Federal Drive

Tuesday morning federal headlines – April 24, 2012

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp discuss throughout the show each day. T...

Federal News Network Staff

April 24, 2012 8:33 am

2 min read

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp discuss throughout the show each day. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air.

A leading contractor group has blasted an administration proposal to cut salary reimbursement rates in federal contracts. Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, said the proposed $200,000 pay cap is arbitrary and contrary to the law. The Office of Management and Budget proposed the new cap in the Federal Register. Current law caps contractor salaries at close to $700,000. Soloway called the lower proposal good political rhetoric but poorly conceived and naïve. (PSC)
Two senators want the Office of Management and Budget to speed up clearance of its retirement claims backlog. Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) think that’s the only way OPM will be able to handle a flood of Postal Service retirements. They added an amendment to the 21st Century Postal Service Act that would require OPM to submit monthly reports on the backlog. It would also let Congress see which agencies do a good job on sending in the right paperwork on retirees so their claims can be processed quickly. (Federal News Radio)
Contractor ATK Launch Systems agreed to pay nearly $37 million to settle a whistleblower complaint. The company sold defective illumination flares to the Defense Department. The settlement includes repairing 76,000 of the flares, which are supposed to withstand a drop of 10 feet without exploding. They were made between 2000 and 2006 by a company ATK later acquired. Most were purchased by the Air Force and the Army. The whistleblower, Kendall Dye, was represented by the law firm Phillips and Cohen in Salt Lake City. (Federal News Radio)
One agency gets a reprieve from across-the-board spending cuts set to kick in next year. Veterans Affairs is exempt from sequestration. Prior laws protected the agency’s programs from the automatic spending cuts in last year’s Budget Control Act. The Office of Management and Budget said its ruling applied only to the VA. Veterans’ advocates and some lawmakers had warned that the spending cuts would hurt the agency’s ability to pay health care workers. (Federal News Radio)
New findings suggest the Veterans Affairs Department is struggling to keep up with the number of veterans seeking mental health care. The agency inspector general said half of its mental health patients have to wait about 50 days for a full evaluation. That’s far longer than previously thought. The report said the agency’s tracking system is flawed. Doctors and clinicians said they don’t have the manpower to handle all the cases. The VA last week began hiring 1,900 more mental health care workers. (Federal News Radio)