Department of Veterans Affairs
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Julie Perkins hosts a roundtable discussion of the hottest topics in the federal government. April 11, 2014
April 11, 2014 -
House Veterans Affairs Committee members are fed up with repeated cybersecurity problems. They want the VA to improve its cybersecurity once and for all. A new bill tells the department exactly how to do it. The legislation is among the most prescriptive cyber bills that any agency has seen in almost a decade. Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller shares reactions to the bill with Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp. Read Federal News Radio's related article.
April 04, 2014 -
The House will soon vote on a measure making it easier for the Veterans Affairs secretary to fire or demote senior career executives at the department, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said at a Capitol Hill briefing Thursday. The VA Management Accountability Act allows the VA secretary to remove or demote members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) based on their performance.
April 03, 2014 -
Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) introduced the Veterans Information Security Improvement Act that would explicitly require VA to take steps to repair operational and procedure holes in its network and computer security processes.
April 03, 2014 -
The Department of Veterans Affairs believes it is on track to end its disability claims backlog by 2015. It's an uphill fight, considering that more than half of its claims have been waiting for at least four months, and appeals take an average of more than two years.
April 02, 2014 -
Horace Blackman, a long-time Veterans Affairs IT executive, also leaves for the private sector, joining Lockheed Martin.
March 24, 2014 -
The Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy is preparing for a special commencement ceremony this fall. About two dozen veterans will graduate from its Warriors to Workforce Program. Program Manager David Sella spoke with Federal Drive host Tom Temin about how the program works and how the agency plans to expand it. Tom caught up with Sella at the 2014 Acquisition Excellence Conference. View photos and listen to more interviews from the conference.
March 24, 2014 -
Nearly three in every 10 new employees hired by the federal government have worked for Uncle Sam before -- in uniform. But even as the federal government has found success onboarding veteran employees, new questions have been raised about the workplace environments veterans are encountering.
March 10, 2014 -
General Gary Profit, senior director of military programs at Walmart, will talk about the company's initiative to hire more veterans. February 21, 2014
February 21, 2014 -
Would your life be better off if your top career boss had a little less job security? Senior Correspondent Mike Causey asks. Or would that put you between a political rock and a hard place?
February 19, 2014 -
Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) is the author of new legislation that would make it easier for the Veterans Affairs Department to fire its senior executives. Miller, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, says the agency is too shy about cutting loose middle managers who are performing poorly.
February 17, 2014 -
The Senate confirmed Sloan Gibson to be the next deputy secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Patrick Gallagher, is heading off to academia.
February 13, 2014 -
The VA Management Accountability Act would give VA Secretary Eric Shinseki broad authority to remove Senior Executives Service (SES) members "if the secretary determines the performance of the individual warrants such removal," according to the bill. In addition to outright removal, the bill would allow the VA secretary to bump SES members down to the General Schedule at any grade level the secretary deems appropriate according to the bill.
February 12, 2014 -
DoD opens its electronic medical records to VA claims processors for the first time. The goal is to shave days or weeks from the time it takes VA to decide disability claims for recently separated service members. But the launch of the system has had a few bugs.
February 07, 2014 -
Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) wants answers from the Veterans Affairs Department after its latest privacy and cyber breach of the data of more than 5,000 veterans through its eBenefits portal. VA says it has fixed the software defect and its Data Breach Core Team is investigating what happened.
January 27, 2014