• As Inauguration Day approaches, federal employees in the D.C. area should plan to telework all this week and into next week, if they’re able to. The Office of Personnel Management said preparations for Inauguration Day next Monday will create traffic disruptions and road closures in the nation’s capital. OPM is asking agencies to work in a maximum telework posture to try to ease at least some of that traffic. Federal employees who do have to go into the office should build in extra time for the expected delays. Employees will also get a federal holiday on Monday, January 20th, to observe both Inauguration Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
  (HR flexibilities for employees located in Washington, D.C., during Inauguration Week - Office of Personnel Management)
• Agencies have updated requirements to follow when posting information about the California wildfires on social media and the web. The Department of Homeland Security issued new guidance that says agencies with a role in the response effort should stand up a specific web page using a standard approach that makes information easy to find, such as agency.gov/California-wildfires. That page should also link to the FEMA and USA.gov websites. DHS also tells agencies to only post information related to their specific agency and then link to other agency sites to ensure consistency and clarity of the information it's distributing.
  (DHS issues social media, website guidance for California wildfires response - Digital.gov)
• The IRS is preparing for a tax season that will look quite different for 2025. The IRS is planning for an expansion of the agency’s Direct File program, along with many other modernization efforts. For the 2025 filing season, IRS’s Direct File program will be available in 25 states, more than doubling last year’s spread. But at the same time, there’s a looming possibility of further spending cuts for the agency. Some GOP lawmakers have already called on President-elect Trump to kill the Direct File program in an executive order on his first day in office. Though nothing is certain yet, current IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said the potential cuts would curtail modernization efforts, cause the IRS to backslide into delays and backlogs, and possibly cause an agency hiring freeze.
  (IRS ‘prepared’ for 2025 filing season, but potential spending cuts loom for the agency - Federal News Network)
• An online database for all federal programs is getting a major update. The Office of Management and Budget is adding 200 new programs to the Federal Program Inventory it launched last year. OMB said the update represents nearly $3 trillion in fiscal 2024 spending. Additionally, OMB said it has added new information for existing programs, including program rules and regulations and new program spending information. OMB also said it has improved the search function and user experience of the program inventory platform. These enhancements will enable members of the public, policymakers and others to more quickly find programs and related information.
  (OMB updates Federal Program Inventory website - Office of Management and Budget)

        Join us Jan. 27 for our Industry Exchange Cyber 2025 event where industry leaders will share the latest cybersecurity strategies and technologies.

• The Office of Personnel Management didn't wait long to find its new chief information officer. OPM made quick work of moving Melvin Brown up to the top technology role and naming him as the new permanent CIO. Brown has been the deputy CIO at OPM for four years. He replaces Guy Cavallo, who retired from federal service on Friday. With Brown's ascension, James Saunders, the OPM chief information security officer, is the new deputy CIO and Danielle Rowell is the new acting CISO. Brown previously worked at the Small Business Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. He also becomes the first African American to hold the role of OPM CIO.
  (OPM stays in house to name new CIO - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency is sharing a new roadmap for the National Background Investigation Services system. DCSA said its new NBIS product roadmap is centered on agile software development. The agency is circulating the roadmap to agencies that rely on NBIS. DCSA is trying to get the system back on track after years of delays and cost overruns. Agency leaders have said the new plan is to retire legacy background investigation systems within the next three years.
  (DCSA announces release of NBIS product roadmap - Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency)
• Federal spending on quantum information sciences now tops $1 billion annually. That’s according to the latest budget report from the White House on the National Quantum Initiative. Spending on quantum research has jumped from just under $500 million in fiscal 2019 to more than $1 billion in each of the last two years. That trend is expected to continue through the end of fiscal 2025 if Congress maintains funding for quantum programs. The Defense Department, the Energy Department and the National Science Foundation are the top three agencies for quantum science spending.
  (National Quantum Initiative supplement to the president’s 2025 budget - White House)

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