Agencies may be funded by continuing resolution to start the fiscal year

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

In today’s Top Federal Headlines, Senate minority leader Harry Reid says while they don’t support a stopgap measure to fund the government until 2017, he’d be in favor of one that funds it at least until after the November elections.

• Agencies may see themselves being funded by another stopgap measure for the beginning of the fiscal year. Reuters reports Senate minority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Democrats on the Hill are opposed to the idea of waiting until 2017 to finish this year’s appropriations. He did express interest in a shorter stopgap measure that would at least fund the government until after the November elections. (Reuters)

• President Obama has declared his support for most of the Commission on Care’s recommendation of creating a veterans’ health care system that includes government and private care. In a letter to Congress, Obama said he strongly supports 15 of the panel’s 18 recommendations. The three the administration disagree with includes establishing a board of directors to oversee the Veterans Health Administration. (Department of Veterans Affairs)

• The banking industry is asking for a six-month reprieve from new financial regulations designed to protect military members from predatory lending. The year-old rules mainly target payday lenders and other creditors Congress and federal officials think take advantage of servicemembers. In general, the rules cap annual interest rates at 36 percent for military members. But seven industry groups representing traditional banks and credit unions said they’ll also be hit. They said it took so long for DoD to clarify the rules, they can’t possibly comply by the October deadline. (Credit Union National Association)

• Agencies used 20 out of more than 100 hiring authorities to bring on most new hires in fiscal 2014. The Government Accountability Office said agencies are often confused about which hiring authorities they should use in given situations. The Office of Personnel Management keeps little data about which authorities are working as intended. (Government Accountability Office)

• National capital area leaders kicked off the 2016 Combined Federal Campaign. This year’s theme is “Show Some Love.” The focus of this year’s campaign is on individual charities and causes. National capital region leaders set a goal of $47 million for the CFC this year. That would be up a half million from last year. (Federal News Radio)

• Richard Thissen was re-elected to a new two-year term as president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association. Voting took place during this week’s convention in Reno, Nevada. He’s been a member of NARFE since 1995 and was elected national president in 2014. Thissen worked nearly three decades as a civilian for the Army.

• The Education Department wants to move from EDUCATE to PIVOT. The agency released a request for information late in August for its new enterprise-wide IT services contract called Portfolio of Integrated Value-Oriented Technology or PIVOT. PIVOT would replace the EDUCATE contract, which Education awarded to Perot Services for $400 million in 2007. The new umbrella program would feature six separate acquisitions. This first RFI is looking at five major task areas, including system and application hosting and data storage services. Responses are due Sept. 15. (FedBizOpps)

• A new competition launched by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency offers up to $200,000 in prizes for solutions to the agency’s unique data challenges. NGA said it’s looking for methods of accessing its large sets of data for search, business metrics and analytics. Check it out at Challenge.gov.

• One small agency boasts big payouts to whistleblowers. The Securities and Exchange Commission said it’s paid more than $100 million since its corporate whistleblower program started in 2011. The biggest single award, $22 million, came last month. It went to a company employee reporting fraud. The money comes from sanctions the SEC imposes. Acting whistleblower office chief Jane Norberg said tipsters have uncovered wrongdoing leading to $500 million in fines. (Security Exchange Commission)

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