House of Representatives
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Personnel costs take up a larger share of Customs and Border Protection's budget than ever before. More than 70 percent of the agency's Fiscal 2015 budget request will go to compensation. Some members of Congress are worried those rising costs will crowd out CBP's ability to deliver high-priority IT projects and fulfill its mission. In our Congressional Spotlight, Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, tells In Depth with Francis Rose the problem CBP has is two-fold.
April 09, 2014 -
The Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is starting over on postal reform legislation and taking as its template a surprising source — the White House's fiscal 2015 budget request. Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told members of the committee and the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget that he intends to "embrace to the greatest extent possible" the entire slate of legislative proposals for overhauling the Postal Service included in the President's budget request.
April 08, 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 -
House Veterans Affairs Committee members are no longer asking the Veterans Affairs Department to improve their cybersecurity. They want to tell them how to do it. A new bill introduced Wednesday would be among the most perspective cyber bills that any agency has seen in almost a decade. Federal News Radio's Executive Editor Jason Miller was a guest on In Depth with Francis Rose. In Depth with details on the bill and reaction to it. Read Federal News Radio's related article.
April 03, 2014 -
The budget blueprint unveiled by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) Tuesday includes a handful of proposals affecting the federal workforce that Ryan and House Republicans have championed in the past. Among them, the recommendation that federal employees contribute more of their salary toward their pensions and a proposal to shrink the federal workforce by 10 percent through attrition.
April 01, 2014 -
In the wake of across-the-board budget cuts, furloughs and slim -- or no -- annual pay raises, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says he's concerned about a nose-dive in federal-employee morale. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) is now asking the Government Accountability Office to look into recent trends in feds' job satisfaction. The lawmakers are concerned declining satisfaction "may be compromising the federal government's ability to serve the American people."
March 28, 2014 -
House Democrats are pushing for federal employees to get a pay raise next year that's more than three times larger than President Barack Obama proposed. A bill introduced Wednesday by Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) would provide federal employees with a 3.3 percent across-the-board pay raise in 2015.
March 26, 2014 -
As lawmakers consider efforts to shore up the Postal Service's financial footing, there's still widespread disagreement over whether the current requirement for the agency prefunding requirement is fiscally responsible, as Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) argued during a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing Thursday, or an "onerous mandate" only required of the Postal Service, as Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) contended.
March 14, 2014 -
Legislation newly introduced in the Senate proposes to scrap hundreds of unneeded, outdated or repetitive reports. The House, meanwhile, is marking up its own version of the bill.
March 12, 2014 -
New Thrift Savings Plan participants would be automatically enrolled in an age-appropriate Lifecycle Fund -- instead of the G Fund -- under a bill set to be debated Wednesday by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The Smart Savings Act, introduced by the committee's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), is supported by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board.
March 11, 2014 -
The Government Accountability Office is requesting about $525 million for fiscal 2015, an increase of about 4 percent, or $19 million, above current levels. The additional funding would allow the agency to continue staffing up the agency from the nearly rock-bottom levels it hit over the past few years. The additional funding would also allow GAO to make upgrades to its aging IT infrastructure and do long-deferred building upkeep and and maintenance
March 05, 2014 -
Federal News Radio asked a panel of experts how they would solve the flawed budget process as part of our special report: Now or Never: Ideas to Save the Failing Budget Process. See what they had to say and tell us which ideas you think would work best.
March 04, 2014 -
Federal employees continue to be Congress' go-to resource for deficit reduction through pay freezes and increases in their retirement contributions, according to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Van Hollen's column is part of Federal News Radio's special report, Now or Never: Ideas to Save the Failing Budget Process.
March 04, 2014 -
Twenty states currently use biennial budgeting, with great results, says Congressman Reid Ribble. Rep. Ribble's column is part of Federal News Radio's special report, Now or Never: Ideas to Save the Failing Budget Process.
March 04, 2014 -
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government that budget and staffing reductions are impacting the agency's core missions of customer service and tax collection. The agency projects it will only be able to answer 61 percent of phone calls this year, meaning some 20 million phone calls will go unanswered. Meanwhile, taxpayers attempting to reach IRS offices are facing wait times that stretch past 20 minutes.
February 27, 2014