Federal Newscast

Veterans may have more chances for benefits, but it means more opportunities for scammers unfortunately

In today's Federal Newscast, veterans lost more than $350 million to fraud schemes last year.

Eric White@FEDERALNEWSCAST

August 7, 2024 11:33 am

< a min read

Veterans lost more than $350 million to fraud schemes last year. Fraud is on the rise because of the PACT Act, a 2022 law that made it easier for veterans exposed to toxic substances to qualify for disability benefits. Scammers are charging hefty fees to veterans who seek assistance to file a PACT Act claim with the VA. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is asking VA to prevent these scams, by making it easier for veterans to find its list of accredited veterans service organizations.
(Spanberger Urges the VA to Crack Down on Scams Targeting Veterans - Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Virg.))

Army Lieutenant General Jonathan Stubbs will serve as the National Guard Bureau's acting chief while it waits for Congress to confirm its permanent leader. Stubbs was confirmed as the new director of the Army National Guard last week. Since the Senate didn’t hold a confirmation hearing for Air Force Lieutenant General Steven Nordhaus to become the next chief of the National Guard, Stubbs will hold the acting role at least until September. Army General Daniel Hokanson, who led the Guard for the last four years, retired on August 2.
(Stubbs takes over as National Guard Bureau's acting chief - National Guard)

Senate appropriators are calling for a fix to the federal blue-collar pay system. The Senate Appropriations Committee says it’s encouraged by the Office of Personnel Management’s plans to merge locality pay areas between hourly and salaried feds. Now the lawmakers are asking OPM to act as quickly as it can to make that adjustment. Currently, OPM is expected to issue proposed regulations this October. Still, the Senate’s version of fiscal 2025 spending bills looks to maintain a pay cap for some blue-collar federal employees.
(Fiscal 2025 Financial Services and General Government report - Senate Appropriations Committee)

Defense health care employees working in the Indo-Pacific have officially gained union representation. The American Federation of Government Employees will cover 2,600 Defense Health Agency workers stationed in military hospitals and clinics in places like Hawaii, Japan and South Korea. AFGE earned 94% of the vote in the latest union election. The newly unionized employees bring AFGE’s total bargaining unit for DHA up to about 40,000 workers. The health care employees in the Indo-Pacific will be covered by an interim master bargaining agreement, as AFGE and DHA continue to negotiate a permanent contract.
(Defense Health Agency representation - American Federation of Government Employees)

The Defense Information Systems Agency is on track to deliver a minimum viable product for Olympus by the end of fiscal 2024. DISA is wrapping up the development phase of its latest cloud offering. DoD Olympus is designed to make it easier for DISA’s customers to deploy commercial cloud solutions. The agency’ J9 team is currently working through the selection of capabilities they want to include in Olympus. DoD Olympus builds upon DoD Cloud IaC and ensures that cloud environments are secure and managed.
(DISA to deliver minimum viable product for Olympus in September - Federal News Network)

More than a dozen federal statistical agencies are having a harder time producing quality data. A report from the American Statistical Association finds a national decline of trust in government corresponds with lower response rates for federal statistical surveys. Here’s former Chief Statistician of the U.S. Nancy Potok, the report’s co-author, “Things that people will post on Facebook, they would never tell a government interviewer.” Federal statistical data powers many key decisions across government and industry. But agencies are producing the data with less money and fewer employees. The Bureau of Labor Statistics … which produces monthly unemployment numbers, has seen an 18% budget cut since 2009. "Smaller budgets, lower response rates: Report warns statistical agencies struggling to meet mission."
(Smaller budgets, lower response rates: Report warns statistical agencies struggling to meet mission - Federal News Network )

Agencies estimate they will need to spend about $7.1 billion to migrate prioritized information systems to post-quantum cryptography (PQC) between 2025 and 2035. A new Congressionally-mandated report from the Office of Management and Budget detailed steps agencies are taking to prepare for post-quantum encryption, the estimates of what it will cost and ongoing cross-agency coordination efforts. OMB says in the report that powerful quantum computer is not yet known to exist, but steady advancements in the quantum computing field may yield one in the coming decade. Congress required the report in the Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Preparedness Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden in January 2023.
(Report on post-quantum cryptography - Office of Management and Budget)

After more than two decades, the Labor Department is shutting down its Benefits.gov website. Labor will transition the site and all related services to USA.gov. The consolidation of Benefits.gov meets the requirements of President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order on improving customer experience. The order charged GSA with developing a roadmap for a redesigned USA.gov website that aims to serve as a centralized, digital ‘Federal Front Door.' Since 2002, Labor says Benefits.gov has served over 220 million people and increased access to more than 1,100 government benefits.
(Your home for government benefits information is changing to USA.gov! - Labor Department)