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In Depth Newscast – July 12

The Defense Department is under a hiring freeze for its civilian workforce, but some members of the Senate are worried that will only lead to more outsourcing i...

Federal News Network Staff

July 12, 2011 7:11 pm

1 min read

The Defense Department is under a hiring freeze for its civilian workforce, but some members of the Senate are worried that will only lead to more outsourcing in the department. A coalition of Democratic senators, led by Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski, have sent a letter to the new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Mikulski, along with Senators Tom Harkin, Claire McCaskill, Patty Murray and Sherrod Brown told Panetta they’re concerned that freezing civillian hiring is not an effective workforce management plan…and that guarantees that any new work in DoD will be done by contractors…even if that work meets the definition of “inherently governmental”. The senators tell Panetta they want to make sure DoD manages its workforce on the basis of cost instead of arbitrary headcounts.
32 percent of IT professionals say saving money is the top reason for their organizations moving to the cloud. That’s up from 26 percent in 2010, according to the latest nCircle Cloud Computing Study. The study also found 69 percent of agency representatives are considering cloud computing as well as using cloud vendors that comply with the Federal Information Security Management Act or Payment Card Industry standards to safely manage secure information.
At the White House today, Army Ranger Sergeant Leroy Petry became only the second living servicemember to be presented with the military’s highest decoration — the Medal of Honor. In Afghanistan Petry was shot in both legs and then lost a hand while throwing an enemy grenade away from himself and two fellow Army Rangers – all the while continuing to call out orders so that his unit could fulfill its mission, according to soldiers who served with him.