Earlier this spring, several House lawmakers introduced a new bill to address a burgeoning post-pandemic trend: the use of employee monitoring technologies.

The “Stop Spying Bosses Act” would create new rules around the use of worker surveillance technologies. It would also establish a new division at the Labor Department to regulate workplace surveillance.

The legislation comes in response to an explosion in the use of everything from video surveillance to keylogging software to keep tabs on employees. A 2023 survey of 1,000 companies with remote or hybrid workforces found the vast majority use some form of employee monitoring. There’s even a new term for tech that enables this kind of continuous activity tracking: “bossware.”

As the country’s largest employer, where does the federal government stand? To date, there’s little evidence that federal agencies and their managers are taking up the more intrusive employee monitoring practices being embraced in the private sector.

But the unions that represent feds are also guarding against the potential as the technology evolves. National Federation of Federal Employees Executive Director Steve Lenkart said the issue is intertwined with the evolution of telework.

“As our technology improves, and we have more capabilities for people not to be in a centralized place, we’re going to have to invest in technologies that make it easier for that employee to function,” Lenkart said in an interview. “And there’s always going to be questions of supervision. And then it leads to questions of surveillance.”

SSA watchdog monitors employee computers

There is at least one instance where federal employees working remotely have had their computers monitored for performance.

In 2021, employees at the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General were subject to a survey of computer logs and telephone records to measure time online. Some employees were subject to disciplinary action or terminated.

While the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA) — which represents more than 90% of SSA OIG agents – pushed back on that practice, SSA Inspector General Gale Ennis argued it was necessary “as stewards of taxpayer dollars, to hold employees accountable, when appropriate.”

“Failing to do so would be detrimental to public service, the OIG mission, and the morale of the many employees who go above and beyond in their contributions every day,” Ennis wrote in a September 2021 letter to the union.

Later that month, the FLEOA took a vote in which 98% of responding employees said they had “no confidence” in Ennis’s leadership. The use of computer logs for employee monitoring was among the issues cited by the union in its statement on the vote.

More than two years later, an FLEOA spokeswoman said the issue around the computer monitoring has yet to be resolved. “To our knowledge, the data analytics from employee monitoring are not being used for disciplinary actions as they were before, but they could be using it for other reasons,” the spokeswoman told Federal News Network.

In a statement for this story, FLEOA President Mat Silverman said SSA OIG employees were terminated “based on computer logs often without any corroborating or mitigating evidence from an employee’s immediate supervisor, raising serious doubts about the legitimacy of the terminations.”

“As agencies become increasingly skeptical about the benefits of remote work, we do fear the trend of remote monitoring will continue; however, we hope the strong criticism, high attrition, and decreased morale SSA OIG experienced will send a strong message to other agencies that this is neither an effective nor appropriate workplace policy,” Silverman said. “Ultimately, a workplace is successful when there is mutual trust, transparency, and confidence between employees and their leadership. Conversely, remote monitoring is demeaning to employees and undermines these important workplace values.”

In response to questions about the use of computer monitoring, an SSA OIG spokeswoman said, “Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General supervisors measure productivity and performance of their employees using performance plans.”

‘No rulebook’ on employee monitoring

As the telework era continues to evolve, Lenkart said it will take time to strike the balance between supervision and surveillance.

“I think there’s going to be a little bit of operational uncomfortableness,” he said. “If you don’t trust your employee enough where you have to watch them minute-by-minute, then that’s probably not a good candidate to be working home or the supervisor has trust issues that need to be addressed. There’s no rulebook written on this yet.”

While workplace collaboration technologies, like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, are key to remote work, some unions are keeping a close eye on how those technologies are used by management. The National Treasury Employees Union, for instance, said it “opposes the use of technology for anything other than its intended purpose.”

In a statement, NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said the union negotiates language in contracts that any “new or upgraded workplace technology cannot be used to track and monitor employees, measure productivity or replace existing official methods for tracking time and attendance.”

“For example, monitoring an employee’s colored-dot status on Microsoft Teams is not an indicator of productivity or attendance, and we would enforce our contracts to contest agency managers trying to use it as the basis of discipline or an adverse action against an employee,” Greenwald continued.

On its “Telework FAQ” page, the Office of Personnel Management encourages supervisors to focus on what an employee is accomplishing, rather than what it “looks like” an individual is doing.

“By focusing on the work product instead of the work activity, many supervisors find they are better able to communicate clear expectations to their employees,” OPM writes. “The resulting agreement on job expectations often leads to increases in employee productivity and job satisfaction.”

OPM did not respond to questions about the potential use of employee monitoring technology within the federal government.

In a 2021 blog, the Government Accountability Office underlined how first-line supervisors are key to reporting whether they think an employee is abusing time and attendance requirements. While agencies are increasingly using automated timekeeping systems and other internal controls to detect misconduct, managers are “still the most important internal control for managing time and attendance,” GAO wrote.

That’s a sentiment Lenkart reiterated in highlighting the disparate nature of many federal jobs and the difficulty of measuring performance from time spent on a computer.

“In the end, it’s always going to come back to the local supervisor to determine whether you have a good employee or not,” he said.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By: Derace Lauderdale

Close to 80% of employers use monitoring software to track employee performance and online activity.

Source: CNBC

The post With ‘spying bosses’ on the rise, where do federal agencies stand on employee monitoring? first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Service members are apparently not getting enough sleep each night to properly do their jobs. A watchdog organization found that service members are consistently getting less than 6 hours of sleep. Military personnel say they fall asleep on the job, which Government Accountability Offce said creates serious safety concerns. The GAO wants the Pentagon to conduct an assessment of DoD's oversight structure for fatigue-related efforts. And the Defense Department recommended that troops get seven hours of sleep each night.
  (Service members don’t get enough sleep, putting their lives at risk - GAO)
• Attention vendors, who provide grants services to the government, this RFI's for you. The Grants Quality Service Management Office (QSMO) is ready to expand its marketplace of service providers. But first, it is taking the pulse of the vendor community to gauge the capabilities of the sector. The QSMO's new Request for Information (RFI) is asking vendors for details about their grants management system, including whether it is set up as a software-as-a-service, whether it integrates with SAM.gov and login.gov and whether it is highly configurable and does not require code changes. Responses to the RFI are due by April 30.
  (Grants shared services office kicks off marketplace expansion - General Services Administration)
• Agencies have likely escaped budget cuts due to sequestration for another year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed the fiscal 2024 spending bills and estimated that the discretionary budget authority for defense and non-defense agencies falls under the caps established in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. CBO, however, said the final decision about whether cuts are needed under sequestration will come from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), based on its own estimates of federal spending. OMB told Congress in August it did not think sequestration cuts would be necessary based on current estimates, but it will send another letter to Congress later this year with the final decision.
  (CBO estimates sequestrations cuts not necessary for fiscal 2024 - Congressional Budget Office)
• There is a new artificial intelligence chief at the top U.S. spy agency. John Beieler has been named the chief AI officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He also serves as the top science and technology adviser to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Beieler now leads a council of chief AI officers across the 18 components of the intelligence community. One of the first tasks for that group is developing an AI directive for the IC. Beieler said it will cover everything from data standards to civil liberties and privacy protections.
  (Intelligence community gets a chief AI officer - Federal News Network)
• The Postal Service may soon ask for a sixth rate increase, since November 2020, that would go into effect this summer. But the Postal Regulatory Commission is taking a closer look at whether this new pricing model is actually helping USPS improve its long-term finances. The regulator is asking for public feedback on whether the current pricing model is working for USPS and its customers — and if not, what modifications to the ratemaking system should be made, or what alternative system should be adopted? The regulator will accept comments through July 9.
  (Postal Regulatory Commission seeks feedback on USPS pricing model - Federal News Network)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is preparing to host its biggest biannual cybersecurity exercise. Dubbed “Cyber Storm,” the event will kick off this month with more than 2,000 participants from government and industry. The weeklong exercise simulates the response to a cyber attack on multiple critical infrastructure sectors. This year’s Cyber Storm comes as CISA rewrites the national plan for responding to major cyber incidents. CISA expects to release the updated plan by the end of 2024.
  (CISA’s ‘Cyber Storm’ will help it update National Cyber Incident Response Plan - Federal News Network)
• The IRS is looking to take the next steps in its most ambitious project under the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRS is letting taxpayers in 12 states test out its “Direct File” platform this filing season, as it gets feedback from earlier users, in the hopes of scaling up the pilot program. In a roundtable discussion with Direct File users, the IRS said all participants said they would recommend Direct File to eligible friends and family. Roundtable participants included college students, military veterans, as well as nonprofit and government employees.
  (IRS' direct file platform receives positive initial feedback - Treasury Department)
• The Air Force wants to bypass governors in seven states and transfer the National Guard space units to the Space Force. Air Force officials are calling for legislation to bypass existing law requiring them to obtain a governor’s consent before making changes to a National Guard unit. It would allow the service to transfer 14 Air National Guard space units located in New York, Florida, Hawaii, Colorado, Alaska, California and Ohio and make them part of the Space Force. Not surprisingly, the idea is facing criticism from governors.
  (Air Force wants to override law in 7 states, transfer Guard units to Space Force - Federal News Network)

The post Feds in fatigues, too fatigued to properly do their jobs, GAO says first appeared on Federal News Network.

With Congress back in action next week, many eyes are on how it’s going to handle international affairs. Speaker Mike Johnson is still getting his feet wet in the role, and he may already be facing calls for his resignation. For details on what’s happening, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with WTOP Congressional Correspondent Mitchell Miller.

Interview Transcript: 

Mitchell Miller Congress really has a lot on its plate coming back, and it’s going to be a particularly testing time for House speaker Mike Johnson. Among the things that he’s got to deal with, of course, is Israel and Ukraine. And then on top of that, while they were on break, of course, we had the big collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore. And there is a huge push, of course, with President Biden visiting Baltimore last week to get the legislation moved into the House so they can start working on an emergency aid package. But one of the biggest things really will be to figure out how Mike Johnson is going to deal with Ukraine. This is something that he has basically pushed off for month after month, and now it’s coming to a head, and it really is coming into a head for him because the conservative wing of the Republican Party, specifically Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, has the threat of ousting him from the speakership if he brings something to the floor on Ukraine that she doesn’t like. Now she’s only made this as a threat. It’s not clear whether or not she’s actually going to trigger it. But this is certainly hanging over his head. So, there’s a lot of questions right now about what is going to happen with aid for Ukraine. Of course, the Senate passed an aid package, a supplemental that included aid for Ukraine as well as Israel and parts of the Pacific. But that has just been, as they say around here, collecting dust for a while until the speaker decides what to do. So, it’s going to be interesting also because of what’s been happening with Israel on the Democratic side. There is a lot of dissension about what is going to happen with more military aid for Israel in light of the humanitarian convoy that was hit, and several people were killed. A lot of tension right now among Democrats trying to put more pressure on Israel. There was a thought a while back that they would split the Israel and Ukraine packages. But now that is really in doubt. And some people think that the House speaker will actually, at some point be forced to take the Senate supplemental and try to take it up on its own, because just breaking everything up and starting over will be too difficult.

Eric White And somewhere Kevin McCarthy is probably smiling, saying, okay, you see, you want this thankless job, you can have it. This is definitely one of the first major test for Mike Johnson, kind of teetering the sides of both sides of his own party and both sides of Congress. How’s he how’s he going to do that?

Mitchell Miller You know, there’s really a lot of questions within his own party as well as among Democrats. Democrats have been kind of on the side just waiting to see what he would do. But he is getting so much pressure from his right flank. And that is why he has put this off for so long. But really, he can’t put it off any longer because things are of course, getting worse in Ukraine. We’ve seen the evolving situation in Israel, and really it is the biggest question mark hanging over Congress right now, because on the Senate side, you still have the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, pushing very hard to get Ukraine $60 billion worth. And on the other side, you have Marjorie Taylor Greene, the aforementioned lawmaker from Georgia, saying if you bring that $60 billion bill to the floor, I am going to make the motion to vacate. And there potentially could be a vote on the floor related to what Kevin McCarthy had to deal with, which, of course, eventually left him not only out of the speakership, but out of Congress. Now, some Democrats have said they might come in to save Mike Johnson because they just don’t want more dissension. And of course, there are many Republicans that really don’t want this to happen either, because we’re in the middle of the election year. And as we remember the last time that the speaker was kicked out, it was more than three weeks before Republicans could figure out who they wanted to lead the party. So, a lot of big questions hanging over Congress right now.

Eric White And apart from the international affairs, we have domestic affairs. You mentioned the Key Bridge. That was the major story, you know, of the month of March. What are the next steps, I guess, in getting the package that President Biden did promise? I imagine there’s going to have to be some boxes that need to be checked to make sure that that does come through.

Mitchell Miller Absolutely. And this will be a big week for that. On Tuesday, there will be a meeting, including the Maryland congressional delegation, including the senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, along with the head of OMB, Shalanda Young, to try to figure out what kind, of course can they move forward with to get the money that is needed not only to replace the bridge, but also to help accelerate things with opening up the port of Baltimore? And there’s been a lot of talk about trying to do more to help all of these idled dock workers that just don’t have any money coming in, because everything is just frozen right now, aside from a few boats. A small channel or two going through Baltimore. So, what they’re trying to do is figure out, how big is this big emergency package going to be, is it going to be everything where it includes the long term? Look at what’s going to be taken to reconstruct the bridge, which is conceivably in the billions of dollars at least over $1 billion. And then on the other side, there are some people, particularly Republicans. I was speaking with Maryland Republican Andy Harris, and he suggests that they should not take this all at once and that they should do it more incrementally. So, it’s not such a financial jolt to the system that perhaps getting a smaller package right away to help with the port and then start to move forward in bits and pieces on the longer-term issue of reconstructing the bridge, which will, of course, take several years. The first bridge that collapsed, that took five years to build, and that was after everything was all put in place financially. So, this is going to be a very, very long-term slog for Congress.

Eric White And it’s a shame about those dockworkers, you know, that they can’t have some sort of option to telework loading on the docks. But the federal workforce does have the option to telework. And I understand the Senate is going to be looking at giving out more information on what they want to see from agencies. As far as telework goes, what do you have on that?

Mitchell Miller Right. Well, even though they were on break, Senators Gary Peters of Michigan and Joni Ernst of Iowa have both proposed the Telework Transparency Act. And what they’re really trying to do, as you know, and as Federal News Network has reported, is trying to get more transparency from the federal agencies on exactly what is happening with telework. It’s interesting that we’ve kind of come full circle. We had for years lawmakers pushing to get more people to telework and get all the agencies in line on that. And now in the wake of the pandemic, there’s been this big push, of course, to get people back into the office. And as you’re well aware, Senator Joni Ernst is really on the forefront of this. She is putting a lot of political heat on federal agencies trying to find out exactly what they’re doing, how many people are actually getting back into the office, how many days are they getting back into the office? And also, what kind of efficiency is taking place? Are things better or worse, depending on where people are working from. So there’s going to be a bigger push, I think, continuing from lawmakers, trying to get this, telework information because there’s been, you know, general information coming through OPM, but lawmakers are trying to get down a little bit more into the weeds and try to find out exactly what agencies are doing to meet some of the push and some of the federal guidelines that they want put in place.

Eric White And one other piece of legislation with some federal workforce implications, how does it start from, you know, being part of some sort of partisan, I guess, you know, chicanery back and forth is kind of a wink at the other side. But Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, submitting the Guard act, which would say anybody who is convicted of a crime is not allowed to have access to classified material. Probably not a bad idea. But, you know, obviously the sights are set on President Trump and his many legal issues, but it also might affect legislators in her own state. What have you heard on that?

Mitchell Miller Right. This is the Guard act guarding the United States Against Reckless Disclosures Act. And it would, as you indicate, not only bar lawmakers, but bar the president, the vice president, and federal candidates from receiving classified information if they are charged with an obstructing an official proceeding. Now, that was aimed, of course, at former President Trump and January 6th. But really now this legislation potentially could affect Senator Bob Menendez, who, ironically, is from New Jersey, which is where Mikie Sherrill is from. But she is proposing that this be put into place. And there really has been a lot of questions here on Capitol Hill, particularly related to Senator Bob Menendez, including from members of his own Democratic Party. A lot of people questioning, you know, since he has been charged, he’s under indictment. Of course, he has denied all charges. But part of the indictment alleges that he was involved with doing favors illegally for the country of Egypt and others. And some lawmakers have really questioned about whether or not he should be receiving classified briefings. And every time he is asked about this, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tries to get away from the question a little bit. He does definitely criticize Menendez for the allegations that he’s under, but it still remains to be seen whether or not Senator Menendez is really going to be kept out of a lot of these classified briefings, which there have been many of them recently. And then, of course, he lost his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Maryland’s Ben Cardin. He basically stepped down after these charges came against him. So, I’m really interested to see how this is going to move forward, since it’s now, as you indicated, has a kind of bipartisan bent. Which was not the way it started.

Eric White Yeah. And I can’t imagine somebody having to brief a president saying, we can’t tell you exactly what’s going on, but we need your decision, right?

Mitchell Miller Right. And all of this with the backdrop, of course, of the legal case involving former President Trump and the classified documents that. So given the fact that we’re also in the middle of a political election year, it’s hard to see how this might actually move all the way to getting approved. But we’ll just have to wait and find out.

The post There’s a lot to do, as Congress returns first appeared on Federal News Network.

The long-awaited and much-anticipated update to the basic management standards for the federal grants community is out. The Office of Management and Budget’s 2024 Revisions of the Uniform Grants Guidance aim to streamline, simplify and expand the overall reach of the $1.2 trillion in grants and cooperative assistance agencies pay out each year.

“Terms like federal financial assistance and Uniform Grant Guidance may sound mundane or, perhaps, a little bit bureaucratic. But it’s really the plumbing of our federal programs, and plumbing matters,” said Jason Miller, OMB’s deputy director for management, at an event in the White House yesterday celebrating the roll out of the guidance. “I’m particularly proud of one area of this guidance, something our team has been really focused on from the get go, ensuring that an overhaul to this guidance lowers burden on recipients. Of course, we need strong and clear rules for how federal funds are spent. But those rules should add value not create check the box burdens and red tape, even when well-intended. [Red tape] increases costs and reduces the amount of federal funding recipients can spend on delivering outcomes. Lowering burden, which is exactly what this new guidance will do, means that we get more value from every dollar, shifting minutes and shifting dollars from administrative work and overhead to mission work.”

The guidance, which hasn’t been updated since 2020 and hasn’t seen a significant update since OMB issued the initial standards in 2014, aims to revamp the grants oversight and delivery process in several ways. First, OMB says it instructs agencies to make grant announcements as clear and concise as possible. It also provides a template for agencies when developing notice of funding opportunity (NOFO).

Miller said through this streamline template, agencies are directed to use plain language and write in a manner and a level that is accessible for any potential applicant.

“We’re broadening the pool of potential recipients, for example, by ensuring federal agencies can now use languages other than English and conducting their work. The guidance has been fully rewritten from top to bottom in plain English. So it’s clear, consistent and more accessible and understandable to everyone will say the guidance, we believe strengthens accountability and integrity, accountability and burden reduction should be symbiotic not in conflict with one another,” he said. “In fact, if the language is simple. It makes compliance easier. It makes oversight more consistent, because the updated guidance fixes language that led some federal agencies to interpret the guidance differently than other federal agencies.”

HHS grants pilot shows promise

The Department of Health and Human Services recently piloted the new approach to NOFOs.

Andrea Palm, the deputy secretary of HHS, said the pilot showed that reducing the number of pages that make up NOFOs can be done and the grant still meets all the compliance and outcome goals.

“It’s been my experience at HHS, that over time, you just keep adding pieces of paper, but nobody ever looks to see which of those could be peeled back. Are they still necessary? Or is there duplication? Does it add value? Is it really helping us deliver? So really taking a look at all of those things, and only including necessary information is a way in which we can simplify this process, make it more accessible to communities all across the country and be really clear about the eligibility requirements,” Palm said. “These updates, we believe, allow for greater flexibility and a design of a NOFO that’s much more intuitive, that allows us to get really where we need to be in a more efficient way.”

OMB also believes its update will make it easier for eligible recipients, including in underserved communities, to access funding. The updates also make it easier for recipients to use federal funds to invest in the continuous improvement of their programs by using the money to support evaluation, data gathering and analysis and community engagement.

Miller said the Council of Federal Financial Assistance (COFFA), which OMB established in October, will lead the implementation of the updated guidance over the next year or more.

This update to the uniform guidance comes as the Grants modernization effort is picking up steam.

RFI to seeking feedback from providers

Andrea Sampanis, the acting director of the Grants Quality Service Management Office (QSMO) in the Department of Health and Human Services, said the guidance, a new request for information and several other initiatives are part of the long-term grants modernization effort.

The Grants QSMO released the RFI on Tuesday and it will remain open through April 30.

The QSMO will use results from the RFI as part of its evaluation of commercial options for grants management systems and services to expand and improve the current marketplace tools for federal awarding agencies to take advantage of in the coming years.

“We’ve always used Medallia software to ourselves to bring that feedback in. As we are pushing out our RFI for commercial vendor research, we’re actually updating some of the questions based on feedback we get in those Medallia surveys, either from vendors that give us feedback, but mostly from our buying agencies to make sure I’m asking the questions that they have so that they don’t have to go ask vendors all separately,” Sampanis said in an interview with Federal News Network. “This is very similar to the other one and we do this on an annual basis. Unlike the financial management QSMO which has a special item number (SIN) on the GSA schedules, our process is different. We, instead, are working with GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service on what we call the catalogue of market research. But in order to do that approach, we have to keep it up to date. So we’re going to start doing the survey every other year because in the beginning, the marketplace was changing a lot. Now I think we’re feeling good, we have a really good grasp on it. Obviously, we’ll always engage with vendors.”

Along with the RFI, Sampanis said more agencies are taking advantage of the shared services provided through the QSMO marketplace.

Migrations to shared services happening

Over the last year, the National Institutes of Health’s eRA and HHS’s GrantSolutions have brought on or started the process to bring on the departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Labor and parts of Veterans Affairs into its shared service systems.

“That said they can’t really handle all that capacity. So we’re really excited that we have partners in the commercial space to create our catalog of market research, and really help agencies save a lot of time when their needs can’t be met by the federal space. We help them save some time in acquiring those federal or those commercial solutions,” Sampanis said. “We have one quote it says working with the Grants QSMO market research puts us 1,000 steps ahead in our procurement. That’s really our goal to speed up the acquisition and give them a lot more buying confidence that they know when they go to the vendors on our catalog, they’re going to meet their standards. They’re going to be compliant with 2 CFR 200 [OMB’s new guidance]. Other people have used them. It just lets them really focus their attention on a fewer amount of providers.”

Sampanis added that the Grants QSMO team meets with the grant experts in agencies as well as agency chief information officers more and more to answer questions about the security and technology behind these shared services. And then, they help the agencies reviewing potential options when they decide its time to move off their legacy grant systems.

At Commerce, for instance, they are moving off of three custom applications that eventually will be decommissioned when they fully implement the NIH eRA system.

Labor is getting away from a 30-year-old custom built system.

Sampanis said the marketplace current includes seven grant shared services options, mainly around awards management with integrations with SAM.gov, Login.gov and Grants.gov.

The post OMB’s new guidance, RFI boost grant modernization efforts first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The Biden administration's final rule to block Schedule F is in place, but the push still continues in Congress. Many advocates say the new regulations securing job protections for career feds are a step in the right direction. But some are concerned it will not be enough to stop Schedule F's resurrection in a future administration. Democratic lawmakers are urging the passage of the Saving the Civil Service Act. The bill aims to prevent career civil servants from being made at-will and easier to fire. The legislation has not seen much action, but the new final rule spurred lawmakers, like Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), to press harder and call for its passage.
  (Saving the Civil Service Act - Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.))
• New guidance is out to improve the management of more than a trillion dollars in federal grants. The Office of Management and Budget released the 2024 revisions to the Uniform Grants Guidance. This is the first update in four years. OMB's Deputy Director for Management Jason Miller said among the major changes is improving NoFos, the notice of funding opportunities. "The Uniformed Grants Guidance includes a streamlined NoFo template for agencies to use to help with shortening and simplifying their grants announcements," Miller said. This is one of several substantial revisions to the guidance, which seeks to clarify and reduce the burden on grantees. OMB received more than 3,200 comments to the draft.
  (OMB updates governmentwide grant management guidance - White House)
• The Biden administration is working on hiring tools to help agencies compete for AI talent. The White House is planning to hire 100 AI professionals into the federal workforce by this summer. Some of those hires will come from a “Tech to Gov” virtual hiring fair on April 18. Participating federal and state agencies are looking to fill AI and AI-enabling positions. Kyleigh Russ, a senior adviser at the Office of Personnel Management, said her agency is also working on an AI and Tech Talent Playbook to show how agencies can effectively onboard these in-demand hires. “We know that this talent is very sought-after and that there will be constant competition, both across government and the private sector," Russ said.
  (Biden administration working on hiring tools to help agencies compete for AI talent - Federal News Network)
• The 2024 Vital Signs report from the National Defense Industrial Association provides a look into the challenges facing the defense industrial base. The Vital Signs 2024 Survey asked the industry to identify areas of improvement for the DoD when working with private companies. Some 65% of respondents want to see a clear and consistent demand signal through contract vehicles. More than 40% of respondents would like the DoD to provide specific points-of-contact in program offices. The report also recommends that the Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment to engage with industry before finalizing the classified implementation plan for the National Defense Industrial strategy.
  (DoD needs to send stronger demand signal, increase investment in critical supply base - National Defense Industrial Association)
• Agencies and federal unions have marching orders from the Biden administration to re-establish labor-management forums. In some cases, it is possible for these forums to be met with resistance from either party, or even employees themselves. The Office of Personnel Management is offering advice on how to wade through any trouble spots in implementation. For one, OPM encourages management to have discussions with union leaders before making any top-down decisions.
  (OPM outlines how agencies, unions can recreate labor-management forums - Federal News Network)
• The Postal Service is missing more than half its service targets for mail products on which it has a monopoly. Its regulator told USPS it did not meet service performance targets for 15 out of 27 market-dominant products in 2023. The regulator is calling on USPS to take corrective action and to come up with a plan to improve its performance. USPS said 98% of households are getting their mail and packages within three days and that 50% of mail and packages arrive a day ahead of their service standard.
  (PRC issues report evaluating USPS service levels and rates - Postal Regulatory Commission )
• The Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to make permitting for environmental projects easier. EPA said its new website not only fulfills its commitment under the Biden administration's Permitting Action Plan, but also makes its information and process more transparent. Through the new site, EPA is posting information about the permitting process, such as permit applications and public meetings. The goal is to improve the timelines, predictability and transparency of federal environmental review and authorization processes for covered infrastructure projects, which include offshore wind energy under the renewable energy production sector.
  (EPA launches new permitting site - EPA)
• The public can now track defueling and decommissioning operations of the Red Hill fuel facility in Hawaii. A new app will provide the latest developments on tank cleaning, the decommissioning plan, environmental clean-up and regulatory approvals. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a full closure of the facility after jet fuel leaked into the Navy’s water distribution system. The app to track the closure efforts is available for download at Apple's App Store and the Google Play store.
  (New app will track Red Hill fuel facility closure - Navy Closure Task Force)

The post Some lawmakers offer more teeth to Biden’s Schedule F takedown first appeared on Federal News Network.

Ahead of a September deadline for agencies and unions to finalize their plans for recreating labor-management forums, the Office of Personnel Management is offering guidance on how federal leaders can best meet the new expectations.

Alongside a push to improve apprenticeship opportunities, a March 6 executive order from President Joe Biden called on agencies and federal unions to recreate the relatively informal forums. If implemented effectively, labor-management forums can improve employee satisfaction, engagement and organizational performance, while also mitigating possible disputes between the two parties, OPM said in March 13 guidance.

“We’ve seen examples where labor-management forums have worked on improving safety policies particularly for employees that work in hazardous jobs. There are many opportunities for them to tackle some tough issues that happen every day in every workplace,” OPM Deputy Associate Director for Accountability and Workforce Relations Tim Curry said in an interview. “We think that agencies and unions should see this as an opportunity to improve how agency operations work.”

As part of the executive order earlier this month, agencies now have until Sept. 3 to create and submit implementation plans to OPM on how they’ll reestablish labor-management forums. They’re a way for representatives from both management and a union to collaborate on personnel matters. The forums, usually outside the scope collective bargaining agreements, are meant to provide opportunities to come to agreements on any concerns or questions before personnel issues escalate.

Under the new executive order, and the subsequent OPM guidance, agencies and unions will also have to show through metrics and data how the forums are impacting engagement, satisfaction and organizational performance.

Agencies and federal unions have used labor-management forums for years as a tool to address employee concerns and aim to improve the workplace. In many cases, they can lead to savings in both time and costs.

“They work together to identify issues in the workplace,” Curry said. “They propose ideas and solutions to address these issues in a way to better serve the public and actually accomplish the agency mission in a better way.”

Labor-management forums had been around for years, up until a 2017 executive order during the Trump administration disbanded them.

In 2021, under the Biden administration, OPM once again green-lit labor-management forums. But the use of the forums was not required until Biden signed the new executive order, officially rescinding the 2017 order from Trump in the process.

Now with the new executive order, “some agencies might already be ahead of the game, and others may have some catching up to do,” Curry said.

Of course, each agency will have a somewhat different approach the executive order’s requirements. Labor-management forums, OPM said, are not one-size-fits-all. But the guidance still offers some broad strategies agencies can consider, such as developing a shared vision for what the forum should aim to achieve, and what issues it will cover.

“We would recommend that they focus on addressing each other’s interests and working together on developing mutually agreeable solutions that address those interests,” Curry said. “But also, agency leadership needs to show support for the forums from the top down, as well as the union leadership. We would want them to model the behavior that they would like to see lower-level managers and union representatives show.”

In that work, Curry said agencies will also have to evaluate and address any remaining obstacles in labor-management relations that stem from a series of now-rescinded executive orders from the Trump administration, which previously limited the scope of collective bargaining.

“We want to confirm with agencies that there are no more outstanding issues, which might be obstacles to moving forward on other issues for the forums to address,” Curry said.

Trying to get plans set up by September could cause agencies or unions to run into a few trouble spots. For example, OPM said in its guidance that there may be some resistance from either party, or even agency employees themselves.

In those instances, Curry said it’s important to keep in mind how the forums are meant to be structured, and what their real purpose is.

“Forums are not co-management arrangements, as some may believe, and we advise forums to address this early on,” Curry said. “Management is encouraged to have discussions with unions about issues before they make a management decision, and on the other hand, unions aren’t waiving their collective bargaining rights on matters discussed in the forums.”

Federal Labor Relations Authority Chairman Susan Tsui Grundmann said although the work to reach agreements in labor-management may at times be challenging, the results can be tremendous.

“One recent example in the wake of all our budgetary issues and to avoid furloughing our own employees, we actually gave up a whole floor in our headquarters, consolidating two floors into one. And I told our union vice president that this just had the makings of a disaster,” Grundmann said during a March 27 FLRA town hall. “But his remark was, ‘it makes it a whole lot easier when you get along.’ So whatever the future holds, we commit to have our internal union beside us to guide us and to allow us to lead by example.”

Both leading up to the September deadline and after it passes, agencies can lean on resources from OPM to address any concerns or questions. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service also offers guidance and advice on setting up and using the forums.

“These forums provide frontline employees with a more meaningful voice in agency operations and foster discussions about improving the effectiveness of government services,” National Treasury Employees Union National President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement earlier this month. “It is our experience that pre-decisional input inherent in conversations between labor and management is a productive means to give employees a say in agency decisions, solve problems in a non-adversarial way, address workplace issues that hinder efficiency and improve services to the American people.”

The post OPM outlines how agencies, unions can recreate labor-management forums first appeared on Federal News Network.

That, as you might have guessed, constitues the status of work life for staff members of the Congress of the United States. This finding comes from the Congressional Management Foundation, which surveyed 138 senior staff members. Only 5 percent of the people surveyed answered, but the foundation’s president, Brad Fitch, said the results show clear trends; principally, that the staff of the Congress labors under a peculiar group of people.

I”ll spare you yet another take on the principal issues impeding the car wreck that is Congress. Congressional staff occupy a galaxy less visible to the public, and even to much of the executive branch bureaucracy. Even in my own 32 years of covering government, I’ve spoken to only a handful congressional staff members, fewer even than members themselves. Staff learn early the value of self-attenuation in the shadows of their often egotistical bosses.

But don’t think they’re diffident. In fact, traipsing through the brick tunnels of the Capitol complex are some of the most informed and practically-minded people you’ll find anywere. Name the issue, and you can find members of the congressional staff that possess expert knowledge. And since politics often has the surface grace of ballet but the tactics of a prison yard, staff of one party sometimes know better than their members how to devise compromises with those of the opposite party.

When first-elected members come to town with perhaps green personal staffs, you can bet they learn lot from the committee staffs.

I say this only because the staffs of members of Congress constitute a sometimes underappreciated contributor to the nation’s well-being. If the Congress itself is semi-functional, the blame goes to many factors. Staff isn’t one of them. So it’s good to see at least a sampling survey of the health of this workforce. By contrast, the executive branch workforce is the object of intense, detailed and never-ending study. The annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey provides rich data and insight.

Here is a bit of what the Foundation survey found:

• Only 19% of the staff members thinks Congress “correctly functions as a democratic legislature should.” That breaks down to 31% of Republican respondents, 12% of Democratic.
• Only 20% agree that Congress provides “an effective forum” for debating the important questions.
• 81% of Republicans and long serving staff members tend to disagree that “current procedures” give members of Congress the information they need from the executive branch to do their congressional duties. Sure, there’s a Democratic administration. But 46% of Democrats also find information from the executive branch wanting.
• Two thirds of Democratic and Republican staff members would like elected leadership to “enforce the rules and norms of civility and decorum in Congress.” At least they don’t march into the chambers and whack one another with canes.

I spoke with Brad Fitch, the president of the foundation that surveyed congressional staff. A longtime watcher of Congress, Fitch said he doesn’t think the acrimony among members seeps down into staff relations. Otherwise, literally no bill might get written, much less ones the members reject anyway.

Fitch said — and the survey shows this — that the congressional staff sees positive movement in the technology, the workplace tools that have arrived in recent years. The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress helped here. It sunsetted last year, but now there’s a follow-on caucus. Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Washington) ably chaired the remarkably bipartisan committee. It came up with a couple of hundred recommendations, a couple of dozen of which Congress implemented. Senior staff are better paid now, and they have somewhat better IT systems.

It seems bizarre that an institution as important as the United States Congress engenders agreement about its own brokenness among its own members, the citizenry, historians and just about everyone else. Just don’t blame the staff.

The post Understatement: Congress doesn’t function properly first appeared on Federal News Network.

Zscaler makes a key hire of a former federal technology leader to expand its global reach and influence.

These are two of the most recent federal executives on the move.

Eric Hysen, the DHS chief information officer, announced on Monday that Hemant Baidwan will be the new CISO, taking over for Ken Bible, who retired on March 29.

“Hemant has been instrumental in enhancing the department’s cybersecurity posture,” Hysen wrote in an email obtained by Federal News Network. “His background spans both the public and private sectors, where he has excelled in IT development, agile application deployments and strategic expansion globally.”

Meanwhile, Zscaler is hiring Brian Conrad, the former acting director of the cloud security program known as FedRAMP, Federal News Network has learned.

Conrad, who left the General Services Administration on March 22, will be the new director of field compliance authorizing authority liaison.

“We want Brian to own all the relationships with all the FedRAMP-type of agencies or organizations across the globe,” said Stephen Kovac, the chief compliance officer and head of global government affairs at Zscaler. “Many countries have similar organizations like FedRAMP, which act as an authorizing agency. Many are going down the path of secure by design as well, which we think will be huge internationally, so you’ve got programs that are maturing and may not be where FedRAMP is today, but all are trying to mature their processes. Brian has worked with all these folks over the years, but has been more of a friendly coach to many of these agencies. By him joining, this will allow us to build out global practice and build those relationships.”

Kovac said companies ranging from Japan to Singapore to Spain to India to United Kingdom are maturing their cloud security oversight organizations.

He said Conrad can bring a technical acumen to the conversation that will benefit Zscaler as well as the organizations themselves.

“From the earliest days of the FedRAMP program, Zscaler has been an innovator, working to ensure the federal government can deliver modern digital government services, securely,” Conrad said in a release. “Implementing a zero trust cybersecurity framework is mission-critical for every organization, and we must stay focused on separating the signal from the noise. I’m excited to join a team that aligns with my vision of building a secure global digital ecosystem.”

Conrad’s decision to join Zscaler comes after he spent the last five-plus years working for GSA. He was the acting FedRAMP director for the last three years.

GSA is hiring a new FedRAMP director and held information sessions about the position on Monday and today.

Before joining GSA and FedRAMP, Conrad was an officer in the Marines Corps where he worked the Marines Systems Command, the Marines Corps College of Distance Education and several other commands. After retiring from the Marines Corps, Conrad worked at Booz Allen Hamilton before coming back to federal service.

Similar to Conrad, Baidwan joined the government after spending the early part of his career in industry.

Baidwan has been the deputy CISO at DHS since 2021 and has worked in the CIO’s office since 2015 in an assortment of cyber roles.

He also worked at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement directorate as the governance and risk management section chief.

With Baidwan taking on the new role, Hysen said Antonio Scimemi will be the acting CISO. Scimemi has overseen the CISO cybersecurity assessments division and led the effort to develop the agency’s unified cyber maturity model.

He also was the deputy CISO and acting director of IT operations at ICE.

The post DHS hires new CISO; Former cloud security lead lands new job first appeared on Federal News Network.

After winding up its punch last fall, the Biden administration has delivered a final blow aiming to prevent the resurrection of a controversial Trump-era federal workforce policy, familiarly called Schedule F.

Efforts from the Office of Personnel Management to “reinforce and clarify protections for the nonpartisan career civil service” will tighten up the job security of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of non-political, career federal employees. OPM published its final rule reinforcing those protections to the Federal Register Thursday morning.

“Strong personnel has been at the core of our focus — we’ve been building on this agenda,” Jason Miller, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters during a press conference about the final rule. “The rule that the Biden-Harris administration is finalizing today is one part of that broader effort to ensure we have a strong, nonpartisan civil service that results in delivering results for the American people.”

OPM’s final rule is a direct response to a Trump administration executive order signed in late 2020. The order sought to reclassify career federal employees working in policy-related roles into Schedule F — a new, excepted service classification for government workers.

In practice, any employees reclassified as “Schedule F” would have seen fewer worker protections, making them at-will and easier for agencies to fire. But since the order came near the end of former President Donald Trump’s term, and President Joe Biden quickly revoked it once stepping into office, Schedule F didn’t see much light of day.

For at least a couple years, however, former Trump administration officials have been revisiting plans to revive Schedule F, should the presidential election go in their favor — a key motivation behind the new final rule from OPM.

After reviewing more than 4,000 public comments OPM received on its proposed regulations last fall, the now final rule outlines clearer worker protections for the federal employees the Trump administration had aimed to place into the Schedule F category — in particular, those in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating” positions.

“This rule is about making sure the American public can continue to count on federal workers to apply their skills and expertise in carrying out their jobs — no matter their personal political beliefs,” OPM Deputy Director Rob Shriver said during the press conference.

The new final rule aims to ensure career civil servants are hired and fired based on their merit, not political loyalty, OPM said. In particular, the final rule states that employees cannot have their civil service protections removed involuntarily. And in the case that there is a reclassification, the rule also establishes a procedure and appeals process for feds to push back against it.

The regulations specifically state that “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating” positions — the sector of employees that Schedule F originally targeted — are non-career, political positions and are not applicable to career federal employees.

In essence, the final rule aims to ensure worker protections for thousands of civil servants whose careers transcend presidential administrations.

“Career civil servants have a level of institutional experience, subject matter expertise and technical knowledge that incoming political appointees have found to be useful and may lack themselves,” the OPM final rule states. “Such civil servants’ ability to offer their objective analyses and educated views when carrying out their duties, without fear of reprisal or loss of employment, contribute to the reasoned consideration of policy options and thus the successful functioning of incoming administrations and our democracy. These rights and abilities must continue to be protected and preserved … and expanded and strengthened.”

The final rule will become official 30 days after its publication to the Federal Register, in early May.

The origins and scope of Schedule F

For years, experts estimated Schedule F would have affected around 50,000 career feds across government. But the estimate largely depends on each agency’s plans. A 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office showed that although OMB never actually reclassified any positions, approximately 68% of OMB’s workforce would have become at-will.

More recently, the National Treasury Employee Union, digging up Trump-era OMB documents, said the estimates are, in reality, much higher. While initially expected to impact only senior-level roles, the documents showed that OMB was also targeting federal employees in less senior positions, including those in GS-9 and GS-10 roles.

“We now know that the architects of Schedule F wanted to get rid of large numbers of federal employees for reasons that had nothing to do with their job duties or performance, upending 141 years of federal employment based on skills and merit,” NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement. “We are pleased that President Biden’s administration has taken proactive steps to protect our civil servants and the honorable tradition of public service.”

At the time of the 2020 order, Trump administration officials said Schedule F was a way to ensure accountability of federal employees, and to allow more flexibility over whom a president can have working in policymaking roles. Former President Donald Trump — as well as several other former Republican presidential candidates for 2024 — have pointed to what they view as a “deep state” in the government’s workforce, saying that many federal employees intentionally slow-rolled Trump policies they personally disagreed with.

Though the order has been revoked since early 2021, that sentiment remains alive. In one striking example, during Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign run, he said on the topic of federal bureaucracy that he would “start slitting throats” of federal employees on his first day as president.

But on paper, the Schedule F order was an effort to ensure accountability of federal employees, according to James Sherk, former special assistant to the President on the White House domestic policy council, and the policy lead on the original Schedule F executive order.

“Civil service protections make it very difficult to hold employees in senior policymaking positions accountable for implementing the elected President’s agenda,” Sherk, currently a director at non-profit America First Policy Institute, said in an interview. “Schedule F was designed to allow the president to hold that relatively small subset of the federal workforce accountable, allowing him to replace senior employees who are not getting the job done for the American people. It was similar to reforms adopted by many state governments.”

The executive order quickly gained strong pushback from many federal unions, organizations and other employee advocates who said Schedule F was in reality a politically motivated attempt to return the government’s workforce to a “spoils” or “patronage” system — harkening back to the 1800s when a majority of the federal workforce overturned with each new incoming president.

Many organizations lauded OPM’s final rule this week for its efforts to strengthen merit system principles and other protections for the career civil service.

“Frontline federal employees are not political appointees, and for good reason,” NTEU’s Greenwald said. “By having basic rights such as notice of any adverse action and an opportunity to respond, they are shielded from unlawful and politically motivated firings.”

“The public benefits tremendously from having a career federal workforce hired for their skills and free from political interference to equitably serve all Americans,” President and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service Max Stier said in a statement. “OPM’s final rule maintains a commitment to a bedrock principle of our democracy: that civil servants serve their country based on merit, not their political beliefs.”

A “10:30-in-the-evening” regulation

Of course, OPM’s final rule comes during an election year, as time may be running short to implement policy changes before a possible presidential transition. The next several months will likely bring more efforts to implement policies that have been top of mind for the Biden administration over the last couple years.

“The people who originally proposed Schedule F have been in fear of what often is called a ‘midnight regulation’ — some kind of rule that would come by, that would wipe out their ability to be able to do what they want to do if, in fact, Trump wins,” Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, said in an interview. “This isn’t so much a midnight regulation as much as maybe a 10:30-in-the-evening kind of regulation. But it’s very clear that the Biden team wants to do all it possibly can to lock down the current system.”

A Biden administration official, speaking on background, said they believe the final rule from OPM will stand the test of time — and protect career federal employees even in the case of a presidential transition.

“This regulation is the strongest action that the Biden-Harris administration can take to promote these important policies. It has gone through the full rulemaking process,” the official said. “If another administration were to disagree with the policies that are reflected in this regulation, first, they would have to follow that full rulemaking process themselves. And then in that rulemaking, among other things, they would have to explain how a different rule would be better than the carefully crafted balance that OPM has struck here, and how their differing interpretation would be consistent with over 140 years of statutory language and congressional intent.”

Some experts, however, said they remain concerned that even a final rule from OPM won’t be enough to prevent Schedule F from returning in a future administration. In fact, in a 2023 outline of his policy plans, Trump said he would, on day one in office, restore the Schedule F executive order and the ability for a president to “fire rogue bureaucrats.”

Ron Sanders, who formerly served as chairman of the Federal Salary Council as an appointee for former President Donald Trump, resigned from his position in 2020 in response to the Schedule F executive order. While expressing appreciation for OPM’s final rule, Sanders — also previously a career federal employee for more than two decades — said he was concerned it wouldn’t completely prevent Schedule F, or something similar, returning in the future.

“It will serve as a speed bump, as opposed to a barrier,” Sanders, currently president and CEO of Publica Virtu, LLC, said in an interview. “It will slow down changes, but it won’t stop them.”

Similarly, former Trump administration official Sherk said OPM’s final rule would not stop an administration’s efforts in the future.

“What can be done through executive action can be undone through executive action. A future administration would have to go through the rulemaking process to roll back this rule, just as the Biden administration went through it to issue the rule,” Sherk said. “But the legal authority for Schedule F is clear. Rolling back this new rule would probably take about as long as OPM took to issue it. It creates some delay, but the rule is not something that’s going to stop a future administration from implementing the policy.”

Kettl said, however, that the Biden administration now establishing more precedent and evidence through the regulatory process will at the very least make the rule more difficult to unwind.

“If not impossible, it just means it might take a little bit longer, require a few more steps, might require navigating and jumping through a few more hoops,” Kettl said. “But there’s no doubt that this is a battle that’s going to be looming.”

Schedule F’s odds on Capitol Hill

Efforts from the Biden administration to prevent Schedule F’s return aren’t an anomaly. For years, many Democrats, and a few Republicans, in Congress have simultaneously been pushing for the passage of legislation to block the Schedule F order’s revival through law.

The Saving the Civil Service Act, reintroduced in early 2023, aims to block presidential administrations from ordering agencies to reclassify federal positions outside merit system principles, unless given congressional approval.

Despite several years of lawmakers’ efforts to enact the legislation, the bill has not yet received much action.

Still, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who introduced the Senate’s version of the bill, said the final rule from OPM would serve as a solid step in the same direction.

“It’s in every American’s best interest that civil servants are hired through a merit-based system, and I welcome the Biden administration’s step today to affirm that principle and protect these workers from politically motivated firings,” Kaine said in a statement. “I will continue to push for my Saving the Civil Service Act so we can etch this progress into federal statute.”

A senior Biden administration official said they would fully support a goal of Congress to strengthen protections further through legislation.

“But we are also confident in the strength of this regulation, and that it is grounded in decades of congressional intent and administration practice,” the official said. “It is the best reading of the law that exists today.”

Other calls for civil service reform

Although the debate over Schedule F is highly contentious, some “good government” organizations have called for more of a middle-ground approach to ensuring better accountability and productivity in the career federal workforce.

“Agencies and the administration should continue to explore ways to make our federal government more responsive, transparent and accountable to the American people,” the Partnership’s Stier said. “Streamlining processes for hiring, performance management and accountability and preparing managers to support the workforce through the talent lifecycle are just some of the ways the federal government can better serve while adhering to merit principles.”

Implementing long-term, meaningful civil service reforms, including addressing challenges in human capital and performance management, may ultimately help restore the public’s declining trust in government, and the vast array of services it provides.

“Making sure that your drinking water is safe, how best to try to manage the cost structure of pills and pharmaceuticals that are being paid for by Medicare and Medicaid, how to try to create a new IT system for Social Security — I mean, these are very, very complex issues on which the performance of government depends,” Kettl said. “Not only are we talking about the big battles between the Schedule F proponents and those who want to try to maintain some version of the status quo, but we’re really talking about what government ought to look like and how accountability ought to work. It would be hard to underestimate how big those stakes are.”

The post Biden administration locks in plans aiming to block Schedule F for good first appeared on Federal News Network.

The transition from military to civilian life can be difficult. The Defense Department runs programs to help service members prepare. For those who risk loss of income or housing, DoD offers what it calls “warm handovers,” a type of personalized, one-on-one help. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that thousands of services members slipped through the fingers of warm handovers. For more,  the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with GAO’s Director of Strategic Issues, Dawn Locke.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin Tell us about warm handover. What exactly happens there? And who does the DoD feel that it applies to?

Dawn Locke Sure. So every couple of years, about 500,000 service members transitioned out of the military. And when they do this, they must get the support needed to have healthy, sustainable lives in the civilian world. Warm handovers are supposed to be those extra layers of support for the service members who are most susceptible to challenges when leaving the military. So that warm handover support entails DoD giving the service members, like you said, an in-person contact at an agency that could provide tangible assistance. So, for example, a VA official who can help with disability claims, or a Department of Labor official who can help with finding them a job.

Tom Temin Is this available, by the way, to those with other than honorable discharges?

Dawn Locke This is available to those who are considered at risk if they have an other than honorable discharge. They could potentially, depending on their top counselor, still get a warm handover.

Tom Temin Okay. And do we know roughly of the 500,000 that I believe you said every five years the transition out? It’s a fairly small number that they deem needing the warm handover.

Dawn Locke It could be considered small, I don’t know, depending on what you consider small. So in the two year period that we looked at, there’s about 45,000. There’s more than 45,000 who are considered at risk of challenges when they transition. So for example, they don’t know how they’re going to earn a living. And of these, sadly, more than 4300 who were at risk are slipping through the cracks. So these individuals who are at risk of not potentially having food or shelter or transportation are also not getting the warm handover.

Tom Temin Right. So how did you find that information? You looked at the roles of DoD that they deemed and then the number they actually had a handover for.

Dawn Locke So yes, this is all based on DoD data that we received in their transition assistance data.

Tom Temin And do we know other characteristics of what makes people at risk? Was that part of the study? Do they have mental issues? Do they have post-traumatic stress disorder that kind of thing?

Dawn Locke We did look at the demographics. So they could have have health issues. We did know that the majority, so about 50 to 60% who are at risk are under the age of 24 and typically have four or fewer years of service. And that’s because this particular population tends to struggle more with making informed decisions about finances or housing. But we also saw that those who are having to leave the military quickly. So, for example, for a short term separation or a medical separation may also struggle and could benefit from a warm handover. So for example, they may not have the time they need to prepare for a transition or they’re injured or they’re ill. And a warm handover could help with continued care via the VA.

Tom Temin And warm handovers. Is it just one meeting and goodbye, Charlie, or could the warm handover be a series of meetings or counseling?

Dawn Locke Yeah, hopefully it would be a series and tell that service member gets what they need. So for example, at the VA they could be provided a person who will help with resume writing, a person who will help find them jobs, a person who will help with preparing for an interview, those type of things.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Dawn Locke. She is the director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office. What did you find is the reason so many people, almost 10% of them, are slipping through and not getting that warm handover.

Dawn Locke So unfortunately, DoD does not know the reason that these individuals are slipping through. What we did find is that commanders are struggling to understand their roles and accurately verifying warm handovers. So, for example, only two-thirds of the warm handovers that were given were verified by a commander. And, even more egregious, we found that 77,000 service members were verified as having a warm handover who didn’t actually receive one. In addition to that, we found that DoD doesn’t know whether warm handovers are even helpful because they’re not following up with service members once they become vets, to see if that in-person connection provided tangible help to them.

Tom Temin Yeah, that was my next question you’ve answered is, do they know whether it’s doing any good with respect to people getting jobs and housing and having some stability in their lives?

Dawn Locke Right. And they just don’t, they don’t because they haven’t followed up.

Tom Temin In Veterans Affairs they don’t have much data on that particular piece of it either.

Dawn Locke That is correct. And that is why. So Veterans Affairs is working with DoD to run a pilot to try to collect more information on those warm handovers, but that pilot still is going to provide limited information and will not be able to tell us whether the program is effective.

Tom Temin Wow. So I can imagine what some of your recommendations were. Let’s go over those.

Dawn Locke Yeah, so we did. We made a few recommendations, eight in total. And those boiled down to having DoD better use the data and contact information to ensure a person to person connection happens. We also are, recommending that DoD ensure commanders accurately verify the warm handovers and that they assess and share information on the helpfulness of warm handovers. So that’s key. We need the DoD to determine if these warm handovers are actually helpful. And then we’re also recommending to the DoD Department of Labor and the VA that they identify criteria to determine whether to continue the pilot projects that I spoke of earlier that could help enhance warm handovers.

Tom Temin It sounds like everybody thinks everybody else is responsible for this, and therefore nobody is really taking single ownership of identifying the people, verifying the handovers happen, and then following up to see if they were useful.

Dawn Locke I’m not sure if that is the case. What we did hear from the agencies that they agreed with all of our recommendations, and they each identified steps that they’re going to take to implement the recommendations. So, for example, DoD plans to use the data to better understand the warm handovers while also helping commanders more accurately verify them. And then the VA and DOL did provide statements that they’re committed to making improvements. So, for example, the VA is seeking specific information to determine how to fund its pilot at all the military installations.

Tom Temin In some ways, the biggest beneficiary of this program, potentially besides the service members themselves, is Veterans Affairs, because if people have compounded problems in their lives, it’s going to some way or another end up on the doorstep of VA.

Dawn Locke Correct. They are a huge service provider, as you know, to service members. And it would benefit them greatly to get this right.

Tom Temin And by the way, do we know the percentage of women versus men that are part of the handover program?

Dawn Locke I don’t have the percentage to memory, but there are fewer women who receive a warm handover. Just by the nature of there are fewer women in the military.

The post Warm handovers leave some transitioning service members out in the cold first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The State Department has named a new chief diversity and inclusion officer (CDIO), filling a position that has been vacant for 10 months. The job is going to Zakiya Carr Johnson, a former White House official and former director of the department’s Race, Ethnicity and Social Inclusion Unit. Secretary of State Antony Blinken created the CDIO position at the start of his tenure. He said the job is critical to attracting and retaining State Department employees.
  (Appointment of Zakiya Carr Johnson as the Department’s chief diversity and inclusion officer - State Department)
• A Homeland Security board has some major security concerns about one of the government’s biggest technology suppliers. The Cyber Safety Review Board said Microsoft’s security culture needs an overhaul. The board’s latest report found the tech giant had inadequate security practices when suspected Chinese hackers broke into the email accounts of multiple high-level government officials. The report recommends the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency regularly review the security practices of all cloud service providers. And it recommends the government periodically re-evaluate the security of cloud services widely used across agencies.
  (CSRB castigates Microsoft, urges federal cloud security updates in pending - Federal News Network)
• More than a quarter of federal employees are feeling burnout, according to a recent study. A recent Gallup survey of federal employees finds 26% of them feel burned out “very often” or “always” at work. Rob DeSimone, the associate principal of workplace initiatives at Gallup, said 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. Gallup identifies five root causes of burnout. Those include unfair treatment at work, unmanageable workloads, unclear communication from managers, lack of manager support and unreasonable time pressure.
  (One-quarter of federal workforce feeling burnout, with no ‘silver bullet’ fix, study finds - Federal News Network)
• Health care employees at the Defense Health Agency are getting closer to seeing union representation. After winning a union election in 2022, the American Federation of Government Employees said it is still working through some key steps to set up the new council for DHA. That council will represent up to 45,000 agency workers. The employees are mostly transfers from the Army, Navy and Air Force who were reshuffled into the new agency. Once everything is finalized, DHA will have a national-level collective bargaining agreement along with some smaller chapters to address local issues.
  (Forming DHA council to represent DoD health care workers - American Federation of Government Employees)
• The office of the Defense Department’s chief information officer will automate the review of zero trust implementation plans. Last year, the DoD CIO’s office received 39 zero trust implementation plans from the military services, defense agencies and combatant commands. It took four months and 35 full-time employees to review the plans. Randy Resnick, the director of the Zero Trust Architecture Program Management Office, said the process needs to be automated this year. The DoD CIO’s office mandated all defense components to submit updated zero trust implementation plans every October.
  (DoD to streamline review of zero trust implementation plans - Federal News Network)
• The Pentagon’s first-of-its-kind Commercial Space Integration Strategy synchronizes the department’s efforts to integrate commercial space technologies into its operations. The long-awaited strategy, released by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb, signals the Defense Department's willingness to take military action to protect commercial satellites. The document also calls for integration of commercial space technologies before conflict arises. The new strategy is aligned with the Space Force commercial space strategy, which is set to be released this week.
  (New space strategy calls for better protection of commercial space technology - DoD)
• A new bill in the Senate would extend the Department of Homeland Security’s use of a special procurement tool. The BEST Technology for the Homeland Act would extend DHS’ other transaction authority through fiscal 2031. It is currently set to expire at the end of this September. Other transaction agreements are considered more flexible than traditional contracts. The lawmakers behind the legislation want to see DHS use OTAs to acquire more innovative technologies.
  (Peters and Daines introduce bipartisan bill to ensure DHS can procure advanced technologies to strengthen national security - HSGAC )
• What is the best way candidates can prepare for a federal interview? The Office of Personnel Management is offering some guidance. OPM will share tips and an in-depth, inside look during a webinar on April 10. The free session is targeting federal job applicants and anyone else who might be interested in joining the federal workforce. During the webinar, experts at OPM will cover different types of federal interviews, common questions and other advice for preparing.
  (Federal interview process webinar - Office of Personnel Management)

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The Biden administration’s 2025 budget request includes $1.6 billion for the Census Bureau and an increase of $218 million from what was just enacted for 2024. Good but not enough, according to The Census Project. For more on that, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with project co-director Howard Fienberg.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin Maybe store it out for us. The importance of 2025 request both to the Census Bureau’s current operations and the programs they run between the Big Ten-year counts, which is pretty heavy load. And how this contributes also or should to what they have to do in 2030.

Howard Fienberg Most listeners probably are aware that a ten-year buildup to every decennial headcount. I mean, obviously the biggest amount of money is spent in the year zero. In this case, it’ll be FY 2030. But there’s a lot of preparations that go into it, and it is a funding cycle that of course, Congress struggles with, because it’s a very regular one by logic standards, but hard one based on how Congress funds things. But you know, year zero you spend a ton of money and then you go down to very little for a few years and you start ramping back up again. And we’re in the point where they should be dramatically ramping back up, because this is when the bureau is deciding on its design. It is figuring out what major tests it’s going to need to run, both behind the scenes and in the field in order to prepare for an accurate count of the population at the end of the decade. So, a lot of the major decision making is going on in FY 25.

Tom Temin And in the meantime, though, they have their regular economic surveys that they do. People don’t realize how much they do. So, getting to that request for 2025, do you feel that the blanket covers the bed, so to speak, for what they need to do currently and also what they need to do as set aside activities leading to 2030? Are they got enough.

Howard Fienberg Next to really know? So, I mean, the census project has put out our own budget recommendation prior to the president’s budget urging 2 billion. A lot of that is based on the needs of the American Community Survey, which, of course, part of the decennial program. But it was originally the census long form. And in order to run the ACS every year and continue to get accurate data, it needs some more investment because the sample size, for example, has not increased since probably in 2010. I forget exactly the date, but they’ve not increased the sample size in well over a decade and a half at least, and they have not been able to invest in non-response follow up as well, which is a huge part of this that we found that probably less than a third of the households that need to be contacted for follow up are actually receiving any kind of follow up. So the accuracy and the ability to deliver the most accurate data for the country is impaired, absent some more investment in this critical survey and ACS and decennial together, they are the manner in which, you know, funding is derived and delivered geographically for the country and demographically for hundreds and hundreds of federal and state programs.

Tom Temin Right. So, they need then it sounds like maybe a technological push also because people respond less and less to various forms of mail, even email. Now nobody trusts anymore. Is that a fundamental problem they’ve got to overcome is just making people trust the delivery of the medium that asks for the data that the Census Bureau needs.

Howard Fienberg That’s a piece of it. And certainly, it’s common across any survey, and research studies in general. In my day job, I’m a lobbyist for the Insights Association and the market research and data analytics industry. You know, response rates depending on how you define it, because it’s different across media. But response rates are not what they were ten years ago or 20. So the automatic assumption that everybody under the sun is going to respond to the ACS, and you can’t just make that assumption and the response rates don’t reflect that. You know, it’s something that used to get, you know, 90 to 95% across the board. It’s not really hitting that anymore. And, you know, there is a lack of trust. Certainly, we talk with congressional offices, and they hear from their constituents on a regular basis. Oh my God, what is this that I was sent? And so that’s a normal thing for any congressional office to receive from their constituents, because, you know, people just lack that basic trust in what they’re receiving.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Howard Fienberg. He is co-director of the Census Project. And getting back to the budget request for 2025, you mentioned they have to beef up the American Community Survey. So, it sounds like that’s an expensive proposition. Would helping response rates to that lead to understandings that could help them in 2030 where response rates, that’s going to be an issue also of course.

Howard Fienberg Yeah. And the ACS has always been the test bed and where you test out. What are your messages going to be for reaching the population? How are you going to do the follow up? What kinds of questions can you ask? All the questions that are going to be asked and how they’re going to be asked on the headcount. Those are all seated and tested on the ACS and other surveys and all the back end work that’s going to go into their modernization of their technology, infrastructure, all the things that go on the back end that is really implemented through a survey like the ACS, because the ACS is happening every year.

Tom Temin And the sense that the bureau is on the ball for 2030.

Howard Fienberg Maybe that’s it’s hard to say at this point because we’re still early on it. This is where things started to fall apart in the last few decades, not necessarily because of funding levels per se, but because of the timing. And you can see it happening here just like prior decades. You’re getting sequestration where it’s just an across-the-board meat cleaver approach and just hacking away stuff, but also continuing resolutions. And, you know, like any agency, they have to juggle priorities. And all right, we’re going to put, you know, more things over here. And this activity is going to go by the wayside. That’s not a big deal in some agencies. But at the Bureau over the long term in, you know, say the last decade, the CR is directly resulted in the cancellation of most of their field testing before the 2020 census, and we do not want to see that happen again. So in 2020, they ended up only doing a field test in Providence, Rhode Island, which is not representative of a whole lot of the country and all the rural testing suburban areas, urban areas, all tribal reservations, all these things got wiped out, and we don’t want to see that happen again.

Tom Temin That’s outside of their control in a lot of ways.

Howard Fienberg Correct. But the more that can be done to fund each fiscal year as the decade wears on, that gives them more flexibility to be able to get those activities planned and executed.

Tom Temin And outside of the budget request. How do you think that the influx of illegal migrants that are being shipped all over the United States, and we’ve got this big, huge hairball of a problem? It’s a logistics problem. It’s a political problem, you name it. But those individuals are subject to counting wherever they might be. Correct? The Census Bureau doesn’t count citizens. It counts every person in the United States. Do you think that’ll be a challenge for them just because of the numbers?

Howard Fienberg Yeah. No, it’s always a challenge because yes, they tend to be moving around less likely to respond to government entreaties to, you know, provide their information. It’s a challenge every time. And in particular, at this point, they’re going to be moving around perhaps more than in the past. And it looks like there are a whole lot more of them than there were ten years ago.

Tom Temin Right. And it could introduce the danger of double counting if the migrants that are in are moving around, they could get counted twice or maybe more than once, just because of the mobility that’s available to them now.

Howard Fienberg Presuming they’re responding? Yes.

Tom Temin Presuming they’re responding. Right. So yeah, I don’t know how you figure that one out, but and you know, this is going to be something that Congress is going to have many minds about also.

Howard Fienberg Yes. And there will be battles in Congress about a citizenship question about how the apportionment counts should take account of citizenship or residency, legal, illegal immigration, and so forth. You know, we don’t have a dog in that fight that’s going on already. It’s outside of the Census Project’s concerned.

The post One reaction to 2025 Census budget request: good but not enough first appeared on Federal News Network.

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.

Discover more now:

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

Guests:

Malcolm Harden, chief growth officer, Safal Partners and Chair, Industry Advisory Council (IAC) https://www.linkedin.com/in/malharden/

Dave Powner, executive director, Center for Data-Driven Policy at The MITRE Corporation and former director of Information Technology Management Issues at GAO. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-powner-83079214/

Additional Resources:

To learn more about ACT-IAC, please visit our website: https://www.actiac.org/

The post Accelerating Government with ACT-IAC – Episode 39: Tech Leaders – Spring 2024 first appeared on Federal News Network.

Once people got over the shock of the Maryland bridge collapse, the long-term questions started to arise. Like, what about the nation’s supply chain, given that the Key Bridge is the entrance to an important shipping port. For analysis, The Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Dr. Philip Evers, University of Maryland supply chain management professor.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin What are the supply chain effects? I mean, everything I’ve heard seems to indicate that some automobile shipments will take longer in parts. But is there more to this port than that?

Philip Evers Well, the Port of Baltimore is a mid-sized port relative to other ports in the country. So the port is very important, in the region. But if you look on a national scale, it’s much smaller than a port like, Los Angeles, Long Beach or the Port of New York, New Jersey. So I see a lot of short term issues that arise. Long term, I don’t see major effects outside of the Central Maryland area.

Tom Temin Interesting. So any indications that we have yet. Shipping will return more than we’ll talk about the surface transportation, which is a much longer term effect, but it’ll take them probably months to get the pieces of metal and so forth out so ships can come and go. Fair to say?

Philip Evers Absolutely. But in that time, the freight that would be coming to Baltimore, could, for the most part, be easily diverted to another port.

Tom Temin Yes, because Florida has a couple of big shipping ports, too, right?

Philip Evers Well, there there are ports all up and down the the East Coast, recognized that practically every ship that goes to Baltimore passes in Norfolk. The Port of Virginia is right there. So again, there’s lots for most items, especially for containerized freight, such as the freight that was on the ship that had the incident. Those containers could be offloaded somewhere else. Some of the more specialized freight might be a little bit harder to handle in the short term.

Tom Temin So then again, outside of automobiles, then we don’t really know what is important to the rest of the world coming through Baltimore, because containers on a ship can have everything from computers to whiffle balls.

Philip Evers Sure, absolutely. And we’re kind of thinking about this in terms of imports, but there’s also the export activities. And that I think is going to have maybe a slightly larger effect. Port of Baltimore certainly, handles a lot of export automobiles, but they handle some other export products as well that might affect other places in the world.

Tom Temin For federal government supply chains. Yes, the government buys vehicles, but they buy all of these other commodities, a lot of military gear. It doesn’t seem like this would have that much effect on what the federal government is acquiring.

Philip Evers I can’t imagine that it would have that big of impact, obviously some secondary impacts, but I don’t think anything major.

Tom Temin Now the port will get cleaned up and operational, presumably long before the road over it gets put back together. And that is, as people locally know, part of the Baltimore Beltway, which is a circle, a complete circle. And so when you take out a segment of a circle, you can’t get from point A to point B without going backwards around the long way. What about surface transportation?

Philip Evers I think you hit on the main point. I think the longer term the big issue will be with surface transportation, not with ocean transportation. Because as you say, they will be able to clean once a search and rescue mission are finished. They’ll be able to get onto the removal of the debris in the water, but it’s going to take a long time for that bridge to get rebuilt. And if you think about it, there are four. Well, there were four interstate paths through Baltimore, the two tunnels, the bridge and the other side of the beltway. And now one of those is missing. The Key Bridge certainly handled the fewest automobiles of the four, but it handled a lot of trucking because the trucks that carry hazardous materials are not allowed to go through the tunnels. So that’s one thing that’s going to put more, possibly more trucks around the other side of the beltway jamming that up more.

Tom Temin And you can get off I-95 through Baltimore and go down to a short highway called 395. But within moments you are on narrow surface streets.

Philip Evers Exactly. So for long distance truckers, and of course, anyone driving, let’s say from DC to New York, you’re probably not going to do much of that cutting through the town.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Dr. Philip Evers. He’s associate professor of supply chain management at the University of Maryland’s business school. There’s a third mode here called rail and the Baltimore Tunnel coming out of the city, going south toward the East coast. That’s long been an object of attention because the bridge, it’s a really old tunnel, and the double piggyback containers that come off of ships sometimes can’t fit two up on a train and get through that tunnel. And wasn’t there infrastructure money at long last to rebuild that tunnel?

Philip Evers Yes. Some of the the very initial work on that is is starting to happen. There’s two tunnels in Baltimore. There’s the Amtrak tunnel, which is an extremely old tunnel, and there is now money and there’s now work progressing on that. And that’s at the very initial stages. There’s also the Howard Street Tunnel, which is a CSX, line. That’s freight only. But that line is now also being expanded, to allow for double stack.

Tom Temin Expanded, meaning they have to scoop it out bigger.

Philip Evers  Exactly.

Tom Temin And that’s not a minor engineering thing. I know you’re not an engineer, but that’s not a minor undertaking, is it?

Philip Evers No. In neither of those two tunnels, it cases is that minor. They’re both going to be major project. Much as I’ll point out, and you may recall in in DC, the Virginia Avenue tunnel expansion 10 or 15 years ago was a significant undertaking, but it was done relatively quickly.

Tom Temin And let me ask you about a bigger question. And that is people that are doing procurement on behalf of organizations, in our case, contracting officers. Shipping was something that you consider. Do you think that in the future shipping, shipping methods, shipping costs, shipping warranties should be a bigger part of the thinking of people that are trying to get things acquired and delivered?

Philip Evers Let me come at that in a slightly different perspective. One of the things that occurred during COVID was firms started to really think about the resiliency of their supply chain, especially after 2021. And there were all the problems on the West Coast, in L.A. and Long Beach, firms really started to take resiliency seriously. And so a lot of firms have started to put supply chain backup plans into place. Now we know that plans are always off, but at least firms are now starting to think about these things. So I think in this case, this would be really our first major experience with resiliency planning since firms have really started to kick around this idea. So I’m sure everything won’t go swimmingly, but it will give us experience and I think we will recover better and faster than had firms not been thinking about this to begin with.

Tom Temin And so probably the most critical aspect for the government might be military supplies and deliveries, which are often heavy items or coming by train or full size truck. Therefore, that resiliency would be something military acquisition people should be thinking about.

Philip Evers Sure. Now, again, I don’t know how much military cargo comes directly into a Baltimore.

Tom Temin Probably none.

Philip Evers Probably none. And again, Norfolk is right there. I don’t see this being as big of an impact on the military is more on the commercial side out of Baltimore.

The post Will that bridge collapse in Maryland affect federal supply chains? first appeared on Federal News Network.