Friday Morning Federal Newscast

Written by Ruben Gomez and Tom Temin
Edited by Phil Vogel

This morning’s federal news as heard on WFED:

Adding a Roth option to the Thrift Savings Plan isn’t easy – or cheap. Yesterday, the Federal Thrift Investment Board, which runs the TSP, voted to raise the administrative budget by nearly 14 percent. TSP Director Gregory Long noted to GovExec that the plan still had the lowest overhead costs of any similar financial organization. The TSP plans to spend $13.3 million dollars more for record keeping in FY 2010 than it did this year, in part for a new system for processing IRS forms related to the addition of the Roth option.

Keeping our national parks clean and beautiful is not easy, but there’s a new person in charge of making that happen. The Senate has confirmed Jonathan Jarvis As Director of the National Park Service, according to the Central Valley Business Times. Jarvis is a veteran of the system, he’s managed a slew of American treasures, including the Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho, and Mount Raineer National Park in Washington State. He was also in charge of the agency’s Pacific West Region,including places like Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa.

The House is poised to vote on a bill to keep government running thru next month by voting on a continuing resolution. The fiscal year wraps up next Wednesday. But Congress has yet to approve numerous permanent spending bills for next year, part of the hold-up coming from debate over healthcare reform.

The White House is crafting a new system to measure your agency’s performance. Federal Chief Performance Officer Jeff Zients tells lawmakers the new approach will mix elements from other initiatives, including the Bush Administration’s Program Assessment Rating Tool … and the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act. Zients says the system will rely heavily on information technology. And he says it’s needed because other tools pay too little attention to analyzing and acting on information collected.

The Commerce Department takes another step toward building a smart electric grid. They’ve released a set of new standards that will guide development. The smart grid will use two-way communication to better monitor and manage power usage. It’ll even allow you to sell excess electricity back to the power company. Amy Morris is covering the smart grid in her newest series.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is ordering his bureau chiefs to name full-time ethics officers and make sure they have enough money and staff to develop effective ethics training programs, GovExec reports. The move comes after last year’s reports of contract rigging and personnel abuses over oil and gas royalties at Interior’s Minerals Management Service.

The VA is under fire from lawmakers for paying $24 million dollars in bonuses to technology workers, plus $4.3 million in performance bonuses to department executives, according to GovExec. In the case of the tech workers, some bonuses came even when projects were late or over budget, according to the VA’s inspector general. The VA has been charged with serious medical problems in its endoscopy practice, and has a backlog of a several hundred thousand benefits claims yet to process.

Federal watchdogs are telling the Obama administration to hurry up with measures to make stimulus spending more accountable. Agencies have until October 10 to report where 50 billion dollars has gone, and the data will be made public October 30. But federal auditors say the information might be unreliable. They’ve called for agency managers to certify the data before it gets published online.

The Navy may have to retrofit the bathrooms on its submarine fleet, according to USA today. That’s because Navy brass are backing the idea of women serving in what is now an all-male part of the service. Navy Times reports, Secretary Ray Mabus said the Navy is “moving out aggressively” to let women serve on subs. The idea was also endorsed by Joint Chiefs Chairman, Admiral Michael Mullen.

We reported Thursday that House office buildings were flying worn-out and tattered U-S flags. Well now Capitol Police officers have replaced them with crisp and clean versions of Old Glory. Photos of the old flags published Thursday by the Washington Times first called attention to the problem. Capitol Police say they’re taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

More news links

Census workers trained to deal with hostile people

Cost of administering the TSP to increase in 2010 (GovExec)

National Archives gets historic Alexander Hamilton ‘liquor’ letter (CNN)

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