Defense Department
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The Defense Department has been trying for years to find a personnel system that's effective for the vast variety of civilians it employs. Some have been tried and discarded. People notice. Some write about it. Rob Albritton worked both in uniform and as a civilian for the Air Force. Federal Drive with Tom Temin asked him about his War on the Rocks blog posting, with four suggestions for the personnel system and whether the system is broken.
February 02, 2016 -
Respondents to Federal News Radio's survey on how well the Office of Personnel Management handled getting out information about operating status overall gave the agency a thumbs up. But many survey takers expressed hope that OPM would start making its decision on status earlier in the evening so they could make child and dependent care.
February 01, 2016 -
A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that those injured before 2007 during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are most at risk for chronic problems from traumatic brain injury.
February 01, 2016 -
Encryption is coming, although no one can quite say when. As part of the Defense Department’s role in building a new IT system for background investigations, it will encrypt the data it handles with techniques appropriate to a national security system, officials said Friday during a hastily arranged pre-blizzard conference call.
January 25, 2016 -
At least some of DoD's enterprise resource planning costs have been driven by duplicative hardware and other infrastructure investments, and the Defense Information Systems Agency thinks it can help.
January 25, 2016 -
Defense spending seems to have a life of its own. Neither the Secretary of Defense nor experienced members of the Armed Services Committees can stem the tide of wasteful spending. That's according to Charles Tiefer, professor at the University of Baltimore law school and former soliciter and deputy general counsel for the House of Representatives. He joins Federal Drive with Tom Temin with what he sees as some of the more egregious examples of DoD waste coming up in 2016.
January 22, 2016 -
Cost effective management of human capital is what Congress wants from the Defense Department. It used section 955 of the 2013 Defense Authorization Bill to get it. But DoD still has a ways to go in complying. Brenda Farrell, the director of Defense Capabilities and Management issues at Government Accountability Office, joins Federal Drive with Tom Temin with more.
January 21, 2016 -
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took part in the opening ceremony Wednesday for the Great Green Fleet, a year-long initiative that demonstrates the sea service’s efforts to transform its energy use.
January 21, 2016 -
The provision tells agencies to show how program performance metrics are tied to priority goals.
January 20, 2016 -
Although the Defense Department is meeting its goals to cut spending by reducing its civilian workforce, the Pentagon is expected to increase its spending on contracting.
January 19, 2016 -
When U.S. military forces engage, they're usually working in concert with allies. The more entities that are involved and the more communications channels there are, the greater the chances they'll run into blackages. It's called interoperability — or a lack thereof. Joel Dolisy, the CIO of network analysis company Solarwinds, has come up with a three-point action plan for boosting military communications interoperability. Federal Drive with Tom Temin asked him, what are some of the challenges they're facing now?
January 15, 2016 -
Talk about a procurement gone wrong from the beginning. In contracting for training services for its fliers, the Navy made several mistakes. Big ones. Not surprisingly, the Government Accountability Office sustained the protest brought by Cortek. Procurement attorney Joseph Petrillo of the Washington firm Petrillo and Powell shares some lessons on what not to do on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
January 14, 2016 -
Why is a government reduction in force like giving yourself a haircut? Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says both should be options of last resort with Band-Aids at the ready.
January 13, 2016 -
The Defense Department can be surprisingly vague in how it expresses the cost of flight, and how to interpret it.
January 11, 2016 -
Commodities, the stock market and the Chinese economy might all be stalling. But there is one bright spot — worldwide military spending. U.S. defense spending is leading the way, but it's not alone. Budgets are rising in several other major countries too. It's all detailed in a survey just released by Deloitte. Tom Captain, vice chairman and U.S. and Global Aerospace and Defense sector leader at Deloitte, Joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin with some of the numbers and what they mean to contractors.
January 11, 2016