Agriculture Department

More criticism today for the Agriculture Department – this time about discrimination. The Government Accountability Office is faulting how USDA gathers and keeps data on complaints from minority workers and farmers. USDA says the report…

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The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 required the Agriculture Department to set different standards for school lunches. The food may be healthier, but now USDA faces a new problem: many students can’t stomach the food.

Here’s a breakdown of major agencies and the proposed funding amounts for fiscal 2017, which are included the President Obama’s $1.1 trillion budget.

As the White House decides who should be the first federal chief information security officer, current and former federal cyber executives offer insights into what the role should look like.

Government sources tell Federal News Radio that some in the departments of Commerce, Agriculture and Labor also are pushing back against the implementation of the intrusion detection and prevention program known as EINSTEIN 3-Accelerated (E3A).

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is concerned about four agencies that had particularly high retirement processing error rates in September. The Social Security Administration and departments of Agriculture, Interior and Veterans Affairs topped the list. Congress now wants the Government Accountability Office to review the process that agencies and the Office of Personnel Management each use to review a retirement claim.

Leadership is a key driver of employee engagement for agencies like the Agriculture Department, which rose from 16th to ninth in the Best Places to Work rankings in 2016. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said his agency has been hard at work for the past seven years, after a call from the White House prompted his leadership team to develop an engagement plan.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said recent agency communications memos violate the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, (WPEA) because they do not include a mandatory statement explaining that federal employee communications with inspectors general or members of Congress are protected.