Hubbard Radio Washington DC, LLC. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
News and buzz from the last two weeks includes a new legislative proposal from Rep. Darrell Issa on suspension and debarment and round two of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program.
OMB details hundreds of thousands of furloughs and cuts to nearly every agency program. Danny Werfel, OMB controller, said the effective percentage cut to each civilian agency would be about 9 percent and 13 percent for DoD over the next seven months.
New proposed guidance from the Office of Management and Budget would streamline and consolidate grant regulations for every agency. Comments on the recommendations are due May 2.
At the National Council on Federal Labor-Management Relations meeting, several employee representatives said the time has come for the committee to put more pressure on agencies to have more of the collaborative forums up and running well. During a time of budget reductions, possible furloughs and a government shutdown, the unions say the forums provide a way for agencies to better manage all of these fiscal challenges.
The Obama administration offered agencies new guidance on sequestration, telling agency leaders and federal-employee unions that sequestration won't have an immediate impact on the federal workforce or government operations even if the automatic budget cuts go into effect Jan. 2.
NASA, the Surface Transportation Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation share a common trait that led them to the top ranking for their size class in the Partnership for Public Service's seventh annual Best Places to Work survey. Transportation, OMB and the National Credit Union Administration earn the most improved status by implementing the best practices of the leading agencies.
OMB Controller Danny Werfel explains how agencies have been able to cut improper payments. Also, the VA's Mary Santiago discusses the hurdles to hiring more veterans into the federal workforce.
OMB Controller Danny Werfel announced Wednesday the federal government avoided paying out $47 billion in overpayments over the last three years. This missed President Barack Obama's goal of reducing improper payments by $50 billion by the end of FY2012.
Agencies will be liable for many of the costs coming from the termination of contracts, including legal fees and employee compensation costs, if sequestration happens Jan. 2, 2013 and if vendors do not issue layoff notices this fall.
Mr. Werfel is responsible coordinating OMB's efforts to initiate government-wide improvements in all areas of financial management.
Over the last three years, agencies understood the problem better, improved how they tracked the information and used advanced data analysis tools to lower the governmentwide rate to 4.69 percent from 5.42 percent in 2009. While the amount of money improperly paid out hit a high of $125 billion in 2010, Danny Werfel, the Office of Management and Budget's controller, expects it to drop for a second consecutive year, below the $115 billion mark in 2011.
Mr. Werfel is responsible coordinating OMB's efforts to initiate government-wide improvements in all areas of financial management.
In its second report to the President, the Government Accountability and Transparency Board updates progress on several pilots to implement three broad-based recommendations. DoD and HHS are reviewing how best to standardize spending data. OMB is developing a Statement of Spending to provide more transparency into how agencies spend their funds.
The administration will kick off the 2012 program to find money-saving ideas in a few weeks. Agencies will get to vote on a final list of ideas in the next few months.