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Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and John Tester (D-Mont.) wrote to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro on Feb. 6 asking for an analysis of what went right and what went wrong when DoD moved to the Office of Personnel Management’s Federal Investigative Service (FIS) nearly 12 years ago.
IT leaders at the Office of Personnel Management say the agency has one major database left to encrypt, which contains some high-value assets and personally identifiable information for security clearance holders and federal employees.
Bill Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center and the National Counterintelligence Executive, said the lead agencies reforming the security clearance process made subtle, but important changes to how investigators check employees’ backgrounds.
Dan Chenok, the executive director of the IBM Center for The Business of Government, highlights seven key takeaways from a recent roundtable on improving the background investigations processes.
President Barack Obama signed an executive order Jan. 17, which sets the governance process and suitability standards for agencies and the population of federal employees and contractors. It clarifies the work that the Office of Personnel Management and National Background Investigation Bureau has already started to develop a more modern vetting system.
The Office of Personnel Management says it's spent the past eight years working within the confines of current laws and regulations to modernize the federal personnel system and help agencies better recruit, hire and retain talented employees. But as the Obama administration winds down, OPM suggested that future administrations should more seriously discuss reform to those civil service regulations.
From a massive January snowstorm to a pay raise for all federal employees, we look back at the stories that meant the most to our readers in 2016.
Federal employees and contractors waited hundreds of days in some cases for a security clearance in 2016, but the Office of Personnel Management spent much of the year putting the policy pieces in place for improvement. Key stakeholders in the Performance Accountability Council developed an IT plan for the new background investigation system and issued business rules for adjudicating some cases.
President-elect Donald Trump's suggested hiring freeze on the federal workforce could have major implications for federal contractors. With possible plans to cut the size of the federal workforce through attrition and retirements, some contractors say industry may have to shoulder more of the workload, since the capability requirements won't change even as government shrinks.
Experts say until the government moves to a continuous evaluation program of employees and contractors with clearances, threats from employees will continue to grow.
The Defense Department issued a RFI to industry outlining 12 functional areas it wants to upgrade using government-owned and commercial technologies.
The Office of Personnel Management is expected to launch the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB) on Oct. 1 with eight new functions.
Agencies will know later this month how much more they will have to pay for security clearances to the National Background Investigations Bureau. The NBIB will meet initial operating capability on Oct. 1 and begin processing all security clearance cases.
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.