TSP funds mostly positive in February

• Federal employees saw only small growth in most of their retirement accounts in February. All but one of the funds in the Thrift Savings Plan came in with positive returns for the month, but the increase was notably lower across the board. The I Fund, for example, saw the biggest increase of more than 6% in February, but that was much lower than the 12% increase it saw in January. The C Fund was the only account that came in negative, losing 0.76% as compared to January. For the year, all funds are in the black.
  (15 of 16 TSP funds grew at a slower rate in February - Thrift Savings Plan)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs took the first step to consolidate 20 different contact centers. The VA receives over 60 million calls a year across 20 call centers that aren't integrated and operate independently. To solve that problem, VA is reimagining its contact center operations as a unified, concierge-style service. In a new draft performance work statement and request for information, VA is asking vendors for feedback on its plans to create an enterprisewide and modern contact center that includes telephone services, mobile applications, text messaging, email and other communication modalities. Feedback on the draft work statement and RFI are due by March 6.
  (VA to consolidate 20 disparate contact centers - SAM.gov)
• Owen West, a former energy trader at Goldman Sachs and Department of Government Efficiency staffer, has officially taken over as director of the Defense Innovation Unit. In his first message to DIU employees, West said the organization will narrow its investment priorities, focusing mainly on technologies that “produce overmatch domination” and scale quickly while “dramatically reducing cost-per-kill.” West stepped into the role following Doug Beck’s unexpected resignation last year. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said West will “bring a warfighter’s mentality to DIU’s core mission of transitioning technology to our troops.”
  (Owen West officially takes over DIU - Defense Innovation Unit on X)
• The backlog of claims for disability and pension benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs is now consistently below 100,000, for the first time since 2020. VA said the backlog has been cut by 63% since January 2025. At the time, the backlog stood at more than 264,000. VA considers backlogged claims as those that have been pending for more than 125 days.
  (VA benefits claims backlog under 100K for first time since 2020 - Department of Veterans Affairs)

        Defense leaders from DLA and the Navy share how real-time visibility, data at the edge and modern tech are closing readiness gaps and reshaping military supply chains in our new ebook, sponsored by Zebra Technologies.

• The IRS locked less than 1% of accounts believing the owner had died but the account actually belonged to a living person. That’s according to a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. TIGTA found only 13,500 such cases of bureaucratic error out of 6.9 million accounts with a deceased lock put on them between 2022 and 2024. Auditors say Taxpayer Services management attributed the erroneous locks due to incorrect Social Security data, taxpayer error and IRS employee error. The findings mark an improvement compared to the last audit, conducted in 2023, that found 20,000 cases.
  (TIGTA: Locks on deceased IRS accounts 99.8% accurate - Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration)
• Natural disasters at military installations have caused billions of dollars in damage over the past decade, but the Defense Department began tracking those costs just recently. The Defense Department estimates that extreme weather events have cost the department at least $15 billion in damages to military installations over the past decade. But the effort to collect data to better understand economic consequences of these events only began in 2024, and the data remains incomplete and at times inaccurate. DoD directed military installations to complete a spreadsheet reporting the effects of extreme weather and said that it is working to transition from the spreadsheet to a web-based system in fiscal 2026.
  (DoD only recently began tracking the cost of extreme weather, despite billions in damage - Federal News Network)
• Lawmakers are calling on the Office of Personnel Management to provide answers about federal retirement processing problems. Reps. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said many federal retirees reported they never received their 1099-R tax documents — forms required to report federal retirement income — and aren’t able to reliably get help from OPM. In a March 2 letter to OPM Director Scott Kupor, the congressmen asked for information on how many forms are yet to be mailed, the state of customer service and what actions OPM will take.
  (Federal retirees face delays getting tax documents from OPM - Federal News Network)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has lost another key leader. Shelly Hartsook is stepping down from her position as associate director in CISA’s cybersecurity division. Hartsook led programs that provide cybersecurity services to other agencies, including the flagship Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program. Her departure continues a nearly year-long procession of key CISA leaders resigning from their positions at the cyber agency. CISA has seen nearly a third of its staff leave since the start of the Trump administration.
  (Leader of federal cyber defense programs resigns from CISA - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency is expanding a criminal record check program to cleared industry personnel. DCSA said the Rap Back enrollment is now expanding to industry following a successful pilot program. Rap Back is a service provided by the FBI that provides real-time notification of changes in an individual’s arrest record using automated fingerprint identification. The extension of Rap Back to industry is part of DCSA’s push to streamline personnel vetting under the Trusted Workforce 2.0 initiative.
  (DCSA expands Rap Back enrollment to wider industry population - Federal News Network)

Copyright © 2026 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.