Defense Department
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Janice Glover-Jones will remove the "acting" from her title to be DIA's permanent CIO, while Rocky Young is retiring and going to work for a research firm.
December 16, 2014 -
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) says "bipartisanship is not extinct" in his farewell speech to Congress. Wastebook author Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) says oversight is a duty that many senators continue to ignore.
December 15, 2014 -
Congress is capping the pensions of top military officials in 2015. As part of National Defense Authorization Act, pensions for generals and admirals will be trimmed to ensure they make no more in retirement than they did on active duty. That reverses a 2007 law designed to help retain officers during wartime. What effects, if any, will this have on the military's ability to retain its senior officers? Larry Korb is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former assistant secretary of Defense for manpower and reserve affairs. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with a look at this measure.
December 15, 2014 -
The Military Spouse Employment Partnership's goal is simple. They want to eliminate one of military families' biggest problems: finding employment for the spouse of the service member. Because of frequent relocation, military spouses often face high unemployment rates and a significant wage gap in the jobs they do have. Through the initiative known as Joining Forces, 38 new organizations joined the Employment Partnership program earlier this month. Eddy Mentzer is the Spouse Education and Career Opportunities program manager. On the Federal Drive, he gave Tom Temin an update on the program and the companies involved.
December 12, 2014 -
The Air Force recently completed a test launch of one of its Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles. The 5,000 mile flight test was supported by Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and several other contractors. So how does the Air Force maintain readiness of the ICBM fleet? How can it assure the Commander-in-Chief that in the unlikely event of a real launch, the 40-year-old missiles would go where they're supposed to? Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein, Commander of the 20th Air Force, joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to discuss the test flight and the ICMB program.
December 11, 2014 -
The Pentagon's new Defense Innovation Initiative is called the third offset strategy. But it's not the only offset the defense industrial base should pay attention to. Patrick Costello is deputy director of Congress and U.S. Foreign Policy studies for the Council on Foreign Relations. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he explained what these offsets are.
December 10, 2014 -
The budget deal and the National Defense Authorization Act give the Defense Department certainty for the rest of Fiscal 2015. After that: Nobody knows for sure. Sequestration is back on the table, at least for now. Robert Hale is former Undersecretary of Defense Comptroller -- he's now a fellow at Booz Allen Hamilton. He's my guest for Pentagon Solutions today. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he explained the impacts the sequester had on the department.
December 10, 2014 -
The Defense Contract Management Agency is creating a new team of dedicated pricing experts, looking for more consistent decisions within DoD about what constitutes a commercial product.
December 10, 2014 -
President Barack Obama announced three major initiatives today to boost the Senior Executive Service. It's the latest in a long line of initiatives and research on improving the SES. Booz Allen and the Partnership for Public Service have proposed reforms to the SES. Booz Allen's Ron Sanders -- former Chief Human Capital Officer for the intelligence community -- and Bob Hale -- former Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) -- talked about those SES reform recommendations on In Depth with Francis Rose.
December 09, 2014 -
Four years after a push from the President, the federal government is hiring employees with disabilities at a rate that's higher than it's been in decades, according to a new report from the Office of Personnel Management.
December 08, 2014 -
The next big change at the Department of Defense may be in the Chief Information Officer's office. But it may not be a personnel change; it may be a change to the organization chart. Federal News Radio DoD Reporter Jared Serbu tells In Depth with Francis Rose about some of those changes as part of this week's edition of Inside the Reporter's Notebook.
December 05, 2014 -
The big national defense authorization bill is moving through Congress. It passed the House yesterday, and the Senate is expected to take it up next week. In purely military spending terms, the bill is a mixed bag. Some programs and platforms get plus-ups, others get cuts. Todd Harrison is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He's been studying the bill, and joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive to analyze the bill's winners and losers.
December 05, 2014 -
After a 40-year career in government, Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness Jessica Wright announced her retirement to President Obama and DoD Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday. As under secretary, Wright oversaw personnel matters for DoD's workforce and called for reforms to stop sexual assaults in the military.
December 05, 2014 -
Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator Anne Rung has released a memo detailing a road map to create a new model for federal contracting. The administration will expand the concept of category management across the government, while also developing a cadre of IT acquisition experts and revamping the government's relationship with its vendors.
December 04, 2014 -
New request for information kicks off DoD's long-range R&D planning initiative, an effort to regain technological superiority that Defense officials fear is rapidly eroding.
December 04, 2014