Monday federal headlines – March 7, 2016

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive.

• Agencies will start to get the 2016 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey from the Office of Personnel Management in April. It will come out in two waves. Acting OPM Director Beth Cobert is encouraging agencies to show their employees what they’ve done with the past year’s results to get more people to take the survey this year. Survey results will start to come out in August. (CHCOC)

• The Defense Department is accepting bids for a contract to provide global IT services to the military branches and other DoD and federal agencies. The request for proposals comes from the Defense Information Systems Agency for its $17.5 billion Encore III program. It’s aimed at modernizing systems for command and control, intelligence missions, and the DoD Information Network. (FBO)

• Navy shipbuilders may be profiting from their own mistakes. GAO said for five of the six Navy and Coast Guard ships it reviewed, the government paid manufacturers to repair defects they caused. It recommended the Defense Department change contract terms to shift responsibility for repairs onto the companies. (GAO)

• The Government Accountability Office said the National Nuclear Security Agency and the Defense Department’s nuclear modernization cost estimates may be low. The agency said publicly the W88 warhead’s refurbishment will cost $218 million. But internal program estimates have the low end of the W88 refurbishment at $247 million. Current budget estimates have the total nuclear weapon modernization cost at about $300 billion over the next 25 years. (GAO)

• The Office of Personnel Management received more than 11,000 new retirement claims in February. After processing slightly more than 8,000 claims, it now has a backlog of nearly 22,700 claims. (OPM)

• Agencies have closed one in three data centers over the last five years. Four agencies have accounted for 86 percent of all savings from closing down data centers. The departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security and Treasury are credited for saving $2.4 billion out of a total of $2.8 billion since 2011. GAO said the government is on track to save more than $8 billion by closing down a total of 5,000 data centers by 2019. Auditors said more savings are possible as 10 agencies have not fully developed their cost savings goals for the next three years. (GAO)

• The acting head of the Federal Transit Administration is leaving. Therese McMillian is headed back to California to be chief planning officer at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. McMillan joined the FTA staff in 2009 as deputy administrator. (Metro)

• The Commerce Department is placing restrictions on a major Chinese company. Reuters reports the restrictions on ZTE Corporation take effect tomorrow. They’ll require suppliers to ZTE to obtain an export license before they can send any U.S. made parts, including software to the company. ZTE is a manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, from switching gear to cell phones. It operates worldwide. Commerce officials are worried about U.S. technology ending up in Iran. China has already objected. (Reuters)

• A high volume of companies are applying for the Defense Information System’s Agency’s top cloud services security level. DISA has a huge amount of sensitive data the Defense Department needs stored in the cloud, and providers need a top level clearance to hold personally identifiable information or mission critical data. DISA wants to move its MilCloud to a commercial pay-as-you-go program. (Federal News Radio)

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