Defense Department
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In today's Top Federal Headlines, a large group of government transparency advocacy groups has asked members of Congress to disallow proposal to give DoD more FOIA exemptions.
August 25, 2016 -
New estimates from Government Accountability Office say the Defense Department has routinely dipped into its overseas contingency operations account to fund "enduring" requirements since 2009, but there's no way to tell which account ultimately funded any particular expense, making it very difficult for Congress to oversee DoD's operations and maintenance accounts. Andrew Von Ah, GAO's acting director for Defense Capabilities and Management, talked with Jared Serbu on Federal Drive with Tom Temin about the O&M accounting problem.
August 24, 2016 -
In today's Top Federal Headlines, Maryland's two Senators write the Office of Personnel Management to express the concern they're hearing from federal employees about the dramatic premium increases for the program.
August 24, 2016 -
After a six year decline in spending, budgets have begun to bounce back in 2016, and contract spending is expected to follow that upturn shortly after as the trend continues into 2017.
August 24, 2016 -
Air Force senior leaders routinely point out that their service is the busiest it’s been in decades. They've now decided to partially compensate by scaling back duties that aren't exactly core warfighting functions.
August 22, 2016 -
This week marks the two-year point since the Defense Department — worried that only 56.5 percent of its contracted dollars involved a meaningful competition between two or more vendors — issued a series of corrective actions to reverse a downward slide that's been ongoing for nearly a decade.
August 22, 2016 -
DoD will ask around 3,000 current employees to move from the traditional civil service system to one that offers them fewer job protections but might also boost their pay and promotion prospects.
August 19, 2016 -
The Defense Department on Thursday rolled out a new outline of its IT modernization priorities, calling it a “living document” whose goals include better cooperation with industry.
August 19, 2016 -
Vendor past performance is a big factor in awarding federal contracts. Or it should be. It's a smart practice and at the Defense Department, it's also a requirement. That's why the DoD inspector general looked at 56 Army contracts awarded by five Army contracting shops to see whether the Army was consistent in evaluating past performance. Michael Roark, DoD's assistant inspector general for contract management and payments, joins Federal Drive with Tom Temin with the results.
August 18, 2016 -
As the Army migrates all its PCs to Windows 10 over the next year, and the Army’s helpdesk isn’t yet equipped to handle the surge of tech support calls.
August 17, 2016 -
DIUX, the Defense Department innovation unit in Silicon Valley, is expanding to Austin, Texas and other places. Does that mean Secretary Ash Carter is dissing the companies right here in the D.C. region? Venture capitalist Jonathan Aberman, chairman of Amplifier Ventures, gives his take on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
August 16, 2016 -
The General Services Administration released per diem fiscal 2017 travel rates for federal employees.
August 12, 2016 -
The Under Secretary of the Army is hitting the road this week. Patrick Murphy is in Georgia to gauge the readiness of troops and see how the force is fairing generally as the makeup of the Army changes. Federal News Radio’s Scott Maucione is traveling with Murphy on a three-day trip that includes Fort Stewart in Savannah and Atlanta. He filed this report on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
August 12, 2016 -
During the first few years of the federal government’s effort to shut down expensive and underutilized data centers, the Army chalked up some early wins: more than 400 have been closed since 2010. But progress has slowed significantly in the last two years, so top officials are about to get a lot more prescriptive.
August 12, 2016 -
The Air Force said Wednesday that it would begin offering retention bonuses of up to $35,000 to entice its unmanned aircraft pilots to stay in the military as part of an ongoing “get-well” plan for a workforce that’s been stretched extremely thin.
August 11, 2016