OPM creates yet another emergency leave transfer program

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• Federal employees can now donate unused annual leave to colleagues impacted by wildfires in California. The Office of Personnel Management is setting up another emergency leave transfer program to help more than 10,000 federal employees who work in the areas affected by California’s wildfires. OPM acting Director Kathleen McGettigan said she expects the number of impacted federal employees to increase. This is the fourth one set up by OPM since September. (Office of Personnel Management)

• The Census Bureau has enlisted the help of the Postal Service ahead of the 2020 count. Commerce Department Secretary Wilbur Ross said the plan is to use postal workers during an end-to-end pilot test next spring. The hope is the workers would be familiar with and trusted in the communities they’re counting. The workers would be considered temporary Commerce employees. (Federal News Radio)

• Postal workers may find themselves doing more weekend work during the holiday season. USPS is offering next-day service for packages delivered from local retail stores on Sundays in 20 major cities. No word yet on which stores. USPS currently does something similar for online giant Amazon. (Associated Press)

• Former federal executives are finding new homes. The former Veterans Affairs Department acting chief information officer, the current Commerce Department chief financial officer and a former Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator are all getting new starts. Rob Thomas retired from VA in October and just landed a new job with Leidos as a vice president. Commerce CFO Ellen Herbst is leaving government after 12 years to become a vice chancellor of the University System of Maryland. And former OFPP Administrator Angela Styles has joined Bracewell as a partner in its government contracts practice. Styles had been a partner with Crowell & Moring for the past decade.

• Emily Murphy has successfully completed the second hurdle on her way to be the next administrator of the General Services Administration. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved Murphy’s nomination by voice vote. Murphy’s nomination now moves to the full Senate for final confirmation. (Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee)

• Another minuscule bump in Hispanic federal employment has prompted a council with the Office of Personnel Management to think big. The Hispanic Council on Federal Employment is considering an executive order to put more pressure on the president and Cabinet agency leaders to improve diverse recruitment and retention. The discussion comes ahead of 2016’s upcoming annual report on Hispanic federal employment. Hispanics represented 8.6 percent of the federal workforce in fiscal 2016. That’s a point 1 percent bump over the previous year. Leaders on the council at the Office of Personnel Management said they’re disappointed by six consecutive years of small improvements. (Federal News Radio)

• Government transparency advocates are pushing for a new policy. Twenty-two groups sent a letter to OMB and the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy petitioning for the “release to one, release to all” Freedom of Information Act policy. The proposed rule requires agencies to post information revealed in a FOIA request online. (Cause of Action)

• Navy officials have started to share findings of what’s behind the deadly collisions in the Pacific. Senior officials, including the Navy’s top officer, briefed members of Congress yesterday on four separate at-sea accidents, including the collisions involving the U.S.S. McCain and Fitzgerald that killed 17 sailors. Senators who attended the briefing said there were multiple factors, but tended to blame overworked crews and insufficient funds for training and maintenance. The Navy plans to make its findings public in a press briefing tomorrow.

• Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long wants to take more preventative measures. He told Congress the Stafford Act prevents FEMA from taking storm mitigation measures until a disaster has already struck. That leaves areas with failing infrastructure, not yet hit by a disaster in danger. (Federal News Radio)

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