New avenue for federal agencies to link up with college grads

• The Office of Management and Budget is pushing back against a new report from the Government Accountability Office about how it manages cross-agency performance goals. OMB’s Deputy Director for Management Jason Miller disagrees with four of five GAO recommendations, saying the administration’s Presidential Management Agenda is meeting the goals of the Government Performance and Results Management Act. Miller particularly disagrees with GAO’s recommendation to have separate goals for IT management and real property management. He said these areas are embedded into the customer experience portion of the PMA. (Actions Needed to Improve Transparency of Cross-Agency Priority Goals – Government Accountability Office)

• New ideas to bring more equity and accessibility to federal procurement. From broadening the geographic distribution of contracts awarded to improving the training of government procurement officers to limiting the time period and criteria for legal challenges, these are among the eight ideas to reform the federal acquisition process. The Brookings Institution offers up suggestions as some of the ways to make it easier for small and minority-owned businesses to work for the government. The Small Business Association found only 1.6% of all federal contract dollars went to companies owned by African-Americans in fiscal 2022, while only about 1.8% of all federal contract dollars went to firms owned by Latinos. (Reforming federal procurement and acquisitions policies – Brookings Institution)

• To fix federal retirement services, advocacy groups say the Office of Personnel Management needs more funding. The National Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE)  Association is calling for a bigger budget for modernization and oversight of OPM’s Retirement Services (RS) division. NARFE told bicameral lawmakers that OPM’s budget request to hire 91 new retirement processing employees would help the agency reduce backlogs and better serve federal retirees. NARFE is also urging congressional appropriations leaders to fund a 5.2% average federal pay raise for 2024. (Letter requesting support for OPM’s Retirement Services division and a federal employee pay raise – National Active and Retired Federal Employees)

• One good government group has a new initiative trying to bridge the gap between agencies and federal job applicants. The Federal Advisor Certificate Program is meant to help college and university staff members learn how to connect early-career job seekers to open federal positions. The Partnership for Public Service said participants will take part in a seven-week program to understand how to help college students and graduates apply for openings on USAJobs. Partnership officials said they hope the program will remove some of job applicants’ frustrations with the federal hiring process. (A new program to connect students with careers in government – Partnership for Public Service)

• House Republicans want regular spending updates on the Commerce Department’s landmark semiconductor program. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and colleagues made that request to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo this week. They want monthly reports on how Commerce is distributing funding under the $50 billion CHIPS and Science Act. The bill includes $39 billion for semiconductor manufacturing incentives. The lawmakers are requesting the first update from the Commerce Department by April 18. (E&C Republicans Demand Accountability from Biden Admin over CHIPS Act Spending – House Energy and Commerce Committee)

• House and Senate lawmakers are focused on expanding how survivors of military sexual trauma get care and benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Service Members and Veterans Empowerment and Support Act would require the VA to consider non-Department of Defense evidence sources when reviewing MST claims, and would expand this standard to all mental health conditions related to MST. The bill would also ensure all former Guard and Reserve members can receive MST-related care and counseling from VA. Senators Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced the bill, along with Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine). (Tester, Murkowski, Pingree Lead Bipartisan Push to Support Survivors of Military Sexual Trauma – Senate Veterans Affairs Committee)

• A top Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee is looking for less turnover for a top VA health care job. Ranking Member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Frank Mrvan (D-Ind.) introduces the VHA Leadership Transformation Act. The bill would grant a five-year term for VA’s Undersecretary for Health. The current officeholder, Shereef Elnahal, was confirmed by the Senate last summer. He’s the first permanent Undersecretary for Health since January 2017. Six previous individuals were either “acting as” or “performing the delegable duties” of the Under Secretary for Health. (VHA Leadership Transformation Act – Congress.gov)

• The Air Force will open a new zero trust functional management office within its Air Combat Command. Officials said it will centralize a wide range of capabilities and activities related to IT governance. The new office is part of a larger plan to expand zero trust strategies as the Air Force seeks to be fully compliant with zero trust standards by 2027. (DoD Zero Trust Symposium – Defense Acquisition University)

• Space Force will begin using an integrated operations network, or “ION” for its high performance computing needs. ION is designed to deliver network services to guardians and it will work at every classification level. It has high bandwidth and low latency so it can be used for artificial intelligence and data processing. Space Force Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Lisa Costa said  ION will provide a dynamic, cloud-based software-defined mission network that integrates the Space Force across all of its verticals. It will also be agnostic in that it will operate with other systems. (2nd Annual Spacepower Security Forum – Mitchell Institute)

• The lead agency for security clearance investigations is consolidating its software purchases. The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency is centralizing the management of all National Background Investigations Services software under a single contractor. NBIS is the IT backbone of the federal government’s background investigations system. It’s currently being developed into a cloud-based platform, but DCSA said a lot of legacy background investigations software is still managed out of data centers. The agency also wants to prevent duplicative software licenses. DCSA plans to make a direct award for the work to an unidentified 8(a) Native Hawaiian Organization. (Software Asset Management for NBIS Program – SAM.gov)

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