The Department of Veterans Affairs is reviewing more than 4,000 positions at risk of a downgrade in their respective pay scales.

The six VA positions under review include a mix of white-collar General Schedule (GS) and blue-collar Wage Grade (WG) positions.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) estimates about 56% of VA employees in these 4,000 positions are veterans. Some of the positions under review cover VA employees who make less than $20 an hour.

The positions the VA is reviewing cover all 18 Veterans Integrated Services Networks (VISNs). More than 1,700 positions under review are located in the Veterans Health Administration’s Finance Revenue Operations and Procurement and Logistics Office.

AFGE says affected employees have received notices in the mail about the consistency reviews. But Thomas Dargon, supervisory attorney for AFGE’s National VA Council, said the union hasn’t received notice from the VA yet about any imminent downgrades.

However, if the VA decides to downgrade any of these positions, Dargon said the department will face an even harder time filling these positions.

“The bell’s already been rung here. I’ve seen the letters that have gone out to impacted employees, and VA doesn’t have a lot of answers to the questions they’re asking,” Dargon said.

The VA put a moratorium on downgrading employee positions in 2012, allowing the department to revise a national handbook, computer software and other administrative tasks to ensure it classified employees fairly and consistently.

The VA, however, ended that moratorium earlier this year, and is conducting “consistency reviews” on six of its occupations, at the direction of the Office of Personnel Management.

VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes told Federal News Network in a statement that OPM directed the VA to conduct agency-wide consistency reviews of these six occupations, after VA employees appealed the classification of their positions to OPM.

OPM, following a classification oversight review of VA in spring 2023, determined that two positions, industrial hygienist GS-0690-12 and purchasing agent (prosthetics) GS-1105-06, were not properly classified at the correct grade level.

VA, in a memo obtained by Federal News Network, said its Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer, “is working to strengthen consistency and oversight of classification determinations across the department by taking action to ensure employees are in appropriately and consistently classified positions, reduce geographical and organizational pay disparities and decrease hiring times.”

The VA is conducting consistency reviews on the following positions:

• File Clerk (GS-0305-05 and above)
• Financial Accounts Assistant (GS-503-all grades)
• Industrial Hygienist (GS-0690-12 and above)
• Purchasing Agent (OA) (GS-1105-07 and above)
• Housekeeping Aid (WG-3 and above)
• Boiler Plant Operator (WG-5402-10 and above)

Reviews of these occupations will occur in two phases. The first phase of reviews began on March 1 and will conclude on April 26. The department will start a second phase on April 29, and complete the reviews by May 1. VA expects to submit all its reviews to OPM by May 1.

“VHA Consolidated Classification Units will be required to initiate a consistency review process, which will require the identification of [position descriptions] in need of review. [Position descriptions] determined not properly classified will be sunset through attrition and positions impacted will be recruited at the appropriate grade levels, as applicable,” the VA memo states.

Once VA conducts its consistency reviews, it will provide reports back to OPM on whether their internal findings demonstrated that those positions are properly classified as compared to OPM standards.

“From there, I suspect some decision will be made,” Dargon said. “AFGE has not been notified of any imminent downgrade at this point, but I do not suspect the consistency reviews to result in employees being upgraded.”

Dargon said AFGE “does not support any downgrade whatsoever, and that “there is already a significant pay disparity between the public sector and the private sector.”

“VA has a notoriously difficult time not only recruiting, but retaining employees, and downgrading these positions is not going to make it any easier to fill them. And it is not going to bolster morale in the workplace,” Dargon said.

Hayes told Federal News Network that the VA issued a letter temporarily suspending changes to lower grade actions on June 29, 2012. Hayes said OPM assessed VA’s classification process in March 2023, and in September 2023, “determined there were no barriers prohibiting VA from conducting the reviews.”

VA, he added, expects to complete its consistency reviews of these positions by May 31.

“Should the reviews conclude that any positions were improperly classified, VA will consider all potential options to correct this misclassification,” Hayes said. “VA will do all we can to mitigate any potential adverse impact to our current employees. VA is committed to partnering with OPM to update classification standards and ensure they reflect the work done at VA and across the federal government.”

According to slides obtained by Federal News Network from a VA briefing presentation, VHA directed its Workforce Management and Consulting Office to cancel any VHA job opportunity announcements (JOAs) for occupations and grades that are subject to the consistency reviews.

As part of the consistency reviews, VHA classifiers will take a closer look at the qualifications required to perform the work for each occupation, and whether the agency has properly applied OPM’s classification or job-grading standards.

Classifiers cannot compare these six positions to other VA jobs or positions, consider any qualifications the employee has that are not required to perform the job, or account for how well an employee performs the work or the amount of work the employee performs.

“The goal of a classification consistency review is to ensure positions are classified in compliance with OPM classification standards and graded consistently VHA-wide,” the presentation slides state.

VHA is outlining “mitigation strategies” for pay-related staffing challenges. They include supplementing the base pay of these six positions with recruitment and retention incentives — such as critical skills incentives and special salary rates available under the toxic-exposure PACT Act.

“I can appreciate that the HR community at VA is trying to create a soft landing for employees who may be impacted by these downgrades through various recruitment and retention incentives, or ‘mitigation strategies,’ as they call them. But that’s not good enough, Dargon said. “There’s no reason to downgrade these employees, to make these positions harder to fill than they already are.”

Under Secretary for Heath Shereef Elnahal included housekeepers as part of a “Big Seven” list of occupations outlined in the VHA’s top hiring priorities in 2023. Those “Big Seven” positions cover VHA jobs that have a direct impact on patient care — and include physicians, nurses, licensed practical nurses, nursing assistants and food service workers.

Dargon warned that any potential reduction in pay for housekeepers would “be felt very quickly and sharply by folks in that field.” He said VA housekeepers in Pittsburgh, for example, are currently making about $16 an hour.

“These jobs are difficult to fill, and it’s difficult to retain workers,” Dargon said. “We have people who have military backgrounds themselves, who are veterans coming back to the VA, continue giving back, who believe in the mission, who are making just over $15, $16, $17 an hour — and you’ve got VA considering a downgrade.”

Dargon said the VA, by sending these letters to impacted employees, puts them in a position of “feeling undervalued or not seen.”

“Housekeeping aids are very much the backbone of health care institutions. You do not need to be a nurse or a doctor to be considered a vitally important part of the healthcare system that is VA,” he said. “Telling those employees who are working, in some instances, in really difficult environments, every hour of the day, to keep the VA clean and safe, that their position is actually compensated too highly — I can’t imagine what that feels like.”

Dargon said that if VA were to downgrade any of these occupations, it would probably lead to the department contracting out more of this work, “because the positions have become so unattractive through pay or other working conditions.”

VA saw record hiring last year, but is now looking to manage the size of its largest-ever health care workforce.

VA in its fiscal 2025 budget request plans to reduce its total workforce headcount by 10,000 positions. Most of the workforce reduction would come from VHA.

VHA Chief Financial Officer Laura Duke told reporters last month that the workforce reduction is necessary, because the agency far exceeded its hiring goals last year, and because it’s seeing higher-than-expected retention rates.

VHA earlier this year rescinded some temporary and final job offers to prospective hires. But the agency later issued a memo, telling leadership and HR officials to only rescind job offers as an “action of last resort.”

AFGE and VA finalized a new labor agreement last August, updating the terms of their labor contract for the first time in more than a decade.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough, at the signing ceremony, said the new contract would help with “easing the process by which we can fill vacancies,” and will allow the department to make new hires more quickly.

Dargon, however, said recent events suggest the VA is no longer making an effective pitch to prospective hires.

“I was on the negotiating team for the master agreement, and sat at the bargaining table with department officials who insisted that the reason they could not quickly hire employees was because of the provisions in the collective bargaining agreement — that it took too long that these were hurdles or impediments to quick hiring. We knew that was never the case, but we agreed to certain revisions in our contract to allow for more streamlined hiring procedures,” Dargon said. “Now they’re telling us they’ve hired too many people, maybe they’re not going to hire as quickly, they’re not going to fill vacancies through attrition. And now we’re looking at existing positions, and the idea of downgrading them.”

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Congress recently approved a $56.7 billion budget for the State Department for the rest of this year.

That’s a nearly 6% cut compared to spending levels in 2023 — but a less severe cut than the 15% reduction House Republicans had proposed.

Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Richard Verma said Wednesday that this belt-tightening puts the department’s workforce in a tough position, as it responds to a growing set of diplomatic challenges.

“The department will have to make tradeoffs. The dollars are simply unable to stretch as far as we need to meet the moment. And budget cycles do not always align with global realities and crises,” Verma said Wednesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Verma said lawmakers reaching a 2024 spending deal midway through the fiscal year constrains the department’s ability to respond to emerging challenges in real time.

“None of this is intended to suggest government agencies can’t be innovative and find efficiencies we have, and we will always strive to do so. But I do, however, want to be candid about our reality and the challenges and the constraints we face,” he said.

Verma said the State Department faces an average 13% staff gap, and 15% of ambassador nominees remain unconfirmed.

While the department is looking to rebuild its staffing after a Trump administration hiring freeze and budget cuts, he said the department still doesn’t have the workforce it needs to meet its mission.

“Can you imagine if United Airlines, or Microsoft, or Google, or the University of Virginia had 13% of its positions unfilled? What happens is you end up with incredible workload burdens. You end up shifting certain duties.  You end up with posts that don’t have enough people,” Verma said. “We’re in this race to catch up, but you can’t catch up if your budget, like this past year, has been cut by nearly 6%.”

The department currently has about 77,000 employees stationed across nearly 300 embassies, consulates, and domestic operations. Americans in its workforce come from every U.S. state and nearly 20% of employees are veterans.

Among its challenges, the State Department is leading the U.S. response to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. It’s also managing a portfolio of emerging threats — including cyberattacks, climate change, global health challenges, the rise of extremist groups and the spread of artificial intelligence tools.

“We can acknowledge that these challenges have stretched the State Department in unprecedented ways. They’ve met working in more places on more issues and problem sets than ever before,” Verma said.

Verma said a national security supplemental proposed by the White House to respond to Ukraine, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific is “critically needed” for the State Department to respond to these worldwide conflicts.

Over the past year, the department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs cleared out a pandemic-era passport backlog, and processed more than 24 million passport applications and issued over 10 million visas.

About 48% of Americans now have a passport — up from 20% in 2006.

Meanwhile, the department is still coordinating Special Immigrant Visa processing for Afghan allies at over 60 posts worldwide.

Verma said U.S. consular teams in 2023 also assisted 70,000 Americans across the world in times of crisis, “and frankly, personal emergencies that are never on the front pages of any newspaper.”

That includes helping Americans living overseas leave Israel following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, and helping Americans evacuate Haiti following the ouster of its president.

Verma said the State Department is doing all of this, and “continues to deliver a tremendous value to the American people” at a cost of approximately 1% of annual federal spending.

Verma said the State Department’s base budget grew by about $36 billion since 2000 — but the Defense Department’s budget grew by nearly $600 billion over the same period.

In his first year on the job, Verma has visited more than 30 U.S. overseas missions and about a dozen domestic facilities across the United States.

“At the end of the day, we are a national security agency, with people serving bravely from Ukraine, to Somalia and South Sudan, to Iraq and Port Au Prince, and in so many other conflict zones,” Verma said. “In an age of increased competition, of global interconnectedness of growing authoritarianism, it is vitally important for American diplomats and development professionals to show up everywhere we can to lead, to build, to grow and to deepen cooperation.”

The department, as part of Secretary Antony Blinken’s modernization strategy released last fall, is staffing up its Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy and its Center for Analytics, as well as bringing onboard more subject-matter experts on climate and global health.

The department under this agenda is also reinvesting in its workforce.

“Across all hiring types, we’ve diversified hiring pathways — through paid internships and new authorities —redefined our approach to training and professional development,” Verma said.

The State Department has also launched a retention unit, to pinpoint why Foreign Service members leave the agency midway through their careers, and to make improvements that might encourage them to stay.

The post State Dept workforce in ‘tough position’ with 13% staffing gap, says deputy secretary first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Office of Management and Budget, after finalizing its governmentwide policy on AI use, said last week that it plans to hire 100 AI professionals into the federal workforce by this summer.

The White House, as part of this AI “talent surge,” is making sure agencies have the tools they need to recruit and retain AI professionals. The administration, under a sweeping executive order on AI in government, is also casting a wider net for talent, and looking to fill AI-adjacent positions.

Loren DeJonge Schulman, OMB’s associate director for performance and personnel management, said the administration is focused on the “future civil service we need to build to serve the American people today and in the future.”

“We are not just looking for technologists, for people who build large language models, for people with coding experience. Those are incredibly important, and we do want you. We are also looking for regulators, policymakers, human capital specialists who understand how to deploy AI — lawyers who are thinking about how to regulate this system — and so much more to recruit and support the next generation of AI talent. AI is going to touch everything,” Schulman said Thursday in a webinar.

The Office of Personnel Management is working on several projects to help agencies bring AI talent through the federal hiring process — from strategic workforce planning to onboarding.

Kyleigh Russ, a senior advisor at OPM leading its Hiring Experience Group, said OPM is working on a validated AI competency model that will help “better define AI skills across the federal workforce.”

Along with that model, OPM will also release interpretive guidance that will help agencies classify and assess AI skills, and put OPM’s AI competency model into practice.

OPM took its first step to identify what federal employees need to know to work with AI last summer. In a governmentwide memo to chief human capital officers, the agency outlined 44 general competencies and 14 technical competencies for the federal workforce to work with AI.

OPM is also working with the White House — including its U.S. Digital Service and Office of Performance and Personnel Management — to create an AI and Tech Talent Playbook.

Russ said the playbook will include hiring best practices and case studies that show how agencies can effectively onboard tech talent.

Federal and state agencies are also hosting a virtual “Tech to Gov” job fair on April 18, with a focus on filling AI and AI-enabling positions across government.

“We have a number of agencies there that are actively looking to hire both on-the-spot and in the months following,” Russ said.

OPM, as part of an interagency AI and Tech Talent Task Force, is focused on agencies hiring new AI and AI-enabling talent across government — as well as upskilling the current federal workforce to work with AI.

They’re also looking to give agencies the hiring tools and resources they need to compete with the private sector to attract these in-demand experts.

“We know that this talent is very sought-after and that there will be constant competition, both across government and the private sector. So investing in continuous training, retention incentives and the ability to move around throughout the government will be critical to ensuring that we can keep this talent once they’re in the door,” Russ said.

Russ said agencies are looking for technical AI talent to deploy these tools, as well as “AI-enabling talent” that will play a supporting role in deploying this emerging technology.

“We do, of course, need technical AI talent, who will be designing and modifying AI solutions. Those people will be vital to the federal government’s success in answering questions and solving problems,” Russ said. “People in AI positions will ensure that data is clean and stored in a way that will make it usable, and AI-enabling positions might also be writing policy, or even doing specialized tech talent recruitment for AI. Without these enabling skill sets, the AI talent that we’re bringing in can’t hope to execute on their core missions.”

Russ said AI-enabling positions also include data tagging, human resources, policy and other “backbone” support functions.

OPM is also encouraging agencies to use all the tools and incentives available to them to recruit and retain AI experts.

To incentivize employees to stay, agencies can offer an annual bonus of 25% of an employee’s base pay for up to four years.

The pay bonuses are reserved for feds in difficult-to-fill jobs, or those who have to relocate. But OPM’s recent approval of direct hire authority for AI-related positions is sufficient — with no further evidence needed — for agencies to consider AI jobs difficult to fill, and therefore eligible for the bonuses.

OPM approved direct-hire authority for AI-related positions last year. Agencies also have OPM approval to offer an annual bonus of 25% of an employee’s base pay for up to four years to fill AI-related jobs.

OPM is also encouraging agencies to bring in new talent through pipeline programs, such as the U.S. Digital Service and the President’s Management Fellows program.

Russ also encouraged agencies to bring outside experts into government for a temporary tour of duty through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA). Federal agencies can make IPA appointments to borrow talent from universities, nonprofits and state and local governments.

“This is largely underutilized across government,” Russ said. “We encourage agencies to use this hiring mechanism, which allows for a great deal of flexibility in their arrangements, that make sense for the agency and the partner organization.”

While the federal government remains in the early stages of AI adoption, agencies have already identified more than 700 AI use cases on AI.gov.

Morgan Zimmerman, an AI policy analyst at OMB, said agencies already see AI tools boosting the productivity of their current workforce.

“We’re seeing that AI can really start to automate a lot of routine tasks that we have here in the government — something like analyzing large datasets very rapidly, and just optimizing processes in ways that really increase productivity here in federal agencies,” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman said agencies are also using AI for predictive analytics and data-driven decision-making.

“We’re really seeing that AI can enhance the quality of decisions in both policy areas, operations within the agency, enforcement, those sorts of areas.”

OMB also sees AI as a valuable tool to provide a higher level of customer service across the government.

“We’re already seeing that agencies are leveraging AI-powered chatbots. They’re using voice assistants, and things like language translation. And all of these technologies are going to prove really impactful when it comes to government services, and especially making them more accessible and user friendly to the public,” Zimmerman said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is using automation to help its employees make decisions on disability claims.

Paul Shute, VA’s assistant deputy undersecretary for automated benefits delivery, said the automation tools don’t make final decisions on disability claims — but do help claims processors go through hundreds of thousands of pages of veterans’ military service records, medical records and prior claims histories.

“I’m a firm believer that there’s something inherently human in the disability decisions that we make for veterans. And despite the fact that there’s been incredible advancements in new and emerging technology like AI, there’s no technology available today that can replicate the human discretion required in weighing evidence, determining the probative value of evidence that’s needed to effectively process veterans disability claims,” Shute said.

Last year, the Veterans Benefits Administration received 2.4 million disability compensation claims, a 42% increase from the 1.7 million claims received in fiscal year 2022. VBA expects to keep seeing record volumes of claims in the coming years under the toxic-exposure PACT Act.

“We are currently hiring and we will continue to hire more claims processors to address that volume of work, but we also need to equip both our current and new employees, the tools and technologies they need to enhance their productivity and efficiency and empower them to do the incredible work that they do for veterans every day,” Shute said.

VA has identified more than 100 use cases for AI.

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More than a quarter of the federal workforce is feeling burnout, according to a recent study, making them more likely to leave their agency or feel less engaged in their work.

A recent Gallup study of more than 5,400 survey respondents finds 26% of federal employees say they “very often” or “always” feel burned out at work.

Rob DeSimone, associate principal of workplace initiatives at Gallup, says that level of burnout can lead to high attrition rates.

“When people are burned out, they’re much, much more likely to leave their agency,” DeSimone said.

The study also finds a high attrition rate can also lead to higher labor costs. Gallup estimates that in an agency of 10,000 employees, with an average salary of $50,000, low engagement contributes to $66 million in annual costs.

Gallup bases those figures on research from the Society for Human Resources Management, which shows it costs six-to-nine months of most employees’ salary to replace them — and that the cost is even higher for more senior-level vacancies.

Mike Ritz, executive director of Gallup’s Federal Government Initiative, said these costs also stem from burned-out employees feeling less productive and less engaged with their work.

“When you become actively disengaged, when you’re a person that literally feels miserable at their job, and you are disconnecting from your job, let’s face it, you might even take down the ship, if you had the opportunity — because you have that much contempt for the employer that they’re not meeting your needs,” Ritz said.

No ‘silver bullet’ solutions

The study takes a closer look at some of the federal employee stressors that agencies have anecdotally observed, but not fully quantified.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, for example, is addressing burnout among its health care workforce through its REBOOT task force. The VA, more recently, is looking at artificial intelligence tools to reduce administrative burdens on clinicians — a driver of burnout.

The Partnership for Public Service is also tracking a steady decline in work-life balance scores from federal employees, as measured by its Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings.

Ritz said there are no “silver bullet” solutions to address burnout across the entire federal workforce. But Gallup identified five root causes of these challenges — unfair treatment at work, unmanageable workloads, unclear communication from managers, lack of manager support and unreasonable time pressure.

“It seems like the more we learn, the more we realize that it’s very individual for each person, and what works for one might not work for another. So, this idea of, ‘Let’s just give everybody time off, that’ll work’ — well, that might work for some, but not for others,” he said.

The study also finds that employees sometimes cope with burnout in ways that only exacerbate the problem.

“[If] you’re a person that really is a high achiever — you like to [be] task-driven, and really achieve your tasks and get things done — a natural coping mechanism, when you’re feeling burned out is, ‘Let me just do more. Let me get to it faster’ … If those executing folks would stop and take their time to think through their situation, stop and pause, think through the situation there, they will reduce their burnout by 48%,” Ritz said.

Role of managers contributing to burnout

Management behavior plays a major role in a federal employee’s workplace experience. Gallup finds managers account for about 70% of their team’s engagement scores. The study also finds managers experience burnout at a higher rate (35%) than the federal employees they oversee (23%).

“If managers are burned out, that’s flowing down to all the employees within the agency,” Ritz said. “It’s the manager that can be the one that can help prevent and reverse burnout among the team, while also increasing productivity —  and that requires a very individualized approach to understand how can we manage workloads. How can we manage prioritization, alongside what the wellbeing of the team is, alongside what some of the pressures are coming from whatever the performance initiatives are? It’s really the manager that has that ability to juggle those three things.”

Jay Hoffman, chief financial officer for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, agreed that managers play a major role in combatting burnout within agencies.

“When managers are engaged, their employees are more likely to be engaged as well,” Hoffman said.

Effective managers also help employees manage workloads and communicate clear expectations. Gallup found that about 42% of federal employees said they know what’s expected of them at work.

“What that’s really saying is that managers themselves, oftentimes, might lack clarity — not so much about what it is they have to do — they’re usually very clear about that,” DeSimone said. “They might not know, ‘What are the relationships that I need in this organization? Who do I need to be collaborating with in order to achieve our bigger goal?’ And for some organizations, they may not even know what their bigger goal is, or where exactly they fit in.”

Gallup’s research into employee burnout also finds that the way people experience their workloads has a stronger influence on burnout than the number of hours worked.

“In the federal government, there are a lot of empty seats right now. A lot of folks have gone elsewhere, for a variety of different reasons. And of course, talent is at a premium across all sectors and industries,” Ritz said. “So, if you’re already feeling like your workload is tough, and then the guy next to you is no longer there, and the guy to your right is gone … did my workload just get even tougher? Who’s helping me manage that? Who’s the person that is having that strong influence of how I experienced that workload?”

A ‘game-changer’ for burnout? Meaningful conversations

Ritz said managers who have one “meaningful conversation” with an employee who reports to them at least once a week are a “game-changer” for burnout. That conversation can take as little as 15-30 minutes.

“It needs to be a conversation that talks about their goals, their personal development, things that have meaning to that person that is reporting up to that manager. And that can make a massive impact,” Ritz said.

James Egbert, branch chief for human capital strategy at the Department of Health and Human Services, meaningful one-on-one conversations with employees can make a huge difference in employee engagement.

“I’ve learned that if you want to improve employee engagement, you must engage with your people. Listen, ask and listen some more,” Egbert said.

Ritz said employees who strongly agree that their employer cares about their overall wellbeing are three times more engaged, and 71% less likely to report feeling burnout.

DeSimone the most important thing managers can do to address burnout is to provide “meaningful feedback.” That feedback, he added, is valuable for managers to give their supervisors, as well as the employees they oversee.

“Employees don’t want to wait three months or wait 12 months to figure out in their performance review what their mistakes are. They want to know, that minute, if not that day. They want to know, what did I do right? And also, what are my areas for improvement? They want to hear both,” DeSimone said.

The study finds that engaged federal employees are not just more productive — they’re also more likely to stay at their agencies.

“If you have somebody that is fully engaged, then you need 20% more in terms of higher pay, in order for that person to want to leave their current job. But if you have somebody who’s not engaged, then they’ll leave for a 0% increase,” DeSimone said. “They’re just looking for a better environment, and you can send it their way. They’re looking to be alleviated from that burnout situation they find themselves in.”

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The Census Bureau is looking to roll out a remote work policy it drafted at the end of last year, but is rethinking how many employees can opt in, after Congress recently set minimum utilization rates for federal buildings.

The Census Bureau agreed to a remote work policy last December, and a working group is working on implementation details.

Census Bureau Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer Ron Jarmin told employees in an all-staff email last week that once an implementation plan is finalized in the coming weeks, employees will be approved for remote work “in special situations determined by the remote work implementation working group.”

“Our policy must follow departmental and administrative guidelines and will have limits which significantly impact the number of employees who will be approved for remote work across the Census Bureau,” Jarmin wrote.

Jarmin said the bureau strongly recommends employees do not move outside the commuting area of their official duty station until they receive remote work approval.

Meanwhile, the Census Bureau is reconfiguring its headquarters to bring more Commerce Department employees under one roof.

American Federation of Government Employees Council 241 President Johnny Zuagar said in an interview with Federal News Network that the Census Bureau headquarters is undergoing renovations and giving up 50% of its headquarters space to accommodate employees from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The bureau’s headquarters, he added, will shift to a hoteling model following the renovations, meaning employees will have to reserve a desk for the days they plan to work in-person.

“We have done what they’re saying. We looked at our real estate, and we redid it. We have consolidated with other agencies, we are moving to smaller spaces that are at other locations. So we’re doing exactly what they’re asking,” Zuagar said. “We’re using the space efficiently and effectively. We are making adjustments. This is going to take a couple of years to know where the right balance is, but we’ll find that out.”

AFGE Council 241 Vice President Vickie Martin said Census Bureau employees who work outside the Suitland, Maryland headquarters are expected to work in the office a minimum of two days per pay period — although in-office expectations vary by position. Zuagar said some employees are working in-person every day.

Martin said the union initially expected more Census employees would be eligible to enroll in the remote work policy, but language in the fiscal 2024 spending deal set minimum occupancy requirements for federal buildings, and “handcuffed us a little bit” on the scope of remote work.

Lawmakers, in the spending deal for the rest of fiscal 2024, are requiring agencies with an office space utilization rate of less than 60% to report to Congress on their efforts to reduce their real estate footprint.

Agencies as part of the appropriations package will also have to provide information on the average number and percentage of employees working in the office during a typical two-week pay period, as well as their recent telework policies.

“We’re not going to give up on expanding that and getting further flexibilities for our people. But, we’re also not going to jeopardize what they’ve been able to gain, as far as flexibilities now,” Martin said.

A Census Bureau spokeswoman said in a statement that the bureau’s headquarters is under construction to modernize the building and bring Bureau of Labor Statistics employees into the building. During the renovations, the spokeswoman said “employees have been working under maximum telework.”

The bureau expects to reopen its headquarters building this summer.

“Employees have been notified that they will receive a 60-day notice before headquarters begins a phased reopening and will be required to comply with existing policies upon their return,” the spokeswoman said.

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The post Census Bureau rethinks scope of remote work policy, consolidates office space first appeared on Federal News Network.

House Small Business Committee Vice Chairman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) said in a March 20 oversight hearing that he was “extremely skeptical” of SBA’s request for a 20% budget increase in fiscal 2025, “as there is no evidence the agency is operating effectively or efficiently.”

Among his concerns, Luetkemeyer said SBA has “implemented an extremely minimal return to work policy.”

“This is a direct slap in the face to our entrepreneurs who don’t have the luxury of a day off or the ability to sit in their pajamas and work from home,” Luetkemeyer said.

SBA Administrator Isabella Guzman told lawmakers that employees are in the office at least five days a pay period, “complying with the standards” set governmentwide by White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients.

“We have 50% occupancy on any given day, at a minimum,” Guzman said. “The whole of SBA, across the country, has returned to work.”

Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) said members of the committee toured SBA’s headquarters on Dec. 3, 2023, and saw “empty office spaces” throughout the building.

“If we’re not going to use these buildings, let’s shut them down. Let’s consolidate and save money for the American taxpayer,” Alford said.

“I’ve long been concerned with SBA’s lax work-from-home policy, and what that means for our nation’s 33 million small businesses, getting them the help they need, when they need it,” Alford said.

Guzman said SBA occupies two-thirds of its headquarters building, and that three other agencies occupy the rest of the space.

“We went to the floors that SB A fully occupies,” Guzman told lawmakers. “We are looking constantly at our space requirements, aligned with our facilities’ needs.”

Acting American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 228 President Niklas Gustafsson said bargaining unit employees are expected to work in the office a minimum of four days per pay period, “with additional days, depending on the position.”

“Managers have the discretion to have a higher amount, if there’s a particular need,” Gustafsson said. “For example, if you are a receptionist or work in the mail room. If you’re in a position that requires more in-office presence, that would then be required.”

SBA managers and members of the Senior Executive Service, he added, are expected to work in the office at least five days per pay period.

“Employees recognize that there are in-person, in-office functions that need to be accomplished, and SBA bargaining unit employees are professionals and don’t object to that,” Gustafsson said. “However, many employees are confused and do not understand what it is they are accomplishing in the office, when they are in the office, that is different from when they are teleworking.”

Gustafsson said that he and his coworkers are carrying out the same duties each day, whether or not they’re in the office. That means SBA employees sometimes spend their in-office days in videoconference meetings with colleagues located across the country.

“My in-office days look no different than a telework day, from a work process or productivity point of view, and I think that’s true for the vast majority of our bargaining unit,” he said.

Committee Chairman Roger Williams (R-Texas), Luetkemeyer, Alford and five other committee Republicans say SBA office space remains mostly underutilized and is wasting taxpayer dollars.

The lawmakers are asking SBA to clarify its return to office requirements, and are asking why the agency is asking for $42 million for its rent budget in it 2025 budget proposal — a 30% increase from 2023 levels — when it already has “rows and rows of empty desks.”

“Despite the Biden administration’s belated realization that work-from-home policies are counterproductive to servicing the American public, it appears that the SBA has failed to implement an effective strategy to return its employees. Nearly a year after the Biden Administration ended the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, the SBA is still not back to work,” lawmakers wrote in a March 27 letter to Guzman.

Congressional Republicans have repeatedly pointed to SBA as an agency with underutilized office space.

Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee Ranking Member Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) placed SBA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on the top of her “naughty list” of agencies with underutilized offices last December.

Data from the Government Accountability Office shows HUD and SBA both had a 7% average utilization rate in early 2023 — the lowest rate of all other major agencies.

HUD and SBA officials told GAO their headquarters buildings were undergoing renovation during the data collection period, contributing to a decrease in attendance.

GAO, in a report this summer, found all 24 of the agency headquarters offices it reviewed had excess space, including 17 that had an average building capacity of just 25%.

Discover more now:

Return to office in 4 parts: Fed facing the May 5 deadline 

Education’s return-to-office announcement ‘perplexing’ to union

Census Bureau reconsidering remote work policy

Labor employees protest at their office for more telework riles up lawmakers 

The post GOP lawmakers pan SBA return-to-office plans as ‘extremely minimal’ first appeared on Federal News Network.

A Postal Service letter carrier is one of the most public-facing jobs in the federal government.

They deliver mail and packages to 163 million addresses across the U.S. at least six days a week. They’re a routine presence in their customers’ lives, which means they’re often the first to realize when something on their route isn’t quite right.

It turns out letter carriers are often first on the scene in the case of an emergency. Every year, USPS employees rescue people from house fires, car crashes and medical emergencies while on their routes.

Those letter carriers also see when customers are going through a hard time, and find ways to give back to the community.

The National Association of Letter Carriers tracks about 150 of these acts of heroism from its members every year. But each year, the union recognizes a select few for extraordinary acts of service.

Some of NALC’s Letter Carrier Heroes of the Year put their own safety on the line to help save lives. Others led toy drives in their community and held annual charity concerts to make the holiday season extra special for families in need.

NALC National President Brian Renfroe said letter carriers provide an essential service to their customers, and are the “eyes and ears of their communities.”

“No one knows our communities and our neighborhoods like letter carriers. We deliver on our routes six and even seven days a week. We get to know our customers. We get to know them better each and every day,” Renfroe said during an award ceremony last Wednesday.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said letter carriers are often called on to “go above and beyond the call of duty when something unpredictable happens.”

“Sometimes, it requires an incredible act of heroism. When our carrier happens to be in a life-altering, defining moment and follows his or her instinct to do the right thing above all else,” DeJoy said. “That carrier, despite the personal risk involved, acts selflessly and helps others, making that carrier a hero.”

Phillip Moon, a letter carrier who’s worked the same route for 27 years in Amarillo, Texas, received the National Hero of the Year award. Last October, he saved a woman from a pitbull who was attacking her and her two dogs.

“I noticed it was mauling her. It had her by the leg and was just doing this number on her. So I jumped out of my truck and went to help, and was able to get the dog off of her by beating on it with my hand on its head. And it turned her loose,” Moon said.

That gave Moon the moment he needed to pull the woman into his truck, away from the dog and start treating her wounds.

“I noticed she was bleeding very bad. It enabled me to get to my phone, and call 911. They told me that I needed to get a compress on this wound right away. And all I could think of was to use my shirt to make a compress. I took my shirt off and mashed it down real hard, kept the compress on it, talking to the 911 operator,” Moon said.

Moon says he’s honored to receive the award, but doesn’t think he’s a hero — just someone who did the right thing.

“I don’t consider myself a hero. I’m just very grateful and honored and thankful that I was in a place where I could be of some assistance to somebody in need,” he said.

Kyle Mailman (yes, that’s his actual name) received one of this year’s Vigilant Hero Awards for saving a woman from a natural gas leak in her home.

“I was getting ready to walk up and I can smell natural gas. So I go up to the door and I hit the floor. I started to choke a little bit, with how concentrated it was there in the entryway. And my first thought was, ‘If it’s coming from inside the house, this is really, really bad,'” Mailman said.

Mailman knocked on the door, and a resident answered. But he knew something wasn’t quite right.

“I’d had natural gas poisoning 20 years prior, so I knew a little bit about it. And we started going over the symptoms of it. She was irritable, she was fatigued. She was having trouble comprehending very basic things that normally she could. And I said, ‘Get out of the house, get everybody out.'”

Mailman’s suspicions were correct. When the gas company arrived on the scene, it turned out gophers had chewed through the gas line, creating a major gas leak in Mary’s fireplace.

These awards don’t just go to letter carriers who respond to an emergency. They also go to letter carriers who give back to their community, and keep doing so year after year.

NALC recognized four New York City letter carriers for launching a nonprofit that organizes holiday toy drives.

Earnest Twomley is one of the carriers who received the award. He said this all began a decade ago, with a chance encounter on the street.

“I was delivering my route. And I come across a family coming out of a cab in the middle of the street. A little girl was standing there screaming, crying. Having three kids of my own, I know what pain is, and I know what a tantrum was. I saw that she was in pain, walked over to her and said, ‘Have you ever been delivered to your apartment by a mailman?’ And she just looked up and smiled,” Twomley  said. “I picked her up, carried her a couple of fights. That stopped the little girl from crying. So when I came out of the building, one of the tenants says, ‘That was a nice thing you did … She just came back from Sloan Kettering [Cancer Center]. She has a brain tumor and she had a treatment.’ So that’s why she was in pain.”

This happened around Thanksgiving, so Twomley told the girl to write a letter to Santa.

USPS enables volunteers to “adopt” a child’s letter to Santa through its Operation Santa program and send a gift through the mail.  In this case, Twomley was the one checking everything off her list.

After that, Twomley said things just snowballed from there.

“We started one toy drive that led to another toy drive, that led to doing other stuff as well for the community,” he said.

Since then, Twomley and his fellow carriers created a nonprofit called Better Angels of Human Nature and donated hundreds of toys to children across the city.

Better Angels isn’t an official USPS program, but Twomley says he’s got big aspirations for his enterprise.

“We can take this on a national level,” he said. “Just think of the eyes of these kids. You would think it’s just a toy. But then again, we go far and beyond — and that’s us postal workers. We are on the frontline.”

Besides Twomley, NALC also recognized letter carriers David Correa, Heriberto Rodriguez and Daniel Weber for their contributions to the Better Angels program.

The post ‘We are on the front line:’ USPS letter carriers recognized for heroic acts first appeared on Federal News Network.

VA officials say they’re building on lessons learned from a rocky rollout of the new Oracle-Cerner EHR that started in October 2020.

Since its first new EHR go-live, VA’s inspector general office has documented instances of the new system contributing to patient harm. The watchdog, in a report released last week, also linked problems with the new EHR to the 2022 death of a veteran in Columbus, Ohio.

Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday that VA’s rollout of the new EHR at Capt. James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (Lovell FHCC) in North Chicago has been “the most successful deployment we’ve had.”

“We’re going to watch this closely, and we’re going to be on top of it, not just in the next few weeks, but in the coming months, when we start to roll back the direct support and get to normal operations at Lovell,” Elnahal said. “We’ll be watching closely about what these trends are. We’ll be very transparent when problems arise, and we’ll jump on any issue to fix it.”

The VA remains in a “reset” period and won’t schedule any additional go-lives until sites already using the new EHR return to pre-rollout productivity levels.

Elnahal said the five other VA sites using the Oracle-Cerner EHR are “getting closer and closer” to predeployment productivity levels.

“We’re seeing tickets filed when problems are noticed, with quick action. And we’re seeing patient safety incident tickets filed when problems arise,” he said.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the department is closely monitoring the performance of sites using the new EHR to “make sure that everything is in good standing.”

“There’s a reason we’re in reset. And these are hard-learned lessons. We’re going to stay in reset until we are confident that we are making the system work in a way that improves veteran outcomes and improves the provider experience in those five sites before we go live any farther,” McDonough said.

VA’s fiscal 2025 budget request seeks $894 million for the VA’s ongoing rollout of a new Electronic Health Record from Oracle-Cerner. For context, the department received a $1.3 billion EHR budget from Congress this year — $529 million less than what the department requested.

The 2025 budget request doesn’t include any funding for additional deployments. The funding would go toward contract payments to Oracle-Cerner, and infrastructure support for VA sites already using the new EHR.

VA officials, however, say the request funding levels are not indicative that a pause of EHR go-lives will continue through 2025.

“We’re not looking to jumpstart and do any fast movements here,” McDonough said. “I think you see that in our budget request. We’re very eyes-wide-open. We’re trying to make sure that we are rolling forward, consistent with what the experience of our providers and of our veterans at those five important go-live sites tells us.”

A successful EHR rollout at the Lovell FHCC would give the VA an opportunity to move on from problems that have hampered the multi-billion dollar project for years.

As a reminder of those persistent challenges, VA OIG released three reports on March 21, highlighting several problems VA facilities have experienced with the new EHR.

VA OIG, in one report, found a scheduling error with the Oracle-Cerner EHR and “inadequate mental health care” at the VA Central Ohio Health Care System contributed to a veteran’s death.

The IG office found a veteran in his 20’s, flagged as a high-risk for suicide, died from an accidental inhalant overdose about seven weeks after he missed an appointment at the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System in Columbus, Ohio.

The IG office confirmed that a system error in the Oracle-Cerner EHR led to VA staff not following up with the veteran 14 days after he missed a VA mental health appointment.

The OIG found that when the patient missed his appointment, although it was updated to no-show status, the EHR didn’t prompt schedulers to follow up with required rescheduling efforts.

“The OIG concluded that the lack of contact efforts may have contributed to the patient’s disengagement from mental health treatment and ultimately the patient’s substance use relapse and death,” the report states.

The veteran had received mental health treatment from the VA since spring 2018. According to the IG report, the department flagged the veteran as a high-risk for suicide, after a suicide attempt in spring 2019.

Elnahal told reporters on Tuesday that the Columbus VA Medical Center has done a “deep dive” into the IG office’s findings, conducted a root cause analysis, “and have made already significant changes to our processes as we interface with the new Electronic Health Record to prevent this from ever happening again.”

“Every single time this happens, we have to learn from it,” Elnahal said.

It’s not the first death linked to the new EHR. Members of the Senate VA Committee said at a March 2023 hearing they were briefed on “six catastrophic events” related to the Oracle-Cerner EHR, four of which resulted in patient deaths.

VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said in a statement that when VA became aware of this veteran’s death, “VA began taking action to reduce the risk of tragedies like this from happening in the future.”

“We have fixed the technical issue and the EHRM system now provides appropriate follow-up reminders to VA staff, and VA is further evaluating and standardizing its current policies and procedures for scheduling mental health appointments,” Hayes said.

“There is nothing more important to VA than providing high-quality mental health care to veterans — especially veterans in crisis — and we are deeply saddened by the loss of any veteran who dies by suicide,” he added. “Patient safety concerns are of the utmost importance to VA, and we fully concur with the OIG’s recommendations.”

VA OIG  found, in a second report, that the new EHR impacted medication and allergy safety checks for veterans who receive care from more than one VA facility.

The VA watchdog released its full report on March 21, but testified before members of the  House VA Committee on its findings in a hearing last month.

VA OIG found the department couldn’t automatically check for drug interactions or allergies when patients at VA facilities using the new Oracle-Cerner EHR later sought treatment at another VA site using its legacy EHR system.

Deputy VA IG David Case told lawmakers that about 250,000 veterans since September 2023 have received medication orders or medication allergies documented in the new Oracle-Cerner EHR.

Hayes said in a statement that “to date, there has been no patient harm identified due to this issue.”

“This issue has been fixed for all new medications prescribed since April 2023, and all historical medications will be corrected by the end of August 2024,” Hayes said. “Many medications have already been updated, and our VA providers are conducting manual interaction checks as needed to ensure patient safety until the issue has been fully resolved.”

Hayes added that, “out of an abundance of caution,” the VA is communicating with VA patients at the affected facilities to encourage them to bring their medications, or medication lists, to all in-person and virtual appointments.

VA, he said, encourages veterans to alert their providers if they visit more than one VA facility, have received care through a non-VA facility, or if they have a specific drug allergy.

“These steps are to support quality care so that VA providers can conduct manual order checks as needed,” Hayes said.

VA OIG, in a third report, warned that scheduling system challenges at VA facilities using the new EHR may be exacerbated at larger, more complex medical centers.

VA OIG states the new EHR provides one scheduling system for patients, providers, and schedulers, and was expected to increase scheduler efficiency and reduce scheduling errors.

While some VA clinicians told VA OIG that scheduling appointments in the new EHR is more user-friendly,  the report found schedulers at the three VA medical facilities that have been using the new EHR the longest billed for more than 13,000 hours of overtime last year.

“Although other reports and this memorandum call attention to the problems experienced during the transition to the EHR scheduling system, VHA staff anticipate that positive outcomes are still achievable if facilities take the time to learn from previous deployments, applying lessons learned to either alleviate challenges or better manage them, thereby decreasing the impact to staff and patients,” the report states.

Hayes said in a statement that VA is developing a standard process, outlining the steps VA staff should take to carry out and improve scheduling efforts.

“VA is committed to addressing all issues with the federal EHR system, including scheduling-related functions. Veterans remain the center of everything we do. They deserve high-quality health care that is safe, timely, veteran-centric, equitable, evidence-based and efficient,” he said.

The post Recent VA EHR rollout ‘most successful’ so far, but IG outlines recent problems first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Office of Management and Budget on Thursday released its first governmentwide policy on how agencies should mitigate the risks of AI while harnessing its benefits.

Among its mandates, OMB will require agencies to publicly report on how they’re using AI, the risks involved and how they’re managing those risks.

Senior administration officials told reporters Wednesday that OMB’s guidance will give agency leaders, such as their chief AI officers or AI governance boards, the information they need to independently assess their use of AI tools, identify flaws, prevent biased or discriminatory results and suggest improvements.

Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters in a call that OMB’s guidance sets up several “binding requirements to promote the safe, secure and responsible use of AI by our federal government.”

“When government agencies use AI tools, we will now require them to verify that those tools do not endanger the rights and safety of the American people,” Harris said.

‘Concrete safeguards’ for agency AI use

OMB  is giving agencies until Dec. 1, 2024, to implement “concrete safeguards” that protect Americans’ rights or safety when agencies use AI tools.

“These safeguards include a range of mandatory actions to reliably assess, test, and monitor AI’s impacts on the public, mitigate the risks of algorithmic discrimination, and provide the public with transparency into how the government uses AI,” OMB wrote in a fact sheet.

By putting these safeguards in place, OMB says travelers in airports will be able to opt out of AI facial recognition tools used by the Transportation Security Administration,” without any delay or losing their place in line.”

The Biden administration also expects AI algorithms used in the federal health care system will have a human being overseeing the process to verify the AI algorithm’s results and avoid biased results.

“If the Veterans Administration wants to use AI in VA hospitals, to help doctors diagnose patients, they would first have to demonstrate that AI does not produce racially biased diagnoses,” Harris said.

A senior administration official said OMB is providing overarching AI guidelines for the entire federal government, “as well as individual guidelines for specific agencies.”

“Each agency is in its own unique place in its technology and innovation journey related to AI. So we will make sure, based on the policy, that we will know how all government agencies are using AI, what steps agencies are taking to mitigate risks. We will be providing direct input on the government’s most useful impacts of AI,” the official said. “And we will make sure, based on the guidance, that any member of the public is able to seek remedy when AI potentially leads to misinformation or false decisions about them.”

OMB’s first-of-its-kind guidance covers all federal use of AI, including projects developed internally by federal officials and those purchased from federal contractors.

Under OMB’s policy, agencies that don’t follow these steps “must cease using the AI system,” except in some limited cases where doing so would create an “unacceptable impediment to critical agency operations.”

OMB is requiring agencies to release expanded inventories of their AI use cases every year, including identifying use cases that impact rights or safety, and how the agency is addressing the relevant risks.

Agencies have already identified hundreds of AI use cases on AI.gov.

“The American people have a right to know when and how their government is using AI, that it is being used in a responsible way. And we want to do it in a way that holds leaders accountable for the responsible use of AI,” Harris said.

OMB will also require agencies to release government-owned AI code, models and data — as long as it doesn’t pose a risk to the public or government operations.

The guidance requires agencies to designate chief AI officers — although many agencies have already done so after it released its draft guidance last May Those agency chief AI officers have recently met with OMB and other White House officials as part of the recently launched Chief AI Officer Council.

OMB’s guidance also gives agencies until May 27 to establish AI governance boards that will be led by their deputy secretaries or an equivalent executive.

The Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and State have already created their AI governance boards.

“This is to make sure that AI is used responsibly, understanding that we must have senior leaders across our government who are specifically tasked with overseeing AI adoption and use,” Harris said.

A senior administration official said the OMB guidance expects federal agency leadership, in many cases, to assess whether AI tools adopted by the agency adhere to risk management standards and standards to protect the public.

Federal government ‘leading by example’ on AI

OMB Director Shalanda Young said the finalized guidance “demonstrates that the federal government is leading by example in its own use of AI.”

“AI presents not only risks, but also a tremendous opportunity to improve public services,” Young said. “When used and overseen responsibly, AI can help agencies to reduce wait times for critical government services, improve accuracy and expand access to essential public services.”

Young said the OMB guidance will make it easier for agencies to share and collaborate across government, as well as with industry partners. She said it’ll also “remove unnecessary barriers to the responsible use of AI in government.”

Many agencies are already putting AI tools to work.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is using AI to predict the spread of disease and detect illegal opioids, while the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services is using AI to reduce waste and identify anomalies in drug costs.

The Federal Aviation Administration is using AI to manage air traffic in major metropolitan areas and  improve travel time.

OMB’s guidance encourages agencies to “responsibly experiment” with generative AI, with adequate safeguards in place. The administration notes that many agencies have already started this work, including by using AI chatbots to improve customer experience.

100 new AI hires coming to agencies by this summer

Young said the federal government is on track to hire at least 100 AI professionals into the federal workforce this summer, and holding a career fair on April 18 to fill AI roles across the federal government

President Joe Biden called for an “AI talent surge” across the government in his executive order last fall.

As federal agencies increasingly adopt AI, Young said agencies must also “not leave the existing federal workforce behind.”

OMB is calling on agencies to adopt the Labor Department’s upcoming principles for mitigating AI’s potential harm to employees.

The White House says the Labor Department is leading by example, consulting with federal employees and labor unions the development of those principles, as well as its own governance and use of AI.

Later this year, OMB will take additional steps to ensure agencies’ AI contracts align with its new policy and protect the rights and safety of the public from AI-related risks.

OMB will be taking further action later this year to address federal procurement of AI. It released a request for information on Thursday, to collect public input on that work.

A senior administration official said OMB, as part of the RFI, is looking for feedback on how to “support a strong and diverse and competitive federal ecosystem of AI vendors,” as well as how to incorporate OMB’s new AI risk management requirements into federal contracts.

The public has until April 28 to respond to the RFI.

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The VA saw 25,000 more patients so far in fiscal 2024, compared to the same period in fiscal 2023. New patient appointments also increased by 11% during this period.

The department says 81% of VA medical centers have seen more new patients so far this year, compared to last year.

VA credits a higher volume of medical appointments with recent historic hiring efforts.

The Veterans Health Administration hired more than 61,000 employees in fiscal 2023, its fastest growth rate in 15 years. The agency grew its total workforce by more than 7%, and now has more than 400,000 employees for the first time in its history.

VHA also launched “access sprints” in January, with a focus on increasing appointment availability across three areas of care — cardiology, mental health and gastroenterology.

VA Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal told reporters on Tuesday that every VA medical center is looking at ways to keep this level of appointment growth sustainable in the long term, beyond the access sprints.

“Hopefully a lot of that will stay in place. We have to be mindful of overall staffing, our authorities and our ability to pay things like overtime,” Elnahal said at a press conference at VA headquarters. “Not all of it will be sustained. But we’re asking every medical center and network to look very closely about what we can continue.”

Under the PACT Act, more than 100,000 new veterans have enrolled in VA health care since the legislation was signed in August 2022. That’s out of the more than 500,000 total health care enrollments during the same period.

“We’re expanding access to care, because we know that the influx of new demand for care will be greater because of the PACT Act, because we are welcoming so many more veterans into our doors,” Elnahal said.

Under an accelerated PACT Act implementation timeline, all veterans exposed to toxic substances and other hazards during military service — at home or abroad — became eligible to enroll directly in VA health care without first applying for VA benefits on March 5.

VHA, Elnahal added, will still have the resources it needs to meet higher demand for VA health care, even as the agency prepares to reduce its headcount by roughly 10,000 positions under its 2025 budget request.

Elnahal said the headcount reduction will happen through attrition and “voluntary separation from employment.”

“We’re not considering anything involuntary. We think there is an opportunity to cut our workforce by 10,000, especially in those roles that are not directly veteran-facing,” Elnahal said.

VHA, he added, is more likely to lower its headcount in management and supervisor roles that don’t provide frontline care to veterans.

“That is the category of employees that we think we can attrit down to a level where we’re not compromising capacity for clinical care. And so, we have the room to do that,” Elnahal said.

Elnahal said VHA is “focused overwhelmingly” on making sure workforce retention levels remain high. VHA saw a  20% decrease in turnover between 2022 and 2023.

“We can fill our clinicians’ schedules and we can see those veterans. I’m not concerned about being over capacity, especially when it comes to outpatient services and mental health — key services that we offer,” he added.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough said the VA has “had a good couple of years on hiring nurses,” and credited that success on hiring and retention authorities under the PACT Act.

McDonough also credited increased nurse hiring on the RAISE Act that Congress passed in March 2022. The legislation set high pay caps for VA registered nurses and physician assistants.

He also said he’s heard positive feedback about these changes from VA leaders and employees.

“We had been facing a challenge with retention of everybody, to include very highly compensated specialists, but also especially in this moment of pretty substantial wage growth, frontline providers,” McDonough said. “To hear that testimony about the impact of policy decisions that we’ve taken, and that Congress has taken in the course of the last couple of years, has been really important.”

Despite VHA’s planned headcount reduction, Elnahal said the agency is still looking to hire in a few strategic areas, including mental health care. The agency is also looking to reduce the time it takes to fill vacant positions.

VHA, as of January, took an average 157 days to fill a position once it became vacant. McDonough said he’s “super frustrated at how long it takes to hire,” and has heard those frustrations from VA facilities across the country.

“We lose too many very high-quality and highly qualified providers to our competitors by being slow — and we can’t afford to keep doing that,” McDonough said.

Elnahal said VHA is looking to standardize the hiring process nationwide, and is now holding a “friendly competition” across Veterans Integrated Services Networks (VISNs) to see who can get to the lowest time to fill for critical hires.

“We hope that that will have some benefit here. But we’ve got to get better and we’re very focused on it,” Elnahal said.

VHA task force targets clinician burnout

Elnahal said VHA is taking steps to ensure that, “as we expand the volume of appointments, and offer greater care to veterans across the country, that we protect our clinicians from burnout.”

Michael Charness, chief of staff for the VA Boston Health Care System, is leading VHA efforts to reduce administrative burdens that can contribute to burnout.

“You can’t sprint very far with a heavy backpack, and we were mindful that clinicians everywhere bear heavy administrative burdens,” Charness said. “Many clinicians experience burnout, and reducing administrative burdens is one way to decrease burnout and increase professional fulfillment.”

Charness is leading a task force focused on reducing VHA administrative burdens, based on feedback received from employees.

The task force, he said, learned employees were getting too many “view alerts” on the VA’s Electronic Health Record and getting “inboxes full of clinical messages.”

“Clinical teams manage hundreds of these daily, but some alerts are not clinically important,” Charness said.

The task force, he added, recommended “a few simple tweaks” to the EHR that eliminated clinician view alerts related to appointment scheduling.

“One of the things I hear constantly in the field is the inefficiencies that are created by administrative burden. Efficiency gains are really important for provider morale,” McDonough said. “But ultimately, it also increases their ability to see additional patients.”

Charness said implementing just a few of these changes led to a reduction in view alerts for VA providers in Boston, and that  “clinicians notice the difference.”

The task force, he added, is sharing these administrative burden-reduction efforts with VA clinicians across the country.

“Freeing up more time for clinical care will improve clinic access, while increasing clinician engagement in the most rewarding part of their job,” Charness said.

The post Most VA sites scheduling more medical appointments through ‘access sprints’ first appeared on Federal News Network.

Don Bauer, the chief technology officer of the State Department’s Bureau of Global Talent Management, said last month that the department recently obtained an Authority to Operate (ATO) to use AI on sensitive internal data.

“We’re literally looking at the next steps of how do we now leverage internal information and start making decisions that way,” Bauer said Feb. 29 during a Federal News Network-moderated panel at ATARC’s AI Summit in Reston, Virginia.

Before President Joe Biden’s sweeping executive order on AI in government last October,  agencies such as the Department of the Navy, General Services Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency had put limits on how their staffs could use generative AI tools in the workplace.

But Bauer said the State Department is taking a closer look at what generative AI means for its mission.

“The ability to summarize and pull data from multiple sources, and do a lot of information gathering really resonates with the diplomatic community,” Bauer said. “The State Department’s been very much forward-leaning on just telling everyone, ‘Go out and get an account and get familiar with the technology. Just make sure you don’t put any sensitive information into it.’”

The bureau is looking at generative AI to help develop career paths for State Department employees.

“We have a demonstration project to extract skills from resumes and start building out pipelines for civil servants, as far as career progression,” Bauer said. “If I identify a career path for you, then I’m using publicly available position descriptions, extracting those out, and then building up the ability for you to recognize skills you need. Then we’re going to tie that with our learning management system, so we can actually say, ‘If you want to be this person, here’s the skills you need and here’s how you can go get trained.'”

Along with this culture of experimentation, Bauer said the State Department is prioritizing workforce training around AI.

“We need training, we need to have a common understanding of what AI is to the organization,” he added.

Generative AI ‘on guardrails’ at DOE

Bridget Carper, the Energy Department’s deputy CIO for architecture, engineering, technology and innovation, and its responsible AI official, said the department is giving employees a sandbox environment to experiment with generative AI.

“We actually took the initial stance of, ‘Oh, ChatGPT, we’re going to block it.’ Then, we realized that everyone was just doing it on their personal computer. So, then we started putting in guardrails,” Carper said. “Now we’re going in it with the education aspects, or doing training across the board,” Carper said.

Carper said DOE is currently using AI for enhanced cybersecurity, and to improve the customer experience of individuals and organizations applying for federal grants.

“We were fortunate enough to have funding to be able to provide to different communities, but how do they access that? Most people don’t have the time to go through the different sites — is it EPA? Is it IRS, to be able to obtain that information? So we’re using AI to help put that out there, to make it more readily accessible for users.”

‘You have to have good data’

Bauer said the rise of AI use cases puts increased pressure on agencies to improve their data maturity.

“I’m under tremendous pressure for very accurate HR data — whether it’s positions , whether it’s where people are assigned, how the department moves around at large.

“We’re looking at opportunities, for use cases, around using AI to help us find bad data and clean it up,” he said. “When you have somebody that retires after 30 years and retirement tells them you’re in the wrong retirement code, and you owe the government $25,000 before you can leave — you say, ‘Well, how can that happen? It should be really easy to root those things out.’ But there’s so many different legal authorities and combinations of information that  human beings could probably do it, but we’re really honing in on the ability to actually start looking at that as a data cleanup exercise,  because we’re all under pressure now to have these very very robust data models that decision makers are all wanting. Everything’s decision data driven now, so you have to have good data.”

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Federal employees’ use of telework, in the long term, could give agencies a unique opportunity to get rid of office space they no longer need, according to a recent study.

The National Capital Planning Commission, in partnership with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG), released a study in February looking at the federal workforce’s use of telework and its impact on government office space.

The study finds that federal telework will “likely accelerate the implementation of reducing the federal footprint,” but may also shake up the local economy of Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area.

“Any changes in federal telework policy will have a significant impact on Washington, given that it has a large component of telework-eligible jobs,” the study states.

Only about 15% of the federal workforce works in the national capital region, but the federal government is still the region’s largest single employer and its largest owner of real estate.

The General Services Administration holds about 47 million square feet of owned space and 44 million square feet of leased space in the national capital region. That translates into about 190 federally owned buildings and 500 federally leased buildings.

Meanwhile, the 400,000 federal employees working in the D.C. metro area make up about 11% of the region’s total workforce.

NCPC Senior Urban Planner Angela Dupont said in a recent interview that more teleworking federal employees may give agencies a chance to shed underutilized office space.

“Before the pandemic, we already acknowledged that there were a lot of federal buildings that were underutilized. Federal telework just helps us accelerate the opportunities to either use our space better when federal agencies may be consolidating in the future,” Dupont said.

The study looks at several scenarios. On the low end, it studies a “minimum,” pre-pandemic level of telework from federal employees — about one or two days each two-week pay period.

The study also considers the impact of a “moderate” (four to six days per pay period) and “maximum” (eight to 10 days per pay period) level of federal telework.

“As you get to more telework, there is probably a greater ability to reduce a lot of this federal office space, because the demand for a federal office may not be as great, when you have more federal workers teleworking,” Dupont said.

Federal telework’s impact on the region, however, may vary across D.C., Virginia and Maryland.

Stan Wall, managing partner of the D.C. office of HR&A Advisors, Inc., which conducted the study, said a concentration of mostly in-person defense and national security jobs in Virginia will likely result in minimal impact on the local economy.

“If you are a Northern Virginia jurisdiction, and you know that your county or your city has a number of defense facilities, fairly few administrative, you can probably be fairly comfortable that your return to work is going to look a lot like pre-pandemic,” Wall said.

The same goes for Maryland, because of a higher concentration of federal research and laboratory facilities — such as the National Institutes of Health.

The study, however, finds any lasting changes in federal telework policy will have a significant impact on Washington, “given that it has a large component of telework-eligible jobs,” and accounts for nearly half of the leased federal office space in the region.

More than half of GSA’s leases are set to expire by 2027.

While agencies are selling workplace flexibility as a perk to new hires, Wall said it’s also allowed federal employees to be more dispersed.

“Rather than want to live near transit, live close to the core of the city, people might be moving out further into the suburban areas, rural areas, where they can afford housing,” Wall said.

The Biden administration since last fall has been urging federal employees in the D.C. area to return to the office more often.  Meanwhile, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is looking to revitalize downtown , in the hopes of drawing more business to the area.

Wall said the federal and local governments can also take less coercive steps to get government workers to work in the office more often.

“It’s not just a policy of get back in the office, it’s how do we create that environment where you actually want to be there in the office,” Wall said. “Even if it might be required to be there two days a week, I might want to be in the office four days a week, because I really have these great restaurants, great parks, great other amenities that helped me want to be in the office,” Wall said.

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Lawmakers, in the second and final round of government spending bills for the rest of fiscal 2024, plan to cut $20 billion in funds the IRS got in the Inflation Reduction Act to rebuild its workforce and modernize its legacy IT. The agency still has roughly $60 billion to meet its modernization goals.

The Biden administration agreed to these IRS cuts, as part of a deal with congressional Republicans last year to raise the debt ceiling and avoid an unprecedented default on the federal government’s debts.

Rather than spread the cuts to IRS modernization funds, as lawmakers originally agreed to, the 2024 spending bill includes the full $20 billion reduction.

Despite approving this deal, the Biden administration is asking Congress to reverse the $20 billion cut to IRS funding, as part of its 2025 budget request.

Congress plans to keep the IRS at current funding levels for the rest of the year with a $12.3 billion annual budget for its day-to-day operations. The Biden administration also proposed keeping the IRS annual budget flat in its 2025 spending proposal.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in a press release Thursday that the spending deal gives the IRS the funding it needs to keep improving customer service, replace outdated computer systems and crack down on tax cheats.

“This bipartisan legislation invests in these critical priorities for our nation and more,” Van Hollen said.

The IRS has used its Inflation Reduction Act funding to grow its workforce to 90,000 employees for the first time in a decade.

Reuters recently reported the agency plans on reaching a 100,000-employee workforce within the next three years.

Lawmakers in the 2024 spending deal are directing the IRS to prioritize hiring that’ll provide “sufficient and effective 1–800 helpline service for taxpayers.”

“The [IRS] Commissioner shall continue to make improvements to the Internal Revenue Service 1–800 help line service a priority and allocate resources necessary to enhance the response time to taxpayer communications, particularly with regard to victims of tax-related crimes,” the spending bill states.

The legislation also gives the Treasury Department direct hire authority to fill positions to process backlogged tax returns and correspondence.

The spending bill, however, bars the IRS from using its funding “to make a payment to any employee under a bonus, award, or recognition program,” or rehire former IRS employees who are delinquent on their tax obligations.

Congress is also requiring IRS to maintain an employee training program that covers “taxpayers’ rights, dealing courteously with taxpayers, cross-cultural relations, ethics, and the impartial application of tax law.”

The spending bill requires the IRS to give the House and Senate appropriations committees and the Government Accountability Office quarterly updates on its major information technology investments.

Congress wary on USPS network changes,  seeks updates on mail theft

Congress is also prohibiting the mostly self-funded Postal Service from closing or consolidating small or rural post offices as part of its ongoing network modernization plans.

Lawmakers are sending a cautionary message to USPS in the appropriations bill, as the agency continues a major shakeup of its delivery network.

That shakeup includes USPS opening more Sorting & Delivery Centers across the country later this year. S&DCs are large facilities that consolidate the operations of letter carriers and mail handlers under one roof.

USPS already stated last year that plans to modernize its mail processing and delivery facilities won’t result in layoffs or post office closures.

As part of a 10-year reform plan, USPS is spending $40 billion to upgrade and improve its processing, transportation and delivery networks.

“As the USPS makes these investments, it should consider the needs of its employees and customers, as well as its commitment to provide prompt and reliable postal services to the nation,” lawmakers wrote.

The spending bill gives USPS $50 million to meet its legal obligation to deliver certain mailed materials for free to people who are blind or visually impaired.

Congress in the spending deal also “expresses concern about mail theft and the “adverse impact it is having on postal customers, including extended disruptions of regular service and theft of personally identifiable information.”

The spending bill gives USPS 60 days to brief lawmakers on actions taken to combat a rise in mail theft, as well as efforts to prevent mail theft.

The Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), in its latest annual report to Congress, said it made 1,258 mail-theft arrests in fiscal 2022, and that 1,188 of those cases resulted in convictions

USPIS has seen a 49% decrease in mail theft arrests between 2018 and 2022, and a 43% decrease in mail theft convictions over the same period.

House lawmakers recently introduced the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, which would give USPS $1.4 billion annually from fiscal 2025 through 2029 to install more high-security blue collection boxes, and replace the universal mail key, also known as an “arrow key,” with electronic versions.

The bipartisan bill would also impose stiffer penalties on individuals convicted of robbing or assaulting letter carriers. The bill has the support of all postal unions.

More funding for new FBI headquarters

Lawmakers are also putting more funding behind the Biden administration’s plans to build a new, suburban headquarters for the FBI in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The General Services Administration selected Greenbelt from a list of three final sites last November, but agency watchdogs are reviewing the decision, at the urging of Virginia lawmakers and FBI Director Chris Wray.

The Biden administration expects the FBI headquarters in Greenbelt will accommodate at least 7,500 FBI employees.

GSA and the FBI are looking for a federally owned site in D.C. to accommodate an additional 750-1,000 FBI personnel who would support day-to-day FBI engagement with the Justice Department, Congress and the White House.

Congress already gave $645 million in prior year appropriations to support the construction of a new, suburban FBI headquarters.

The Biden administration, in its 2025 budget request, is asking for $3.5 billion to complete funding for the new FBI headquarters.

As part of its request, the White House proposes setting up a Federal Capital Revolving Fund.

Under this proposal, Congress would appropriate the total amount of money needed for the project upfront. GSA would then repay the revolving fund, over the course of 15 years, by taking out about $233 million each year from the Federal Buildings Fund.

The White House says the FBI’s current headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover building in downtown D.C., “can no longer support the long-term mission of the FBI.”

“Major building systems are near end-of-life and structural issues continue to mount, making the current building unsustainable,” the 2025 budget proposal states.

Data analytics for pandemic watchdogs

The spending bill also gives the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee $2.85 million to “further develop” its data analytics capabilities. Of that funding, $850,000 would go to improvements for Oversight.gov.

The PRAC, an intergovernmental council of agency inspectors general, is looking for a permanent home for the data analytics tools it created to root out fraud in COVID-19 emergency spending, before it disbands in September 2025.

Current and former agency watchdogs lamented the loss of data analytics tools created by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, a predecessor group of IGs that oversaw stimulus spending following the 2008 Great Recession. The board never received funding from Congress to transfer its data analytics capabilities to another agency, before it disbanded in 2015.

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It’s also taking steps to ensure its benefits workforce can keep up with the pace of this work.

VA announced Tuesday it processed its one millionth veteran benefits claim in fiscal 2024 — reaching that milestone six weeks earlier than it did last year.

The Veterans Benefits Administration, so far this year, has processed 35% more claims than during the same period last year.

Between October 2023 and February 2024, VBA has provided $69 billion in benefits to 6.5 million veterans and their survivors.

Veterans are also applying for benefits at record rates. VA received 4.5% more claims so far this year than in the same period in 2023.

Since President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act in August 2022, veterans and their families have filed more than 3.5 million claims.

The legislation expands VA health care and benefits eligibility for veterans exposed to toxic substances during their military service

To keep up with this workload, the Veterans Benefits Administration is asking Congress to nearly double its overtime budget for fiscal 2025.

But Undersecretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs says VBA is looking to move away from mandatory overtime, in an effort to reduce employee burnout.

“We are working very hard to move away from mandatory overtime. I don’t think it is sustainable in the long term,” Jacobs told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re actively considering options that will allow us to achieve our primary mission, which is delivering timely, high-quality and equitable decisions for veterans and their survivors, while also ensuring that our workforce can do that sustainably in the long term.”

VBA officials said last November that most employees are expected to complete 20 hours of mandatory overtime each month.

The agency has carved out two “respite periods” – four weeks during the summer, and four weeks in December and January – where employees are exempt from mandatory overtime requirements. VBA employees with disabilities, officials added, are also exempt from the mandatory overtime requirements.

Jacobs added that VBA is looking to “provide a more focused application of that overtime, that isn’t as expansive and prevalent as it has been in the last several years.”

“We have to balance that requirement to both grow and use overtime, with the need to make sure we’re taking care of our people. Over the last several years, we’ve been asking more and more and more of our employees.”

VA processed 221,592 disability compensation and pension claims during January 2024. That’s its most productive month of claims processing, breaking a previous record from May 2023

VBA processed nearly 2 million disability benefits claims from veterans and their survivors — a nearly 16% increase from the year prior — but is expected to break that record again this year.

“The reason we’re delivering more benefits to more veterans than ever before is because we have hired significantly,” Jacobs said. So as we think about our ability to deliver timely, accurate and equitable decisions, the major driver of our ability to do so is our people.”

VBA grew its workforce by 20% last year, to a 32,000-employee workforce, and plans to keep growing its headcount this year. More than half of the VBA workforce are veterans.

VBA providing record level of benefits to women vets

VBA is also delivering a record number of disability compensation benefits to women veterans.

More than 700,000 women veterans are receiving disability compensation benefits from the VA – a more than 25% increase compared to five years ago.

Women veterans are the fastest-growing cohort at the VA. Women veterans make up 16.5% of the veteran population, but received 27.5% of post-9/11 education benefits and 26.4% of veteran readiness and employment benefits last year.

“These historic statistics are a direct result of our concerted efforts to bring women veterans to VA, to encourage them to apply for the benefits that they’ve earned. And to build a VA that meets women veterans where they are, rather than asking them to come to us,” Jacobs said.

The average woman veteran who receives disability compensation benefits from VA has a 68% combined disability rating, and receive an average of $26,809 in earned disability compensation benefits per year from VA.

The average grant rate for women veterans is 89.2%. That means 89% of women veterans who have applied for disability benefits with VA have received benefits for at least one condition.

Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tanya Bradsher, VA’s first woman veteran deputy secretary, said in a statement that “these record numbers demonstrate that we’ve made tremendous progress in recent years, but they are still just the beginning – we won’t rest until every woman veteran is coming to VA.”

VBA is also scaling up its resources to handle Military Sexual Trauma (MST) claims. Jacobs said the agency has doubled the number of women veterans who are applying for these benefits and reduced average processing times by 13 days.

VBA, he added, has added 100 staff members as “temporary surge support” to help process more MST claims, and that the agency’s MST Operation Center have added more full-time employees. VBA is also providing more training to MST claims processors.

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