Monthly Archives: October 2024

BAE Systems has partnered with Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace to introduce a new situational awareness tool intended to enhance threat response of warfighters on the battlefield.

BAE Systems said Wednesday the Integrated Combat Solution allows combat vehicles to transmit critical information such as video streams, metadata, target data and slew-to-cue commands during missions. These capabilities enable warfighters in the field to respond quickly to potential threats.

Under the agreement, Kongsberg will develop the ICS tool while BAE Systems will integrate it into the fleet of combat vehicles of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. The collaboration will also cover support for technology advancements throughout the product lifecycles. This includes developing advanced capabilities to keep up with the emerging technologies in the field of warfare.

The ICS utilizes an open-systems approach for seamless integration on any battlefield platform with a weapon system and built-in sensors, enhancing troop safety and survivability.

In addition, the tool’s integrated network enables it to link the sensors on different battlefield assets together. With this feature, users can control weapon stations, turrets, jammers and other effectors from a single interface inside the vehicle.

Andy Corea, vice president and general manager of combat mission systems at BAE Systems, stressing the importance of fast and seamless dissemination of information on the field, stated, “The combined talents of Kongsberg’s innovation and expertise in remote weapon systems and our lead systems integration capability provides the warfighter the opportunity to obtain fully integrated enhanced combat capability — helping them stay aware and unmatched in battle.”

 Kjetil Reiten Myhra, executive vice president of defence systems at Kongsberg, added, “This force multiplier streamlines complicated threat responses, networking mobility platforms and other assets for increased combat capability.”

The Pentagon didn’t introduce any groundbreaking changes in the final Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification rule, but CMMC observers say the Defense Department made several key updates and definitions to help companies as they work to comply with the requirements.

Meanwhile, industry groups are now turning their attention to potential challenges with implementing the CMMC requirements through the contracting process.

The Defense Department published the final CMMC rule in the Federal Register earlier this week. The rule establishes the underlying processes and governance for the contractor certification program.

As many expected, the final rule maintains the three tiers of the CMMC requirements, and the certification program’s alignment with National Institute of Standards and Technology cyber standards.

The final rule doesn’t contain any surprises, according to Ryan Burnette, a government contracting lawyer at Covington and former official in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

“We’re seeing DoD really just sort of fine tune some of the regulatory language,” Burnette said.” But overall, I don’t see DoD having made particularly significant changes between what they proposed and what is what we’re now seeing in terms of the final rule for that’s going to govern the mechanics of the program.

Michael Gruden, counsel at Crowell & Moring and a former DoD contracting officer, noted DoD’s rule clears up some ambiguity around the role of cloud service providers and external service providers, as well as key definitions for specific issues like the protection of “security protection data.”

The rule, for instance, states that cloud service providers that handle controlled unclassified information (CUI) will be required to achieve a FedRAMP Moderate authorization or meet equivalent requirements, as laid out in a recent DoD memo.

But those cloud service providers that don’t handle CUI don’t need to go through the sometimes arduous FedRAMP process. Instead, DoD’s rule states they’ll be assessed as part of the contractor’s overall assessment.

The clarification is especially important for companies that provide services involving so-called “security protection data,” a CMMC-specific term that includes cybersecurity logs and scans, but not any CUI.

“Those nuances were needed, and I think are really useful now as companies devise a compliance strategy to meet CMMC,” Gruden said. “Now there’s more clarity in understanding what the government expects, and how all the various building blocks of compliance can fit together, and companies can then use that to then tailor their own compliance approach going forward.”

The final rule also includes updates such as an “enduring exception,” defined as “a special circumstance or system where remediation and full compliance with CMMC security requirements is not feasible.” Examples could include cases involving operational technology and Internet of Things devices.

The rule also allows for a “temporary deficiency,” where a security issue is discovered but in the process of being addressed.

“The FedRAMP equivalency, enduring exceptions, temporary deficiencies — all of those things communicate that the DoD is really taking into account the plight that contractors have in trying to implement and maintain cyber hygiene,” Gruden said.  “Some of these even mild concessions should go a long way in helping companies have a greater degree of ease, if you will, of implementing these.”

CMMC acquisition rule still being finalized

Meanwhile, DoD is now finalizing a proposed acquisition rule that would inject CMMC into the defense contracting process. Comments on the acquisition rule closed Oct. 15. In a statement last week, DoD said it would finalize the rule in “early to mid-2025.”

“Once that rule is effective, DoD will include CMMC requirements in solicitations and contracts,” DoD added.

Many defense industry groups are now turning their attention to that rule, raising potential challenges with contracting process. DoD has laid out a plan for a three-year phased implementation plan for CMMC.

But the Professional Services Council, in comments on the proposed rule, raised potential issues with how DoD program offices will use CMMC as part of the solicitation process, among other concerns.

“PSC believes that, absent much greater clarity than included in the proposed rule and more time for a phased implementation, contracts under CMMC 2.0 will be expensive, time consuming, and difficult to execute,” PSC wrote. “It is not clear that the results, even with full compliance, will actually improve cybersecurity or stay ahead of evolving threats.”

The Information Technology Industry Council also recommended several changes to the proposed rule, including an update on CMMC waivers during the phased roll-out.

“We’re pleased that DoD continues to listen to the industry’s implementation concerns,” ITI Senior Manager of Public Sector Policy Leopold Wildenauer said in a statement. “Over the past few years, DoD has continuously partnered with the Defense Industrial Base to advance the program and strengthen its implementation in DoD contracts. We encourage the department to continue this path by addressing remaining concerns with the incident reporting requirements harmonization and the enforcement of waivers.”

Aerospace Industries Association President Eric Fanning, in a statement released after the program rule was finalized, said AIA is “paying close attention” to the proposed acquisition rule.

“Several more steps must be taken before CMMC is a seamless part of DOD contracting,” Fanning said. “The first step for defense industrial base companies will be scheduling their assessments and obtaining their certifications. This phased approach is absolutely necessary due to the limited number of assessors to meet what we expect will be significant demand, especially among the supply chain.”

A persistent concern from industry in the coming months is likely to be the number of assessors available to meet the demand for CMMC assessments. The Cyber Accreditation Body, a nonprofit that holds a contract with DoD, is responsible for approving CMMC Third-Party Assessor Organizations (C3PAOs) for the program.

“PSC believes the proposed rule should make it clear that DoD will not incorporate CMMC requirements into contracts beyond the capacity of C3PAOs to certify not only sufficient numbers of prime contractors and their supply chains but also the right ones to ensure robust competition,” PSC wrote in its comments. “Additionally, it should outline how its plans for managing competition in the defense industrial base (DIB) in the event there are insufficient C3PAOs to assess and certify companies in a timely manner.”

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How AI can help federal agencies make the most of limited budgets

In today’s budget environment, agency leaders are often asked to do more with less.

In today’s budget environment, agency leaders are often asked to do more with less.

Take the Department of Veteran Affairs, for example. In July of this year, the VA told the House committee that it was anticipating a $15 billion budget shortfall for the rest of this fiscal year. VA leaders say this is largely because of a need to hire more employees to help with the growing demand for VA services.

While this particular example is also deeply intertwined with the rapidly rising cost to hire a skilled healthcare workforce, the story is the same everywhere you look. In the Social Security Administration, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to approve an approximately $500 million budget increase earlier this month for fiscal year 2025, citing the rising customer service costs associated with social security benefits. Meanwhile, the House has already proposed a nearly $500 million SSA budget cut.

The fluidity of agency budgets year to year in the current appropriations environment underscores a need for federal agencies to stretch every dollar further than ever before — especially when it comes to some of the most cost-intensive program line items like program enrollment and customer service.

This is where artificial intelligence could begin to help agency leaders do just that — although not necessarily in the ways you might think.

While generative AI chatbots have been one of the most visible tools in the AI revolution over the past few years, these tools are not without risks. When it comes to critical government resources like veteran healthcare and retirement benefits, inaccurate information or AI hallucinations are simply not an option. Not to mention, chatbots may not always fit within the experience citizens are expecting.

Instead, the best initial application for AI in federal program service delivery is actually behind the scenes, through a customer experience refinement process called conversation intelligence.

Using generative AI to analyze customer service conversations in aggregate across channels, conversation intelligence extracts deep engagement insights an agency can use to address pain points like citizen frustration, operational inefficiencies and customer service representative knowledge gaps.

More importantly, when used well, it can directly reduce workload for customer service teams – while simultaneously increasing experience satisfaction for citizens.

How conversation intelligence works

Conversation intelligence starts with terabytes of unstructured interaction data. Then — by deploying generative AI to apply algorithms for topic modeling, entity extraction, sentiment analysis, complexity and emerging topics at scale — organizations can begin to track and monitor the sources of experience inefficiency.

The results are deep insights these organizations can use to drive big changes in process and operations that target proactive ways to restructure the citizen experience to better align with citizen expectations.

Let’s take a look at a hypothetical VA example. Currently, veterans must take the initiative to locate enrollment forms and fill them out once they have verified that they are eligible for VA services. It’s not hard to imagine this process presents some opportunities for confusion as veterans move from one step to another.

However, with conversation intelligence, the VA could begin to figure out which specific friction points are the most common, as well as why those friction points occur in the first place.

If finding the form was the hardest part, for example, is there a way to proactively send the form to eligible veterans? Or, if customer service representatives tend to encounter the same set of clarifying questions about one portion of the enrollment form repeatedly, could that information be turned into an FAQ document that streamlines enrollment and saves both customer service reps and veterans from unnecessary, costly support interactions?

In the private sector, innovative process design driven by these sorts of conversation analytics are helping to right-size customer service teams and create customer experiences that are more logical to the end user.

As the Office of Management and Budget continues to charge agencies with reimagining federal service design and delivery through life experiences — such as approaching retirement, recovering from a disaster, and more — conversation intelligence offers a powerful listening strategy to better understand how citizens think about and interact with these major milestones in their lives. By beginning to think about citizen experiences from a citizen-centric perspective, new and improved processes can begin to rewrite the way agencies plan and budget for program enrollment and delivery at a time when budget concerns are becoming a critical roadblock to achieving OMB’s lofty citizen experience goals.

Aaron Mosby is vice president of digital sales, public sector at TTEC Digital.

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey We have a global mission focused on, obviously, Army space and missile defense. My command is a dispersed command. My command is a global command, serves as the Army Service component command for U.S. SPACECOM, where we provide assigned forces via my 1st Space Brigade to SPACECOM. We also serve as the Army Service Component Command for NORTHCOM, where we provide [ground-based midcourse (GMD)] missile defense forces to protect the homeland. And I’m also the Army Service Component Command for STRATCOM, where we serve in that role with some of our various intel functions, but also in our full Army service component command. And within my command we have a tech center that develops prototyping in the space and missile defense arena. I have two Army capability managers that develop space capabilities and Army missile defense capabilities. And I also have a center of excellence where we do our own internal [doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities (DOTMLPF)] training education within the command. And I highlighted my subordinate brigade commands, 1st Space Brigade and the 100th GMD. And finally, last but not least, I also serve as the senior commander for Alaska and Kwajalein. So a very dispersed command, a lot of great mission sets and keeps me busy.

Tom Temin So if something came in over the air from North Korea, say, to Alaska, it becomes your responsibility.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey Yes, it does.

Tom Temin And just a quick question. I always wondered, especially reading about some of the recent drone incursions over U.S. bases that have occurred, that was reported, I think, in the last couple of days. And there are strictures against what we can shoot at over U.S. soil because of a lot of concerns. But you do have the authority to shoot down something incoming from another nation if it’s a missile, right?

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey Yeah. And there’s there’s several procedures that are put in place,  mainly NORTHCOM, the ability of the NORTHCOM commander. Anything that threatens the homeland falls within his purview. And he has the authorities and procedures working through the national command center and eventually through the secretary and the President to be able to execute as necessary.

Tom Temin All right. Let’s talk about some of the things you’ve been emphasizing here at the AUSA show. One is — and I’ve seen this in several instances – the Army needs to increase space capability. And maybe let’s talk the difference between capability and actually having the assets.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey Yeah, great. So as we all know, in the multi-domain fight, the ability of our adversary to degrade, deny, disrupt our ability to leverage space-based assets is constantly increasing. So as the Army continues to invest in how do we gain advantages in and through space, mainly from a terrestrial perspective, we are developing capability. We have capability that we fielded to our formations. We have capability that’s deployed right now executing our mission. So where we continue to focus as we’re listening to the warfighter as the capability we have out there. And we’re getting more tactical, more mobile, because as the threat evolves, we have to evolve also. And I talked to you about the advantage of having an internal [Science and Technology Division] through our tech center internal account. We’re able to invest in S&T, build prototypes, and then test it with my 1st Space Brigade or get it out to the multi-domain task force. To be able to move fast and transform in contact would take the capability we have now and make it better or add on to it to develop a better capability.

Tom Temin And by the way, do you use the [Small Business Innovation Research] mechanism to do some of that science and technology development?

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey Yes. So we leverage all available opportunities out there to be able to rapidly develop that capability out there to our force. So whatever that mechanism is we can leverage to use, we look to leverage it.

Tom Temin So it sounds like relative to, say, 20 years ago, you used space assets routinely to help in the missile defense domain or operation. But now it is the assets in space themselves that used to be taken for granted that you have to worry about.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey Yeah, so I was talking to my aide – glad you brought that up – prior to coming in here, we were talking about space and my missile defense side gets a lot of publicity because you can see it. You can see the missiles coming in and you can shoot the missiles down. And so everybody understands it’s important. It’s hard to understand the importance of space. And so we had a little dialog and I go, I understand the importance because I remember when I was a lieutenant, we didn’t leverage space as much. So if we had a satcom phone or an iridium phone, we could pick it up, it was like the golden egg, and we could talk all over pretty much the world with it. And when we got auto emplacement into our systems leveraging GPS so you didn’t have to manually emplace a system, we – this is a game changer. So we appreciated the space asset. Now, the generation now, it’s, I don’t want to say it’s taken for granted, but this is the way it is. And they really don’t see it a different way. So when you introduce a disrupted, denied, degraded environment, it’s not until then do you really appreciate what has to be done to gain advantage to protect our equities with space. So you’re right. Over the years, you can see that vast change in improvements for the good. But what happens if that good is degraded or taken away? And that’s where we come in to try to ensure that SPACECOM’s motto is “Not a day without space.” So that’s what we try to uphold.

Tom Temin All right. So the Army’s space vision, then, how would you summarize it?

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey The space vision is to do exactly what you highlighted up front. And what I highlighted is to build the knowledge and the expertise inside of the formation up and down, from Army senior leaders all the way down to the tactical warfighter. And so all of our soldiers, leaders, formations truly understand how to employ space capabilities and how do we integrate it down to the tactical level. So we see those advantages and our soldiers understand those advantages. All of our soldiers, our players, not just the space formations, but everybody on the battlefield is a player within space because they understand it and know how to operate it.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Lieutenant General Sean Gainey. He’s commander of the Space and Missile Defense Command. We’re here on the noisy show floor of the Association of the U.S. Army with some videos running in the background. So we’re not really being fired at. And in the missile domain itself, let’s take space operations and space control for granted for a moment. What is changing in what it is we need to defend against in the missile? My main question is, what about drones? Is that coming into the missile? I mean, that seems to be the emerging threat.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey So first of all, that’s a cool video you were just talking about where it showed exactly that; it was showing one of our Stryker vehicles, our Sgt. York [a self-propelled anti-aircraft system] with the stinger pods on it, maneuvering, taking down either drones or helicopters or whatever.

Tom Temin Of course, that’s an animation, so let’s hope it can really do it.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey It is cool animation, it’s pretty pretty high speed. But my previous job, prior to being a commander of Space and Missile Defense Command, I worked for, I was the director of the Joint Counter-[Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)] office. So I got to see this problem set up near and dear and close. And the change in warfare has really impacted on how we modernize air and missile defense moving forward. We can no longer focus on a certain threat in a certain direction. We now have to think we’re under constant surveillance. We have to employ a 360 degree approach, layered, all integrated into a common [command and control (C2)], whether we’re going after missiles, whether we’re going after helicopters or we’re going after drones. The drone warfare has completely changed that because if you look out now, you can see where anybody can buy them. They can buy several of them and they can try to saturate your ability to defend, pretty much change the calculus on the battlefield. So we as the Army are moving out. Our modernization strategy accounts for drones through advanced tactical ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. And we’re moving forward, all integrated in our integrated battle command system to be able to layer capability, current capability and future capability like lasers, high powered microwave, all integrated into a common C2 to be able to deliver the effects we need on a complex battlefield of today.

Tom Temin Right. Because the effects you need are at something that is lower and slower basically than traditional missiles that might come from Russia.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey Correct. And that’s the new approach. The previous approach was to focus on those more advanced threats and not have a lot of focus. So within Space and Missile Defense Command, we’re moving out. We’re updating the 2012 Air and Missile Defense Strategy and the 2015 Air and Missile Defense waypoint to the strategy and a 2028 vision to really focus in on taking the transformation we’re doing, how we’re fighting today, but how we have to be able to fight in the 2040s to not only get after these complex threats of today, but the emergent threats that we see out there. So keeping our eye on the ball in the future while attacking the problem that we see today.

Tom Temin All right. And then you’ve got a workforce of uniforms and civilians and the command, the Space and Missile Defense Command ranked well in the Best Places to work. So what do you do to keep that aspect up?

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey Just try not to screw it up. No, no, we have a great, great organization. And I’m very fortunate, we have great leaders within the branch and we have great leaders that came before me. General [James] Dickinson, [Lt. Gen] Dan Karbler, who commanded that organization before me, highly respected.

Tom Temin And who have stood on this show floor with me before you.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey Highly respected leaders, built great cultures and built great teams and really is just try to continue doing what they did. And that’s create a work environment where everybody feels empowered. Everybody feels valued and everybody feels part of one team.

Tom Temin And being far from Washington must help, too.

Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey Huntsville’s a great place to live.

Federal union officials are urging the Labor Department to return to the bargaining table and walk back a recent return-to-office announcement affecting thousands of agency employees.

Labor Department Acting Secretary Julie Su announced last week that most bargaining unit employees would have to report to work onsite at least five days per pay period beginning Dec. 1. The announcement came after nearly a year of intermittent negotiations between the National Council of Field Labor Locals (NCFLL) and agency leaders.

“I know the implementation of the five-day requirement may impact the work-life balance of those of you to whom it applies and do not take this decision lightly,” Su wrote in the Oct. 11 email, obtained by Federal News Network.

In the email, Su specified that “onsite” work doesn’t necessarily mean reporting to the office and can include field work as well. For instance, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspector out in the field surveying a facility could count that workday as an onsite day.

The return-to-office changes announced last week do not apply to employees in the National Union of Labor Investigators (NULI) bargaining unit or employees in Labor’s inspector general office. Other Labor employees who are not part of a bargaining unit have already been working in person five days per pay period for several months. Su said Labor leaders are still negotiating with NULI over return-to-office changes, but that the agency had “met any labor management obligations it may have had in advance of implementation” for the some 7,500 Labor employees in NCFLL.

“The department has engaged with NCFLL over the course of several months to obtain the union’s input into matters affecting employees in their bargaining unit,” Su wrote.

NCFLL, a component of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in an Oct. 15 response to Su’s email that the union “takes exception” to Labor’s statement that negotiations are complete. Daryl Laurie, president of NCFLL, called the agency’s return-to-office announcement “extremely disappointing.”

“We expected better,” Laurie said in an interview with Federal News Network. “There’s still an outstanding negotiability appeal that needs to be resolved. The implementation should not occur until that decision is made, and if it’s found that our proposals are negotiable, we should be able to continue the collective bargaining process.”

The Labor Department declined to comment beyond what was written in Su’s Oct. 11 email.

Return-to-office should not be “one-size-fits-all”

NCFLL, part of the American Federation of Government Employees, represents 7,500 Labor employees working in a wide range of positions, including OSHA compliance officers, wage and hour investigators, mine inspectors and employee benefit auditors. Laurie said the union believes telework and return-to-office arrangements should be an agreement between a supervisor and an employee, rather than what he said is a “one-size-fits-all” requirement.

“There may be some employees that need to be in the office more than five days of pay period, but there may be other employees where the supervisor in the employee come to an agreement that, yes, you can telework eight days a pay period, or you can telework six days a pay period,” Laurie said.

The type of work that bargaining unit employees do varies greatly. While some work requires employees to be onsite and out in the field, other work tasks involve employees filling out paperwork, writing reports or making phone calls.

“Maybe you don’t need to be in the field every single day — you might be able to telework more than half of your time. But that’s always been worked out between the supervisor and the employee, and that’s what we’re asking for here,” Laurie said. “What is not beneficial is just putting a five day per pay period, across the board requirement for everyone. We’re a diverse department with diverse work responsibilities.”

NCFLL is trying to bring more attention to its concerns by reaching out to Congress. In an Oct. 4 letter sent to the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the union asked Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to urge the agency to bargain “in good faith.”

“To be clear, there is no indication that Acting Secretary Su is personally to blame,” the union wrote in its letter to Sanders. “However, by their actions, the Department of Labor has done President Biden, DOL’s employees, their unions and the workers they serve and protect a great disservice.”

Union considering options with the FLRA

Labor-management negotiations over the agency’s return-to-office policy have continued through the better part of 2024. Labor leadership initially planned to move bargaining unit employees to a five day per pay period requirement back in January. But those plans were delayed after the agency said it needed to first finish bargaining obligations with its unions.

Since then, over the past several months, Labor and NCFLL have worked with a mediator on the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) and sought assistance from the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP). But so far, those efforts have not resulted in an agreement between the two parties.

FSIP mediated an 11-hour proceeding in August, but it did not lead to a settlement between the two parties. Labor leadership then submitted a brief declaring that NCFLL’s telework proposals were “non-negotiable,” saying they interfered with the agency’s ability to assign work and direct employees. Following the brief, FSIP dismissed the case due to a lack of jurisdiction.

In FSIP’s Sept. 25 letter dismissing the case, FSIP Chairman Martin Malin noted “concerns” over how the Labor Department acted in the dispute, particularly considering the more than 80-day period between when NCFLL first went to the panel for assistance, and when Labor eventually declared telework a “non-negotiable” topic.

“In those 80 days the panel and its representatives devoted significant resources to seeking resolution via investigation, caucuses and mediation,” Malin wrote. “The agency never indicated an intent to raise a negotiability argument other than [an Aug. 8 statement] that it walked back the next day. The agency’s post-hoc decision to raise this argument has resulted in an ineffective and inefficient expenditure of taxpayer funded resources that cannot be justified in light of the results.”

“While the union respects DOL’s right to raise a negotiability claim, there is no justification for declaring the NCFLL bargaining proposals as non-negotiable after the impasse hearing had taken place, wasting time and taxpayer dollars,” AFGE wrote in a press release.

Laurie said the union is now considering various options for action with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), including the possibility of filing an unfair labor practice (ULP) complaint.

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

• Union officials are urging Labor Department leaders to continue negotiating over return-to-office changes. About 7,500 Labor Department employees will have to report to work in person at least half of their work hours beginning in December. That’s according to an announcement agency leadership made last week. But the National Council of Field Labor Locals, which represents the affected workers, said the announcement was made without completing bargaining obligations. The union is now calling on Congress members to get involved in the dispute and looking at options with the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
• A lot more hospitals now have access to health care data at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA said all hospitals using two of the leading electronic health records Epic and Cerner can now access VA systems. The department expects this will help non-VA hospitals identity patients who are veterans more quickly and connect them with VA benefits. The department said hospitals have already identified tens of thousands of patients as veterans so far.
• The Treasury Department kept and recovered billions of dollars from fraudsters this year. Treasury avoided $4 billion in fraud and improper payments in fiscal 2024. It’s looking to triple that amount by 2029. The department is using artificial intelligence tools to identify check fraud in the tens of millions of payments in makes every year. Justin Marsico is the chief data officer for Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. He said the department is also making it easier for agencies to share data to avoid fraud.
• Federal employees are feeling more engaged than ever at work. Employee engagement is once again on the rise, according to the results of the 2024 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS). The 73% score on the engagement index is an all-time high, since the measurement was added to the survey in 2010. The 2024 FEVS results also showed improving scores for how feds feel about leadership, their jobs and inclusion in the workplace. Some questions on the survey, though, received lower scores from employees. Less than half of respondents, for instance, agreed that management involves them in decisions affecting their work.
• The Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) plans to issue the first loan awards by late spring or early summer. OSC Director Jason Rathje said the timeline will depend on whether the applications meet eligibility standards. “It will really depend on the quality of the applications we get through. And the other piece of this is making sure that we are underwriting in a way that aligns to the new processes we’ve been building with OMB.” The OSC issued its first notice of funds availability two weeks ago, almost $1 billion of credit is now available to companies to procure and refurbish manufacturing equipment for the production of technologies deemed vital to national security.
• Over one hundred lawmakers are urging the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to retain the House-passed provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill that protects governor oversight over National Guard units. The House-passed language was introduced in response to a legislative proposal that would allow the transfer of National Guard members performing space missions to the U.S. Space Force without the approval of state governors. In a bipartisan letter spearheaded by Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper and Colorado Representative Jason Crow, lawmakers said while they are supporting the Air Force’s efforts to restructure, it should not come at the cost of undermining long-standing principles that have governed the National Guard.
• Senate Republicans and the Small Business Administration (SBA) are butting heads over the disaster loan fund. Four Senate Republicans are pressing the Small Business Administration on how it has managed its disaster relief fund. And the SBA is pushing right back. At the heart of the matter is SBA’s request to Congress for additional money for the disaster assistance loan fund. SBA has run out of money after responding to multiple hurricanes and other disasters. But now Senator Joni Ernst, the ranking member of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, is leading an effort seeking more details about the agency’s management practices that may have contributed to this shortfall. In an email to Federal News Network, SBA said it has alerted lawmakers several times about its need for more money.
• Jay Bonci the former Air Force chief technology officer, has a new job. He is joining Clarity Innovations as a senior vice president and general manager for the systems and data vertical. Bonci left the Air Force earlier this month after more than three years as the Air Force’s CTO. In his new role with Clarity, Bonci will focus on engineering and business resources and on driving integration across new systems and data solutions. Before joining the Air Force, Bonci spent his entire career in industry.

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

People concerned with the federal workforce and government operations generally are wondering. If he returns to office, would former President Donald Trump bring back Schedule F. That was his plan to turn a chunk of the senior career civil service employees to essentially political appointees.  The Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with one long-time observer who’s worried, Washington attorney George Chuzi.

Interview transcript:

George Chuzi My concern that the Trump administration will reinitiate Schedule F is actually stated in black and white in Project 2025. Project 2025 identifies three, potentially four executive orders that the Trump administration issued concerning the civil service. One of them is what led to Schedule F. And Project 2025 says specific explicitly that the new administration, if it’s elected, will reintroduce that executive order and Schedule F.

Tom Temin But hasn’t the Trump campaign pretty much separated itself from Project 25? People always bring it up, but Trump himself has said he doesn’t want anything to do with it.

George Chuzi Yes, he has said that. But it belies the effort that has gone into Project 2025, undertaken by numerous former officials of the Trump administration. And so I look at his denial with a certain grain of salt, if you would.

Tom Temin All right. Well, let’s presume, then, that schedule F would come in if he is elected. It would put, well we don’t know how many people it would affect that are now federal career civil servants, but the number I’ve read is up to maybe 15,000 of them, roughly the size of the senior executive service. What’s your thought on what that would do to civil service, as we understand it?

George Chuzi Well, the Schedule F is aimed at GS-13 through 15 employees. And Schedule F has given the executive the authority to categorize those positions as policy making or policy evaluating, and therefore they should be more responsive to the political party that controls the executive. The federal civil service has been nonpartisan since the 1880s, and that was done for a reason. And that is prior to that at the change of administration, the entire federal civil service would go away, and the president would appoint everybody else, regardless of abilities, regardless of anything other than political affiliation. I think Schedule F threatens to erode the nonpartisan aspect of the federal civil service. And Project 2025 takes great pains to explain why a nonpartisan civil service is not in the best interest of the country. That is the fundamental belief of Project 2025. And that’s why I am concerned that if the Trump administration is returned to power, the federal civil service will become an arm of the executive rather than simply implementing Congress’ laws.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with George Chuzi. He’s a partner with Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch of Washington, D.C. And that raises kind of an interesting dichotomy because, yes, the civil service is supposed to be independent politically, but yet it’s also there to carry out whatever the particular administration’s bias is. And I guess my philosophical question is, how do you reconcile those two notions? Because policy changes dramatically as we’ve seen more so in recent years probably than in the last postwar years. 30, 50, 60, 70s. So what does the civil service do when policy changes so rapidly? It has to change.

George Chuzi It’s an interesting question. But what’s really interesting is why this hasn’t arisen until now. The authority given to the executive by the Constitution is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. What the Trump administration did is implement executive orders, which in many respects modified statutes, and ordered OPM to follow them. And for example, just as another example, there’s an executive order that Trump issued, which would greatly limit the power of federal labor unions. And Project 2025 says that federal labor unions have no role in the federal government. And Congress has a statute on labor management practices. And the executive order simply flies in the face of that. And the question for us is, it’s possible that somebody can sue the government to block some of these executive orders or schedules. But then we’re relying on the courts to do that. I think it’s the first line of defense for a political party that is trying to exceed its authority is in the nonpartisan civil service, which should be permitted to implement those that are reasonable, those policies that are reasonable, but push back when they are pushed too hard. And in fact, Congress has passed a statute and its 5 USC 2302, which allows employees to decline to implement orders that they reasonably believe are illegal.

Tom Temin Could the problem really be maybe stemming back to the 1930s when government became something by presidential fiat? I think there was a book written 50 years ago called The Imperial Presidency and it was talking about Nixon and Johnson in that era. And in fact, every president issues executive orders, extensive ones. Sometimes President Biden had a stack of 30 of them the first day in office that none of them are necessarily based in statutory or constitutional law. But that’s what the administration wants. And could it be that Trump is just issuing ones that people don’t like? But maybe the whole practice needs to be revisited in terms of that idea of the imperial presidency as opposed to the constitutional presidency.

George Chuzi Well, many of Biden’s executive orders on day one were rescinding the executive orders by Trump that we’re talking about. But the other thing is, we count because it’s a government of checks and balances. We if a president exceeds his authority, we count on either Congress or the judiciary to put a check on the president’s power. I think over the last four years, we’ve become more concerned both with the judiciary and with a congressional inaction to play its role in checking presidential power.

Tom Temin Yes, because I think I see what you’re saying, because I think the presidential power has been exercised to the detriment of a lot of orderly processes of government. Then if Trump comes in, let’s say let’s postulate and there is a schedule F, what do you expect would happen at that point? Do you expect someone to challenge that legally?

George Chuzi Yes. And Trump’s Justice Department will defend it. And it’s not clear to me what the outcome of that challenge will be. Congress has issued certain statutes governing the competitive civil service and the excepted civil service, and then political appointees. If Trump wants to change how GS-13 through 15 are chosen and what their authorities are going to be, I’m not sure that would be subject to a successful challenge.

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Today is the final day for members of federal labs to submit nominations for the 2025 FLC awards. The FLC stands for the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer which is a network of over 300 federal laboratories and research centers with the mission of accelerating federal technologies into the marketplace. To find out how they choose their best and brightest, Federal News Network’s Eric White spoke with Jesse Midgett on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin who’s a technology transfer professional for NASA, but also the FLC awards chair.

Interview transcript:

Jesse Midgett FLC Awards program was established in 1984 with 17 categories. And this was driven by the Stevenson-Wilder Technology Transfer Act of 1980, the Bayh-Dole Act 1980 and the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986. And throughout the years, it’s morphed and expanded to reflect the changing landscape of tech transfer and the types of technologies that are getting moved out. Technology’s changed quite a bit since the 80s. In 2024, we had 32 award winners we recognized from eight federal agencies. And this was a 25% increase over the 2023 award period. I did pick up right before the 2024 awards judging, so that’s when I came on duty. The Federal Laboratory Consortium is promoting this for everybody so that it’s another avenue to get our stories out, and also to compare and maybe be competitive and with people that do the same things that we do. And as well as that they have a large training arm that lessons learned and techniques are shared across the government. There’s about 300 federal labs all doing their best to transfer their technologies.

Eric White And what is it that the judges are looking for when they try to award an individual for being in this field and showing excellence in it?

Jesse Midgett Sure. So we actually have several categories, and there is one called the Excellence in Tech Transfer. And that one, we want to recognize that outstanding work in tech transfer has been done during the past ten fiscal years. You would find that an actual tech transfer case, describe how it started. What makes it exceptional versus routine tech transfer. And then you’re going to name the players and their role and the outcomes. And you really do want to show, with any of these award nominations, you want to show what the best possible measurable outcome is and the benefit to that commercial environment outside of government, or sometimes they are between labs. But the excellence in technology transfer work is a very popular one. We also have an impact award, which is more about, Hey, maybe it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary as far as a transfer, but the impact it had made a tangible and lasting impact on the population and the marketplace, locally or globally. We also have a inter agency transdisciplinary partnership award that honors partnership across at least two agencies, especially when the collaboration bridges different technology sectors. So you might have massive technology that gets shared with the military. And you also would like to have a commercial partner in that. So those sorts of things make your nomination stronger.

Jesse Midgett There’s a state and local economic development award. What did you do in your backyard at home versus reaching across the country? And how did you leverage being there and making excellent tech transfer? There’s the Tech Transfer Innovation Award. What did you do differently to get the technology transfer? Did you establish a new tech transfer mechanism, a new license type, a new organization to help you get the technology transferred, that sort of thing. Tell us the trick that you invented to make that happen. We also have outstanding research or small research team awards. So sometimes these technologies really require a level of effort that is not always seen in the course of a government job. And sometimes these researchers really do, we call them their babies or their children, their inventions,  and they really do have to bring them to life and then find them a new home outside of what we do. Within the government we’re never going to crank up a factory and make a product. We want to see a technology have that kind of life as the various acts we outlined earlier tell us that we have to get a commercial partner to take up the torch from us and carry it further.

Jesse Midgett We have a Rookie of the Year award, someone who’s only been in tech transfer a couple of years but is really getting a lot of technology transfer you can submit them for that. There’s outstanding Technology Transfer Professional award, someone who’s got a rookie been in there, but they’re still doing it outstanding compared to what one might expect in some regard. You can submit them for that. There’s a Lab Director of the Year award. That one we want to see that the lab director has been personally involved with technology transfer and has fostered an environment that enables the tech transfer professionals and the researchers to transfer their technology. A lot of times I see people nominated, and he ran this lab during this time, and the lab did these things. And what we really want to hear is what did the director do to make these things happen, and how was he hands on involved? Not that he was simply at the helm and tech transfer was happening in the caboose behind him, but that he was actively involved. There’s also the Harold Metcalf Service Award. This is a tech transfer professional fellow who’s volunteer with the FLC and has done significant contributions to the FLC in the process of this, because we know we all have our regular jobs and maybe your management doesn’t see this as something you can take a lot of time away from your main deliverables for your day job. And it requires a lot of work beyond that sometimes to get the job done. So we want to recognize those individuals who’ve made that sacrifice and pushed out beyond 9 to 5 work. There’s also the last one I’ll talk about is Regional Technology Transfer Award. Again, we want to talk about how things happen regionally. We leverage our regional locations and influence to get tech transfer done, and then like to follow up like that on the national stage.

Eric White Obviously got a lot of different categories there recognizing different aspects of federal technology transfer. As a technology transfer professional yourself, what is it that someone can do to stand out in the technology transfer world?

Jesse Midgett Well, it helps if you know the technologies that you’re marketing. There are many people in tech transfer that are not experts in the fields of the technologies they’re marketing. But if you can buckle down and learn it, and have conversations with the inventors, read up and survey literature, etc., you can become conversational the point where you can tell a commercial entity enough they can determine if they want to license it. And then you can also bring in the technology transfer inventor to talk to them on an interview. So it’s good to have relationship with the inventors so that you can do that readily and they’ll support you when you need more information than you’re able to absorb in a short amount of time in your portfolio full of varied types of technologies. You need to be able to figure out value a company to see if they can take the technology. And there’s a lot of vetting that goes on when talking with external entities to see if they’re going to be good licenses or not. Also, it’s good to be involved in the regional activities. That’s where I am today. I’m at a regional event for entrepreneurs who are looking to license or bring all the resources together in one place for them and talk to them about how you might take government technology and turn it into a business.

Eric White Today is the last day to nominate somebody. Can you just give us a brief overview of how someone might go about doing that? What is the address for the web page they need to visit to make sure they get it in in time.

Jesse Midgett You’ll want to Google Federal Labs or otherwise use a search engine .org. And you’ll want to spell it out because the acronym is used by many different entities. So type out Federal Labs, and then when you go there, right at the very top of that home page, that title says 2025 Awards, Don’t miss your chance to win. Start your submission. You click on that and start your submission. Now, the one thing that FLC does is they like the labs to coordinate within so that only one person from the lab is submitting. So they have a representative and either that person or a designee under that person who will do the actual submissions. It’s not willy nilly open to the general populace per say at the center.

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The Small Business Administration’s disaster assistance loan program has run out of money after two devastating hurricanes hit the southern United States. And now the agency and some Senate Republicans are butting heads over the fund’s management.

Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Todd Young (R-Indiana) say in a new letter to SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman that they have deep concerns about how the agency has monitored the disaster loan assistance program.

“[T]he SBA failed to follow the law and only provided the statutorily required written notification of a need for supplemental funding on Oct. 10, days after news stories broke,” the lawmakers wrote. “Under existing law, the SBA already has several reporting requirements to provide Congress with sufficient notification and information before any shortfall occurs in its disaster account. Unfortunately, the SBA failed to comply, or only partially complied, with several of these provisions and is now, at the 11th-hour, sounding alarm bells. We must consider whether SBA’s internal decisions were the catalyst for this unfortunate situation.”

A SBA spokesperson pushed back against the agency sounding “11^th hour alarm bells.”

“The SBA first raised the need for additional funds to Congressional appropriators in September 2023. Since then, the agency has provided several bipartisan briefings and made many proactive requests to ensure the disaster loan program remains funded at a sufficient level,” the spokesperson said in an email to Federal News Network. “While SBA’s requests were unfortunately not fulfilled, the agency continues to stand ready to work with Congress so that the tens of thousands of small business owners, homeowners and renters devastated by Hurricanes Helene and Milton can get the funding needed to rebuild their homes and lives.”

Number of disaster loan applications on the rise

At the heart of the matter is SBA’s recent request to Congress for additional money for the disaster assistance loan fund. SBA has run out of money after responding to multiple hurricanes and 34 other disasters across 24 states over the last year.

President Joe Biden most recently asked lawmakers about the need for more funding to help respond to the disasters on Oct. 4. SBA followed with a letter to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government on Oct. 10 outlining its request for more money.

“At a time when many disaster survivors are looking for help and support, a lack of SBA disaster loans will impact recovery across the nation. Homeowners will be unable to access low-interest rate loans to replace their personal property damaged in a storm. Small businesses will be unable to access SBA funding to replace damaged equipment or inventory and cover economic injury from business disruption,” Guzman wrote in the letter. “For those who have experienced physical damage to their properties, no SBA funding will be available to homeowners, renters, small businesses or nonprofits seeking to rebuild. Some reconstruction projects may be placed on hold and many small businesses may not be able to reopen without SBA disaster loans. Without SBA disaster lending, survivors may be forced to seek higher-cost options in the private sector — if they can secure funding at all. SBA is often the lender of last resort for many disaster borrowers who cannot access credit elsewhere.”

So far, the SBA has received more than 37,000 applications for relief from those impacted by Hurricane Helene and made more than 700 loan offers totaling about $48 million. It has received more than 12,000 applications from those impacted by Hurricane Milton.

The SBA is pausing new loan offers until it gets more funding, which means loans that have not already been offered will be delayed by at least a month. Guzman said people should keep applying for the loans, however.

Senators say SBA’s communication fell short

The senators’ concerns revolve around several areas where they say SBA fell short. For example, the lawmakers say the agency has more than $550 million in disaster administrative expenses account, but hasn’t asked to reprogram any of that funding.

Additionally, they say SBA’s decision to administratively change its disaster loan program terms in 2023, and again in 2024, led to a substantial increase in its subsidy rate, which the SBA failed to properly model and did not properly notify authorizers of the ramifications of these changes.

“Despite the SBA providing some information on a monthly basis, critical statutorily required components failed to be included, such as ‘an estimate of how long the available funding for such loans will last, based on the spending rate’ and ‘an estimate of how long the available funding for salaries and expenses will last, based on the spending rate,’” the lawmakers wrote. “Had the SBA shared this information with the authorizing committees each month, as required by law, a clear picture of the disaster loan account’s spend rate would have allowed Congress to take steps to ensure disaster victims would receive all necessary federal assistance.”

But SBA said it alerted lawmakers about the need for more funding starting back in September 2023 after wildfires struck Hawaii.

Multiple funding requests to Congress

It tried again in March 2024 after the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster, and then the agency tried again over the summer due to storm surges, tornadoes and other disasters hitting the United States.

Then, starting in August 2024, SBA said it has been urging House and Senate appropriations and small business committees as well as congressional leadership to provide an additional $1.6 billion in emergency disaster loans funding.

SBA said it also gave several bipartisan briefings and provided legislative language to Congress, but lawmakers did not include any additional money in the September continuing resolution spending package.

In fact, in the CR, Republican lawmakers “celebrated” the inclusion of funding for disasters as a “Democrat loss,” according to an internal email obtained by Federal News Network.

The email highlighted several of these “losses,” including shifting $12 billion in veterans money onto the mandatory ledger to create more room to spend next year and turning off rescissions such as the IRS rescission and rescissions of COVID money, which the Republicans said would have caused the CR to exceed fiscal 2025 spending caps.

The senators want SBA to respond with data and reports by Oct. 21.

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