Air Force gives commanders more options for promoting airmen

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• Air Force commanders have more leeway when promoting their best airmen. The Stripes for Exceptional Performers Program is used to promote those who show potential. The Air Force is now increasing the amount of promotions or stripes commanders can award from 96 to 180. It’s also adjusting the timeline so it can announce promotions earlier. (Air Force)

• The Trump administration is relaunching the Federal Customer Service Awards program. The prize recognizes federal employees who improve customer service at their agencies. The Obama administration began the awards in 2015. The Office of Management and Budget said agencies should expect to see guidance on the new awards in the next few weeks. (Federal News Radio)

• The limitations on official time in the president’s executive order could be a significant lift for some agencies, but not all. The most recent data from the Office of Personnel Management shows many agencies are meeting the administration’s directive of one hour of official time per employee in an organization’s collective bargaining unit. Both the Defense Department and the Interior Department have their official time rates down below an hour. Other large agencies, like the Energy Department and NASA, are close but slightly over the administration’s one hour goal. (Federal News Radio)

• The Government Accountability Office said the Defense Department overstepped its legal bounds with a $1 billion cloud computing agreement earlier this year. Senior Pentagon officials had already recognized problems with the other transaction agreement. In March, they scaled back the agreement with REAN Cloud to just $65 million, and said only the U.S. Transportation Command would be allowed to use it. But in a bid protest decision, GAO said that wasn’t enough to fix the problem. Bid arbiters pointed to broader legal issues involving competition, and said DoD should reverse the award entirely. (Federal News Radio)

• The Secret Service overpaid presidential campaigns by millions of dollars in 2016. The Government Accountability Office said it paid campaigns $17.1 million for charter flights, nearly $4 million too high. GAO recommended the Secret Service seek to get the money back from the campaigns. (Government Accountability Office)

• Even without Russia, the nation’s election apparatus is fragile and subject to cyber attack. That’s according to FireEye, which warns election management systems are vulnerable to remote, network-based attacks because they often run on old, unpatched PCs. Phishing attacks can hit election boards. Voter information is sometimes purloined and sold in bulk. Voting machines come in 57 varieties, mostly with weak passwords, authentication and encryption. Elections are operated at the non-federal level, so Washington can offer guidance and grants.

• An inter-agency plan to comply with an executive order on mental health for transitioning members of the military received the White House’s approval. The Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs departments are all contributing. VA is expanding its peer community outreach and group sessions that are part of 18 sites under the VA Whole Health Initiative to all agency facilities. (Department of Veterans Affairs)

• Agencies checked off two more items from the to-do list under the cybersecurity executive order. The list of recommendations to improve federal cybersecurity got a little bit longer this week. The Commerce and Homeland Security departments release two reports required under the May 2017 cyber executive order. DHS and Commerce issue the final report to enhance resilience of the internet. One main recommendation is for the government to lead a public-private effort to establish an internet of things security capability baseline. NIST and DHS follow that with a report on the cyber workforce. Among the suggestions is for OPM to give agencies more guidance to recruit a diverse set of cyber workers.

• Two federal IT non-profits are merging. The Government IT Executive Council or Guy-Tech, and the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center or A-TARK are joining forces. Federal News Radio has learned A-TARK will take over running Guy-Tech’s major spring conference, and Guy-Tech’s board of advisors will help with A-TARK’s research priorities. (Federal News Radio)

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