Federal government employees enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program will pay an average 8.8 percent more in health-care costs in 2010, according to figures released Tuesday by the Office of Personnel Management. The increase equals an average $5.98 increase per pay check for someone with individual health-care coverage, and an average $12.87 increaseRead… Read more »
Happy Friday! The Commerce Department will establish a new Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship to help small businesses grow faster, part of the Obama administration’s new $100 billion innovation agenda announced earlier this week. The administration is especially interested in helping small businesses and entrepreneurs as statistics suggest businesses less than five years old accountedRead… Read more »
How’s this for good timing: On a day when Washington-area commuters experienced 20-mile backups in Northern Virginia and downtown road closures due to a suspicious package, hundreds of federal managers and employees met at the Ronald Reagan building to talk about teleworking. Speaking at the Telework Exchange Town Hall Meeting, Office of Personnel Management DirectorRead… Read more »
Did you get your Gov 2.0 Summit invite? About 600 invited guests from the worlds of academia, business, nonprofit, media, technology and government will gather Wednesday and Thursday at the Grand Hyatt in Washington. Organizers say it is the first major meeting with government leaders eager to quickly adapt the online strategies used by PresidentRead… Read more »
Happy Tuesday! It’s a big busy week for The Eye, because his wedding to Almost Mrs. Eye is this Saturday! Until then however, at least some of The Eye’s focus is on Washington, where Congress and President Obama get back to work. As a busy week begins, here are some news and notes on federalRead… Read more »
The Postal Service is offering up to $450 million to employees if they will agree to quit their jobs, it announced Tuesday, the latest effort by the financially struggling agency to reduce its costs amid a sharp decline in mail volume. Up to 30,000 employees can take the $15,000 bonus, which the Postal Service describesRead… Read more »
As Obama administration officials traveled the country this week announcing the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars in new economic stimulus grants, a new government Web site began accepting the critical spending and jobs data from grant recipients that will provide the first fact-based progress report about the economic recovery efforts. By mid-October theRead… Read more »
Happy Thursday! Postmaster General John Potter weighed in on President Obama’s recent comments about the Postal Service on Wednesday afternoon, doing his best to boost morale amid the mail service’s worsening financial condition. In his message to employees, Potter recounted that Obama and lawmakers have invoked the Postal Service’s financial woes as an example ofRead… Read more »
The Senior Executive Service is broken, mired in tired bureaucratic traditions and failing to attract top talent from outside government, according to a lengthy review of the ranks of the government’s elite managers by two outside organizations. The report, from the good-government group Partnership for Public Service and the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, willRead… Read more »
A union representing postal supervisors, managers and postmasters wants President Obama to reconsider his recent comments that compared the Postal Service with UPS and FedEx. In a letter sent late last week to the White House, National Association of Postal Supervisors President Ted Keating informed Obama of his union’s “collective disappointment that you chose theRead… Read more »