Happy Thursday! Federal employees ineligible to receive Social Security benefits would still get a one-time $250 payment next year if President Obama gets his way. The president wants Congress to make the one-time payments to roughly 57 million people, including roughly 1 million public sector employees ineligible for Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, or veteransRead… Read more »
Agencies are again operating under a CR. Here are some suggestions to help budget officers avoid disrupting agency operations during the CR period. There have been three recent papers on CRs: * Continuing Resolutions: Uncertainty Limited Management Options and Increased Workload in Selected Agencies, GAO, #09-879, Sep 2009 * Interim Continuing Resolutions: Potential Impacts onRead… Read more »
The Bottom Line, October 2009 It includes great articles on human capital and professional development, the integration of budget and financial data, and new collaboration tools for budget and program analysts. Full list of Articles: Sallyanne Harper from the GAO Shares Best Practices for Professional Development The New Budget Office: How Collaboration Tools Can ImproveRead… Read more »
Over the past year, I have been a member of the Executive Board of Young Government Leaders (YGL). Like GovLoop, it was co-created by Steve Ressler (aka “Mr. GovLoop”) to connect people with one another. In particular, the organization is open to government employees who are “young in their service or fresh in their perspective.”Read… Read more »
Happy Monday! Most federal employees will spend Monday away from the office, celebrating the seventh of ten federal holidays they enjoy each year. But Conor Dougherty and Sudeep Reddy of the Wall Street Journal wonder if the holiday is on the outs: In California, Columbus Day is one of two unpaid holidays getting blown awayRead… Read more »
Washington Post October 8, 2009 Pg. 27 Federal Diary Pay-For-Performance Program Gets The Boot By Ed O’Keefe Christmas came early for some federal employees and their unions Wednesday as lawmakers delivered one of the biggest items on their wish list, repealing a controversial pay-for-performance program. The repeal of the National Security Personnel System came asRead… Read more »
Federal employees and their unions should remember Oct. 7, 2009: It’s the day they got to cross several items off their wish list. The conference committee working on a compromise version of the Defense authorization bill (pdf) delivered several long-sought reforms impacting current and former federal employees, their salaries and the way the government measuresRead… Read more »
by Tim Verras, Director of Marketing and Customer Experience for Sophicity The great jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus once said, “Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” When it comes to IT administration, there are plenty of opportunities to make things unnecessarily complex, especially with the sheerRead… Read more »
The Office of Management and Budget will release new performance guidelines Wednesday to collect deeper evaluations of federal offices and programs. The new Program Evaluation Initiative is voluntary but will help agencies make “evidence-based policy decisions” about what’s working and what needs improvement, White House Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients said in an interview Tuesday.Read… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner This week saw the launch of the Better Buy Project, a joint project of the National Academy of Public Administration and the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council in conjunction with the General Services Administration. According to the website: …The acquisition process represents one of the most important areas of collaborationRead… Read more »