VP Harris announces lead for presidential transition team

• Vice President Kamala Harris has named Yohannes Abraham to lead her team for presidential transition planning. In his new position, Abraham will work to build relationships with federal agencies. He’ll also lead the development of personnel and policy plans that would take effect if Harris wins the election. The Partnership for Public Service called Harris’ selection of a transition team lead “critical.” Her announcement also comes a week ahead of the General Services Administration offering support to both major political parties in their transition planning. Former President Donald Trump named his transition team leads last week.
  (Statement on reports of new Harris transition team lead - Partnership for Public Service)
• Employees at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will not have to worry about a furlough after all. The agency announced yesterday it had saved enough money to be able to rescind the planned one-day furlough on August 30. Charlotte Burrows, the chairwoman of the EEOC says the agency has accrued sufficient savings to eliminate the need for a furlough. The agency warned employees on July 30 that a furlough was possible because of budget shortfalls. It said a combination of a flat budget for fiscal 2024, the 5.2% pay raise and higher overall operating costs are putting the agency in a tough budget spot. EEOC said its payroll is about $1.3 million a day and it previously warned it would not have enough money to get through the rest of fiscal 2024.
  (EEOC will not have to furlough employees - Federal News Network)
• The Postal Service is growing its workforce, but a ‘retirement wave’ may be coming soon. About one in four USPS employees will reach retirement eligibility by the end of this year. And within a decade, more than half of its workforce will be retirement eligible. The postal workforce is aging faster than the total federal workforce. Over the past five years, USPS grew its workforce by more than 8,000 employees. That’s a more 1% growth rate. USPS loses about 40,000 employees to attrition in an average year. That includes retirements and employees leaving to find work elsewhere.
  (USPS is growing its workforce, but a ‘retirement wave’ may be coming soon, watchdog warns - Federal News Network )
• Office of Personnel Management officials are meeting weekly to review and possibly revise job announcement templates on USAJobs. The meetings, led by OPM’s HR Line of Business program, aim to identify areas for improving user experience on the government’s main job posting website. HRLOB says the end goal is to help agencies implement OPM’s new guidance on improving the federal hiring experience. Earlier this year, HRLOB also launched a working group to identify and address pain points for HR workers who use the USAJobs templates.
  (USAJOBS template review supporting OPM memo - HR Line of Business (HRLOB))

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• Forest Service law enforcement officers, in some parts of the country, didn’t have access to emergency communications required for their jobs. The Office of Special Counsel finds Forest Service law enforcement personnel in Georgia and South Carolina couldn’t transmit critical information to local police departments, or other Forest Service personnel, during emergencies unless they traveled to a location with better service. The watchdog office says the Forest Service has provided satellite phone to law enforcement officers in those national forests.
  (OSC referral prompts USDA to provide Forest Service officers with required emergency communication capabilities - Office of Special Counsel)
• The Army is seeking feedback from industry on the service’s plans for a large-scale, multiple-award contract that will provide software development support services. A draft solicitation released last week provides additional details on how the service plans to engage companies that can execute task orders once they are finalized. The goal is to develop a solicitation that best communicates the service's needs and expectations to potential contractors. The service said the ceiling for the contract will be $10 billion or greater. Comments on the draft request for proposals are due by Sept. 6.
  (Army seeking feedback on its multiple-award software development support services contract - sam.gov)
• The latest NDAA primer from the Congressional Research Service lays out how much funding each chamber is proposing for specific defense budget activities. The largest proposed increase in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the 2025 defense policy bill is dedicated to DoD procurement. Senators bumped up the procurement account by $10 billion more than the President requested. Meanwhile, the House slashed the procurement budget line by $2.8 billion. The research and development account got a $3 billion hike under the Senate version of the NDAA, while the House has proposed the same amount for R&D initiatives as the White House.
  (Here’s how Senate and House changed the President’s defense budget request - Federal News Network)
• The IRS is taking steps to improve data security after a major tax return leak. The IRS is working to tag its sensitive data, deploy new identity systems, and improve its security audit logs. That all comes after an ex-contractor was sentenced to five years in prison for leaking the tax returns of thousands of wealthy Americans between 2018 and 2020. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says protecting sensitive taxpayer information continues to be a major challenge for the IRS. The auditors also determined that multiple elements of the IRS’s cybersecurity program are not effective.
  (IRS taking steps to improve data security after massive tax return leak - Federal News Network)
• The National Institute of Standards and Technology is launching a new effort to help secure fifth-generation, or 5-G wireless networks. NIST’s Cybersecurity Center of Excellence will detail 5-G security best practices in a new white paper series. The goal is to help both wireless operators and organizations that use 5-G to adopt strong cybersecurity and privacy measures. NIST has been testing 5-G security features as part of its commercial-grade wireless testbed.
  (Introduction to the white paper series on applying 5G cybersecurity and privacy capabilities - NIST)

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