Tom Simmons of Citrix discusses the technological challenges facing teleworkers. Dave Romano of the Army Corps of Engineers talk about the Asian Carp. Steve Redburn, former senior executive, Office of Management and Budget,discusses the current stalemate on Capitol Hill and Dr. Paul Ceruzzi of the Smithsonian Air and Space museum looks at the historical significance of Telstar.
The Government Accountability Office assessed the performance of seven federal agencies in migrating some of their services to the cloud as required by the Office of Management and Budget. Five of the seven agencies succeeded in meeting OMB's requirements and the other two are expected to be compliant by year's end.
The Veterans Affairs Department said it saved $40 million by using this centralized approach to managing contractors. vendor management organizations also help agencies buy more strategically. OFPP plans to expand strategic sourcing and sets a $2 billion savings goal by 2015.
In its second report to the President, the Government Accountability and Transparency Board updates progress on several pilots to implement three broad-based recommendations. DoD and HHS are reviewing how best to standardize spending data. OMB is developing a Statement of Spending to provide more transparency into how agencies spend their funds.
The White House kicked off the fourth annual SAVE Award, seeking cost-cutting ideas from those who know best how to help Uncle Sam pinch pennies — federal employees. Employees have until July 24th to submit ideas for reducing government spending.
A report by the Congressional Research Service finds it's not clear whether agencies are meeting performance goals set out a June 2011 executive order to make the federal government more efficient and accountable.
Tom Johnson, publisher of Set-Aside Alert talks about the challenges facing contractors. July 2, 2012(Encore presentation August 20, 2012)
The administration will kick off the 2012 program to find money-saving ideas in a few weeks. Agencies will get to vote on a final list of ideas in the next few months.
Congress is off to a strong start passing annual appropriations bills for fiscal 2013. But the White House has taken issue with several of the bills' provisions, with President Barack Obama threatening to veto many of the bills if they come come to desk.
The White House has threatened to veto two key House spending bills because of severe spending cuts at some agencies as well as federal pay and workforce provisions. In statements of administration policy, the Office of Management and Budget said appropriations bills for both Financial Services and General Government and the Defense Department stray from previously agreed to budgetary caps
Congress is demanding more answers about how $1.2 trillion in budget cuts set to take effect in January will be applied across the government. The House Budget Committee Wednesday unanimously approved a bill directing the Obama administration to provide Congress a report that provides specific details about how the spending cuts will affect federal agencies and programs. Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Committee formally requested that the head of the Office of Management and Budget, Jeff Zients, testify before the committee on the "mechanics and impact" of the automatic cuts.
The Office of Special Counsel is reminding agencies not to target email monitoring of employees that could have a chilling effect on whistleblowers who report waste, fraud and abuse.
The Office of Management and Budget has reiterated to lawmakers that the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration will apply to wartime funding. In a June 15 letter, to Rep. Buck McKeon, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Jeff Zients wrote that the Budget Control Act allowed no "flexibility" to exempt Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), from sequestration.
Agency officials from the Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management, along with a handful of other agencies, cited significant improvements in both timeliness and accuracy in the security-clearance program at a Senate subcommittee. The agencies agreed, however, much work remained to maintain that progress and to take on new challenges, such as reciprocity and reinvestigation.
The Financial Services and General Government spending bill seeks to cut $2 billion from the president's request. The bill says nothing about granting feds a pay raise in 2013. The House committee follows the lead of Senate appropriators, which also remained silent on the issue.