Tuesday federal headlines – October 27, 2015

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive and In Depth radio shows.

• The government is making slow progress in hiring and retaining Hispanic employees, who are the most underrepresented group in the federal workforce. Overall, 8.4 percent of feds in fiscal 2014 were Hispanic. That’s 0.10 percent more than the year before. Hispanics made greater strides in the Senior Executive Service.  Now 5.5 percent of the SES is Hispanic, that’s up from 3.5 percent. Office of Personnel Management Director Beth Cobert said several things are in the works that will boost diversity. Those include a revamped USAJobs website, a new social media push, and closer consultation with agencies on job announcements. (OPM)

• The American Federation of Government Employees have more members now than ever before. The union has reached 300,000 active members — this after 24 consecutive years of membership growth. National President J. David Cox Sr. called it a remarkable achievement. (AFGE)

• The Export-Import Bank is an agency that could find itself heading back to work soon. Supporters in the House used what’s called a discharge petition to force a vote on whether or not to extend the bank’s charter. A vote on the agency’s fate is likely to happen today. They would still need a vote in the Senate, however, to become full reinstated. (Govtrack)

• A federal appeals court says once again the Defense Department did not break the law furloughing employees during sequestration in 2013. Defense employees working at Army posts in Pennsylvania and News York argued sequestration cuts should not have affected self-supporting entities. Earlier this month, the appeals court reached a similar decision against Navy employees who felt they should not have been furloughed. (U.S. Court of Appeals)

• The Department of Homeland Security is implementing a technical assessment process next month in hopes of improving acquisitions over their lifecycles. The review process will look at major acquisition programs’ technical maturity and will review program requirements. Programs will be reviewed four times within the acquisition process. The assessment is part of the Unity of Effort Initiative created by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. The initiative creates reforms similar to the way the Defense Department runs its acquisition process. (Federal News Radio)

• House Speaker John Boehner wants to get one last deal done before he leaves Congress this week. The White HOuse and lawmakers are negotiating a two-year budget deal that would designate some defense spending as the Overseas Contingency Operations funds, and boost some civilian agency spending. It would also suspend the current debt limit through March 2017. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) told a group of federal employees he doesn’t think the government will shut down on Dec. 11. (Federal News Radio)

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