Federal Drive interviews — June 1

Federal Drive

Federal Drive interviews — June 1

Jeff Orner, chief administrative officer at the Department of Homeland Security, talks about a teleworking award his office recently received. Sopen Shah, a defense...

Federal News Network Staff

June 1, 2012 9:43 am

2 min read

This is the Federal Drive show blog. Here you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources.

Today’s guests:

Jeff Orner — chief administrative officer, Department of Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security does not exactly embrace telework. A recent congressional survey found just 1 percent of DHS employees regularly work off site. It’s a good guess a lot of them work for Chief Administrative Officer Jeff Orner. All of his 140-some employees telework regularly. But it wasn’t always that way. The office recently won an award for taking the largest leap in telework.

Sopen Shah — defense analyst, Bloomberg Government

Federal contractors are continually on the hunt for new business. They get it one of several ways. They can scour agency postings, looking for new opportunities. They can prowl conferences and hallways, doing gumshoe business development. But if a company is big enough, it can simply shortcut its way to new revenue by acquiring another company with good contracts. Bloomberg Government finds, companies with positions on multiple award contracts are juicy takeover targets.

Read more:: Companies on MACs are takeover targets

Ed Zurndorfer — registered employee benefits consultant

All systems are set to go for new phased retirement options for feds. The Senate has passed a bill and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee has approved one in the House. The Office of Personnel Management has it in the 2013 budget request. Maybe it’s something you’re considering. So, how could part-time retirement benefit you?

Richard Loeb — government contract law professor, University of Baltimore

Defense contracting actions and dollars awarded have remained steady since 2008, but audits on those contracts have decreased by a whopping 400 percent. The Defense Contract Audit Agency is supposed to ensure that the costs the government are charged for are reasonable. But the drastic slowdown in productivity has created a backlog of unaudited contracts worth half a trillion dollars.

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