Workforce

  • Just a few years ago, Arlington National Cemetery was mired in a management scandal of misspent funds, poorly documented graves and lack of maintenance. A short time later, with the Army having taken control, the cemetery received glowing reports from the inspector general. Today, the cemetery is about to undertake a major expansion and superintendent Kate Kelley joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss the possible changes.

    July 17, 2017
  • The Veterans Affairs Department spends too much money on bricks and mortar and not enough on its own doctors and nurses, former VA Secretary Anthony Principi told Congress. Some lawmakers are once again calling for a full review of VA capital assets, which span encompass more than 6,000 owned buildings and 1,500 leased facilities and span more than 170 million square feet.

    July 14, 2017
  • The Army's Office of Energy Initiatives is the service's central hub for managing the financing and planning for "utility scale" renewable and alternative energy projects. Michael McGhee, OEI's executive director, talks with Jared Serbu about some of the major projects in the pipeline, and the Army's desire to use the power they generate to make its bases energy-independent.

    July 14, 2017
  • The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is preparing reductions in force (RIFs) to employees at three offices at the agency. An NRC spokesman said the agency is looking at alternatives to RIFs, but it sent an initial 120-day notice to the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents many NRC employees.

    July 13, 2017
  • How does an agency improve customer experience while simultaneously dealing with a shrinking budget, a smaller workforce and maybe even a hiring freeze?

    July 13, 2017
  • Officials in two states and the District of Columbia are scratching their heads over how the new FBI headquarters project, after 10 years of planning, could fall through. But construction officials at the General Services Administration felt they had no other choice once Congress failed to come through with enough money to proceed. Former GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini joins Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss the long-term implications.

    July 13, 2017
  • Over the past five years, the Army has been busily building renewable power facilities on its bases in order to reach an overall goal of 1 gigawatt of renewable energy by 2025. But now, the Army is putting more of an emphasis on using that energy to make its bases entirely self-sufficient from the public electric grid, so they can continue to function in the event of an outage. Michael McGhee, executive director of the Army Office of Energy Initiatives, talked with Federal News Radio’s Jared Serbu on Federal Drive with Tom Temin about the technologies the Army’s pursuing to make that a reality.

    July 13, 2017
  • The Trump administration wants to increase early retirement and separation incentives from a cap of $25,000 to $40,000 for all civilian federal employees. It also wants to create a governmentwide industry exchange program, which would let federal employees temporary work in a private corporation or association for no more than two years. The administration submitted both proposals to Congress to be included in the National Defense Authorization Act.

    July 12, 2017
  • While other federal agencies were consolidating and closing branch offices a few years back, the Patent and Trademark Office expanded. It's first-ever branch outside of Washington opened in 2012, a year after Congress authorized the move. Dr. Christal Sheppard, USPTO Midwest regional director, tells Federal Drive with Tom Temin the Detroit office is celebrating five years of operation.

    July 12, 2017
  • The FBI joins a growing list of agencies that thought they were going to escape crumbling, obsolete buildings. A deal to trade its downtown headquarters to a developer and move to Maryland or Virginia is dead for now. Chris Lu knows what that feels like. As former deputy secretary of Labor, he was involved in a potential swap of the aging Perkins Building that also fell through. He shares his insight on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

    July 12, 2017
  • After the collapse of the FBI headquarters project, will some sort of sanity or regulation ever come to federal construction?

    July 12, 2017
  • Senators have two very different proposals to redesign the Veterans Choice Program. Both pieces of legislation represent very different ideologies and sides of a debate that Congress, the Veterans Affairs Department, veterans service organizations and federal employee groups have been having for the past three years.

    July 11, 2017
  • The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently saw one of its longtime employees off into retirement. Steve Lavie, had a long career working on a nuclear submarine in the Navy then at nuclear power plants on the East Coast and finally at the NRC. But when he enlisted in the Navy, he was just a few credits shy of receiving his college degree. His NRC colleagues saw to it that Lavie still had a chance to experience a college commencement, before his retirement this summer. Lavie tells his story to Federal News Radio's Nicole Ogrysko on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

    July 11, 2017
  • The government abandoned its current plan to replace the FBI's Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters, leaving employees in the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building for the foreseeable future.

    July 11, 2017