A day after a report released by the Internal Revenue Service showed that federal workers owe more than $3 billion in taxes from 2008, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee has asked the agency to turn its attention on contractors, specifically those working within Medicare and Medicaid programs. According to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the Government Accountability Office previously ...

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has placed a blanket hold on all executive nominations on the Senate calendar in an effort to win concessions from the Obama administration and Pentagon on a variety of fronts affecting his home state, according to aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid spokeswoman Regan Lachapelle said Shelby is blocking more than 70 pending nominations. ...

Civilian agencies might soon be required to set aside a percentage of funds from multiple-award, multiagency contracting vehicles for small businesses. The provision, included in the 2010 Small Business Contracting Improvements Act introduced by Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, on Thursday, would require agencies to reserve for small firms a yet undetermined portion of orders placed against federal ...

Federal agencies are failing to maximize opportunities to make contracts competitive, often because of poor management or because officials have grown comfortable with incumbent contractors, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. The watchdog reviewed trends in noncompetitive contracts during the past several years and discovered a number of questionable business practices by contracting officials and program managers. ...

Federal agencies are on course to start hiring new job applicants with a quicker, résumé-based system in November, government hiring managers said Tuesday. President Obama in May ordered federal agencies to hit the gas on hiring, giving officials until November to cut the federal job-application process to an average of 80 days by switching from a reliance on lengthy essays to ...

Most Americans have a neutral to negative opinion of federal agencies, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday. The poll, conducted during the summer, asked more than 40,000 Americans to rate their individual experience with federal agencies to understand the public's overall perception of government. Nearly half (46 percent) viewed agencies neutrally, while 34 percent reported negative opinions and 20 ...

WASHINGTON – West Virginia Sen. Robert C. Byrd has become the longest-serving lawmaker in congressional history, a milestone to be marked Wednesday with a Senate resolution. "I look forward to serving you for the next 56 years and 320 days," Byrd said in a statement marking the occasion. His only regret, Byrd said, was that his late wife, Erma, was not ...

The U.S. Postal Service posted a $3.8 billion net loss during the fiscal year that ended in September, despite $6 billion in cost-cutting moves. Total mail volume fell more steeply than ever -- by 25.6 billion pieces, or almost 13 percent, more than double any decline in postal history. Worse, the Postal Service expects that 2010 mail volume will drop by ...

As another deadline looms, approximately 18,000 U.S. Postal Service employees so far have accepted a $15,000 buyout offer, officials have reported. The final tally of buyout acceptances from each job category isn't available yet, said Yvonne Yoerger, a Postal Service spokeswoman. It's also too soon to determine the agency's savings as a result of the buyout, she added. Employees were required ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - What's all the fuss about? After all the noise over Democrats' push for a government insurance plan to compete with private carriers, coverage numbers are finally in: Two percent. That's the estimated share of Americans younger than 65 who'd sign up for the public option plan under the health care bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is steering ...

The Senate on Sunday passed a catchall spending bill that includes a 2 percent pay raise for civilian federal employees in 2010. That figure is in keeping with President Obama's request, but contrary to his Nov. 30 proposal to freeze locality pay, a portion of the raise would vary depending on costs of labor where employees are based. Lawmakers granted civilians ...

If the federal civil service had a flag, it would be flying upside down. The civil service is in distress -- not dead, but in need of rescue. Recognizing this, John Berry, the Office of Personnel Management director, ran some sweeping ideas up the flagpole on Monday to see who salutes. At the same time he heaped praise on the "unsung ...

Some federal employees will have to choose new health plans during open season this year because their insurance providers are leaving the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, or reducing the number of areas they cover. "Some employees still might not receive instructions to change plans during open season," Kathleen M. McGettigan, deputy associate director of the Center for Retirement and Insurance ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama restated his campaign pledge to allow homosexual men and women to serve openly in the military, but many in his audience of gay activists were left wondering when he would make good on the promise. "I will end 'don't ask-don't tell,'" Obama said Saturday night to a standing ovation from the crowd of about 3,000 ...

WASHINGTON - Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mail messages from the administration of President George W. Bush, and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days' worth of potentially lost e-mail from the Bush years, according to two private groups that sued over the Bush White House's failure to install an electronic recordkeeping system. The groups ...

As Congress returns from a not-so-relaxing August recess, health care reform tops the legislative to-do list. But lawmakers also face several pieces of legislation affecting the federal workforce, which were left unresolved at the end of July. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Thursday will consider H.R. 1881, a bill that would eliminate the Transportation Security Administration's special pay ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional aides say the Obama administration has chosen a Colorado natural resources official to be the new agriculture undersecretary in charge of the U.S. Forest Service. Harris Sherman, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, is to be nominated soon, they said. The congressional aides familiar with the decision spoke on condition of anonymity because the ...

Current and former federal employees angered by premium increases in the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program will get their day before Congress on Wednesday, when senators hope to get answers about why the impending price jump is warranted and what the government did to inform participants. Most federal and postal employees are eligible for the program, which is run by ...

Complaints from the federal workforce alleging discrimination by the government increased slightly in the latest figures from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, ending a recent downward trend. The EEOC's Annual Report on the Federal Workforce notes 16,752 complaints alleging employment discrimination filed against the federal government in Fiscal Year 2008 -- up 2.4 percent from the prior year. The complaints ...

In a move designed to improve employee morale and to help reduce a growing backlog, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proposed changes Wednesday to its way of determining how long a patent examiner has to complete a patent examination and the incentives that examiners earn. The modifications, which must be approved by agency employees in the coming weeks, would be ...