House passes bill to keep track of VA employees’ punishments

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, the House passes the Ensuring VA Employee Accountability Act to be one of the first bills the 115th Congress will consider.

• Congress wants the Veterans Affairs Department to keep track of its employees’ reprimands and punishments in their permanent records. The House passes the Ensuring VA Employee Accountability Act as one of the first bills the 115th Congress will consider. The bill died during the previous Congress but Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.) reintroduced it on the first day in session. (Congress.gov)

• The Veterans Affairs Department wants to move into a hybrid cloud computing set up. VA released a request for information last month asking vendors for input on how they would provide a variety of cloud computing services. VA is interested in moving from a private cloud, which currently runs in its data centers, to one where vendors provide a cloud management platform, a converged cloud infrastructure and managed services. VA also wants the hybrid cloud infrastructure to let its users do self-provisioning of resources and let IT administrators monitor and analyze trends. Responses to the RFI are due Jan. 20. (FedBizOpps)

• The House has reinstated an old rule to let lawmakers introduce an amendment to appropriations bills on the floor, which could cut agency spending, the number of federal employees at an agency, or an employee’s salary. Congress has used the Holman Rule off and on since 1876. The House last used it back in 1983. Lawmakers in the national capital region spoke out against it. The House voted on party lines and included Holman when it passed the rules package yesterday. (Federal News Radio)

• Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has revealed the Republican members of the Senate Commerce Committee for the 115th Congress. Some notable names to the committee: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), head of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis), and first-term Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.). (Senate Commerce Committee)

• Defense Department brass have said they’re seeing benefits from the so-called should-cost policy. A new report states almost half of major acquisition programs project a reduction in development prices thanks to should cost measures. The Pentagon is also seeing slower contract cost growth for major acquisition programs. Currently, 87 percent of major programs are following should cost policies. (Federal News Radio)

• The Defense Department plans to repay about $10 million to former National Guard soldiers who’d been told to give their reenlistment bonuses back Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the repayment plan. The Pentagon is dealing with more than 17,000 cases of improper bonus payments. DoD said its own lack of internal controls was mostly to blame. Over the next month, letters will go to about 15,000 former servicemembers, letting them know their debts are canceled. Collections will proceed against another one thousand servicemembers who didn’t meet bonus eligibility. (Federal News Radio)

• U.S. Cyber Command is preparing to hire 10 people to man its acquisition office. The command was given rapid acquisition authority by Congress last year. CYBERCOM is authorized to receive $75 million a year to rapidly procure cyber operations equipment and capabilities. The acquisition office will include an acquisition executive and a head of contracting. (Federal News Radio)

• The Thrift Savings Plan finished strong in 2016. The retirement funds saw positive returns in December across the board, and yearly numbers turned out high as well, despite a brief post-Brexit slump in June. The S fund saw the highest returns of the year at more than 16 percent, and the C fund wasn’t far behind at 12 percent. Meanwhile, the low-risk, low-return G Fund didn’t quite reach 2 percent in 2016. (Federal News Radio)

• The Office of Personnel Management has published federal pay tables for 2017. They cover everyone from a GS-1 at $18,500, to the vice president at $240,000. Senior executive service salaries range from $123,000 to $187,000 this year. GS-15 step 10 salaries top out at $135,000, the same as for Class 1, Step 14 Foreign Service. (Chief Human Capital Officers Council)

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