the USPS reached the limit on the amount of money it can borrow from the Treasury Department and is now dependent solely on its own revenue to sustain operations.
October 18, 2012 -
The Defense Information Systems Agency sees itself as a safety valve for increasing pressure on military services' IT budgets. At a meeting of CIOs last week, DISA told the military services they could offload commodity IT services to their data centers.
October 17, 2012 -
A new Federal News Radio survey of federal chief information officers shows that budget cuts are among their biggest concerns. Senior technology managers also said among the biggest benefits they are seeing from moving systems to the cloud is cost savings. DoD deputy CIO Rob Carey said the Pentagon is setting certain changes in motion as part of its move to the cloud to help deal with an assortment of challenges.
October 17, 2012 -
Sen. Tom Coburn's report on government waste details spending on 100 government projects, programs and initiatives at a cost of $18 billion. The report also points to potentially systemic issues affecting federal management, such as the lack of strategic sourcing in federal acquisition and the General Services Administration's outdated contract schedules.
October 16, 2012 -
Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Darrel Issa (R-Calif.), wrote to the heads of 10 defense companies seeking information about the legal justification for not issuing notices of potential layoffs due to the across-the-board defense cuts set to go into effect Jan. 2. If contractors don't issue the notices and contracts are, in fact, terminated or modified, then agencies will pick up the contract-termination and employee compensation costs, the Office of Management and Budget stated in guidance issued late last month. But Republican lawmakers have argued the White House doesn't have the legal authority to ask companies to not comply with the law.
October 12, 2012