The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

In today’s Top Federal Headlines, OPM releases a new calculator to help agency human resources, payroll, finance and shared services offices send out back pay to their employees.

• The Census Bureau will develop a new customer experience platform for the 2020 population count. Census hired General Dynamics IT under a five-year, $430 million contract to develop, test, train and integrate the new platform. Under the contract, GD-IT will provide multi-channel assistance to respondents completing the web-based 2020 Census questionnaire or to those who have questions about the 2020 Census process itself. The award comes as Census is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week about its 2020 planning efforts. (General Dynamics)

• Agencies have a new tool to help them calculate back pay interest for federal employees. The Office of Personnel Management released the calculator to help agency human resources, payroll, finance and shared services offices send out back pay to their employees. The tool also lets agencies save and edit back pay cases and print out a summary. (CHCO Council)

• Local Democratic congressmen urge the Office of Personnel Management to give federal employees more to sign up for long-term care insurance. The deadline is Friday. An OPM spokesman said it has no plans to extend open season because a delay could drive up rates. They already rose 83 percent this year. (Federal News Radio)

• The House on a voice vote cleared a bill to establish a new federal job specialty program management. A similar bill already passed in the Senate. It had bipartisan support in both chambers. The bill would require the Office of Management and Budget to create a council of program managers. And it would require agencies to name program management improvement officers.

• The White House claims it’s cut the government’s buildings footprint by 25 million square feet in five years. Controller David Mader tells the House oversight committee that’s the equivalent of three Pengatons. He said the reductions have yielded $300 million in rent savings. He asks Congress to support a new round of cuts. (Federal News Radio)

• The State Department wants to raise its fee for new passports by $10. It now stands at $25. The new fee would apply to first-time passport applicants and people who have to apply in person. That includes minors under 16. State is accepting comments on the fee hike through Nov. 18. (State Department)

• NASA is looking for some outside help with its goal of putting a human on Mars. U.S. citizens, universities, organizations and businesses are invited to submit white papers on a variety of challenges facing NASA’s Journey to Mars effort. This includes life support systems in space, astronaut crew health and radiation protection.

• The National Institute of Standards and Technology wants to help federal agencies with their inboxes. NIST released a Trustworthy Email paper that gives recommendations and guidelines for agency information security specialists and enterprise email administrators. The paper includes advice on how to avoid disclosing the contents of an email to the wrong person and protecting against email that hackers can use to access a computer. (NIST)

• The Senate is set to consider a bill to shield Olympic and Paralympic athletes from paying taxes on their medals. Rep. Bob Dold’s (R-Ill.) United States Appreciation for Olympians and Paralympians Act would exclude any prizes or awards won at the games from being taxed by the IRS. Medal winners can earn as much as $25,000 in cash prizes, while the medals themselves are worth several hundred dollars. The bill passed the full House last week.

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