The GOP has made it official. According to Ed O’Keefe at the Washington Post, House Republicans have announced a plan to allow federal agencies to make just one new hire for every three employees who leave. The goal is to downsize the federal workforce by 10 percent in the next four years. If passed, theRead… Read more »
Most people are probably vaguely aware that last year’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires each state to set up a “health benefit exchange,” where residents can go to compare options and purchase health insurance, by 2014. What people might not realize is that, according to an article in Government Technology, it’s Chief InformationRead… Read more »
It would be pretty hard to imagine a private-sector CEO knowingly paying his employees to do work for another company (or worse, the competition). But a recent piece by the Washington Post’s Joe Davidson explains that the federal government does something quite similar. According to the story, a GOP congressman has introduced a bill toRead… Read more »
Government Technology reported recently a pretty disconcerting fact: large numbers of people are using company-issued cell phones for personal reasons without having any idea what rules they’re supposed to be following to keep those devices secure. It’s not surprising that 95 percent of companies have mobile security policies, according to a new study by onlineRead… Read more »
Walter Pincus of the Washington Post brought up a darn good question earlier this week: Which is more important, the person(ality) at the top of your organization or the way it’s structured? In many ways, this brings to mind the old debate about a coach’s job. Is it to motivate players, inspire them, help eachRead… Read more »
Last February, the Superior Court of California purchased new pens for its courtroom clerks, a move that is expected to save more than $50,000 a year. That’s because the new “digital” pens contain tiny cameras that track what’s being written and automatically transfer the information to specially designed digital “smart” forms. This eliminates the needRead… Read more »
Great news out of GovLoop this week! Beginning today (but from now on, appearing on Fridays), I’m going to be writing a column called the “Federal Buzz” for the Washington Post. These pieces will recap just what govies have been saying about a hot topic or major issue during the previous week and will beRead… Read more »
If you’ve ever seen the movie “Minority Report,” you can probably relate to the queasiness I feel every time I watch the part where Tom Cruise’s character has a black-market operation to replace his eyes. Yup, you read that right. He pays a guy to swap his eyeballs out with someone else’s. Why? Because inRead… Read more »
As Federal Eye columnist Joe Davidson pointed out for the Washington Post today, a year has passed since President Obama announced he would be “revamping” the federal hiring process. These were the reforms that were supposed to eliminate KSAs in favor of more traditional job applications and (at least in theory) shorten the hiring processRead… Read more »
According to Steve Towns at Government Technology,”cloud computing” is among the developments that have received the most attention in government in recent memory. It is, one might say, the LeBron James of government technology… lots of hype, but no championships… yet Cloud Computing Meets Reality It’s hard to think of a technology that’s received moreRead… Read more »