The Government Accountability Office has again found widespread flaws in how the office administering Medicare and Medicaid manages contracts. The watchdog agency studied a random sample of contract actions at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and estimated that more than 84 percent of fiscal 2008 contract actions had at least one instance where officials failed to implement a key ...

Federal managers tend to be more enthusiastic about their work and more committed to their organizations' missions than their counterparts in the private sector, a new survey shows. The survey, conducted by McKinsey & Co. in partnership with Government Executive, found that the federal government earns higher marks than the private sector on questions relating to what McKinsey calls the "heart ...

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry announced at a White House forum on Wednesday that he is moving 400 agency employees into a pilot program that will go beyond existing workplace flexibility and telework programs and could serve as a model for the rest of government. "If flexibility can succeed in the federal government with the unrivaled complexity of our ...

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 ...

The Office of Personnel Management on Thursday announced it will monitor movement of political appointees to career civil service jobs continuously to better protect against politicization of the merit system. In a memorandum to agency heads, Director John Berry said starting in 2010 all agencies must get OPM's permission before giving current or recent political appointees competitive or nonpolitical excepted service ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Census Bureau kicks off its $300 million campaign Monday to prod, coax and cajole the nation's more than 300 million residents to fill out their once-a-decade census forms. The bureau will mail out the 10-question forms to about 120 million households in March. On Monday, Census Director Robert Groves starts the nationwide campaign with an event ...

WASHINGTON — The White House has filled important policy jobs at the two departments essential to President Barack Obama's domestic priorities at a much slower rate than elsewhere in his administration after eight months in charge of the government. At the Treasury Department, which is overseeing one of the largest financial rescue plans in history, just 12 of the 33 high-level ...

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 ...

After strong debate from both sides of the aisle, the Senate on Thursday rejected a legislative provision that would have frozen federal pay and the size of the government workforce. The chamber voted 57-41 to let stand a budgetary point of order against a GOP alternative amendment to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act. The point of order essentially ...

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 ...

Rep. Gerry Connolly wants to make sure the 2,000 or so Transportation workers who were furloughed last week get paid. The Virginia Democrat introduced a bill Tuesday and the House passed it this morning to pay the employees for the two days they were off due to the lapse in the Highway Trust Fund legislation. President Obama signed into law a ...

In early May, President Obama released a long-anticipated hiring reform memorandum, replacing a requirement that federal job applicants respond to essay questions with a resume-based approach more in line with private sector practices. The memo also outlined new responsibilities for managers and supervisors, requiring them to get more involved in the hiring process. The job of making sure the hiring reform ...

Six months after he fired their predecessors, President Obama has appointed new members to the panel responsible for resolving bargaining disputes between federal employee unions and agencies. Those appointments to the Federal Service Impasses Panel complete the new team at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which includes the panel. Agency and union officials said they hope the agency will be able ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats are muscling through a deficit-swelling spending bill, giving domestic programs their third major boost this year and awarding lawmakers with more than 5,000 home-state projects. The House voted 221-202 Thursday to pass the 1,088-page, $1.1 trillion measure _ combining $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate jumped to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since June 1983, as employers eliminated a net total of 216,000 jobs. The level of job cuts is less than July's upwardly revised total of 276,000 and is the lowest in a year. Analysts expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent from July's 9.4 ...

The General Services Administration's Office of the Inspector General says its work in the second half of fiscal 2009 saved the agency more than $466 million. In its semiannual report to Congress, covering April 1 to Sept. 30, the inspector general said it made more than $268 million in financial recommendations for better use of government funds. The office also made ...

An independent engineers union at the Tennessee Valley Authority voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to affiliate with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. The Engineering Association, which represents scientists, engineers, technicians and other white-collar workers at TVA, voted 856 to 88 in favor of joining IFPTE. The association approached IFPTE after an internal deliberation about whether to join a larger ...

Nearly two months after they were furloughed because of a temporary expiration of the Highway Trust Fund, 2,000 Transportation Department workers will receive back pay for the two days of missed. "I have seen nothing but dedicated, hardworking folks doing the work of the American people," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wrote on his blog. "It was unfortunate that they had to ...

A second class of student ambassadors have completed their internships with the federal government, and six of them will return to their college campuses talking about the Energy Department. Of the 30 participants in the 2009-2010 Federal Service Ambassador Program sponsored by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, six college students were enrolled in a new Energy Department-specific internship. Energy's program ...

Delivering on President Obama's promise to boost the labor movement, the administration has announced a $35 million federal construction project in New Hampshire that requires union representation for the workers and forces nonunion employees to pay dues and contribute to a union pension fund. Mr. Obama issued an executive order in the first weeks of his presidency that would make the ...