New authority to speed up acquisition hires

The Office of Personnel Management last week extended direct hire authority to agencies that need to quickly bring acquisition workers on board.

Agencies can use the new streamlined hiring authority starting March 24. Currently, the Defense Department uses direct hire authority for acquisition staff, but most other agencies cannot.

The authority will expire in September 2012. Agencies can use direct hire authority when there is a severe shortage of qualified candidates. The government has been facing a shortage of qualified contracting specialists for several years.

Some Defense officials say using direct hire authority shortens hiring times from about five months to two weeks.

IG to audit FAA stimulus spending

The Transportation Department's inspector general plans to audit $1.3 billion in economic stimulus money earmarked for projects at the Federal Aviation Administration, according to a memo released last week.

The money was designated for two programs: The Airport Improvement Program, a grant program that helps airports improve safety; and a facilities and equipment fund that pays for FAA improvements. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., asked the IG to review the spending to see whether it is creating or saving jobs.

A memo released by the IG in August raised questions about the agency's use of stimulus funds. FAA awarded a $13.9 million contract, for example, to improve the airport in Akiachak, Alaska — a town of 659 residents that's just 14 miles from Bethel, which has one of the busiest airports in the state.

Medicare, Medicaid payments poorly managed

Poor contract management at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is increasing the government's risk of making improper contract payments, the Government Accountability Office found.

Nearly 85 percent of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) contracts contained actions where the agency failed to follow government acquisition regulations, GAO found. For example, the agency awarded cost-reimbursement contracts without ensuring the contractor had accounting systems that were accurate. In other cases, managers did not certify that vendors' charges matched contract agreements. In many cases, managers paid bills without certifying that the services vendors charged for were completed or permitted under the contract.

GAO said CMS doesn't have the policies, staff, planning and funding resources in place to help it manage its contract spending. Of the 2,441 contract actions CMS took in 2008, GAO sampled 102, accounting for $141 million of nearly $2.5 billion in contract spending.

GAO recommended CMS establish contract management policies and provide training on handling contractor invoices.

CMS acting administrator Charlene Frizzera concurred with the recommendations in an Oct. 2 letter. However, she claimed GAO findings were "perceived documentation deficiencies,'' rather than actual incidents that resulted in fraud, waste and abuse.

The report, released Nov. 24, comes one week after the Office of Management and Budget reported a large increase in improper payments made by federal agencies, including CMS.

Whistleblowers help government recover $2.4B

The government recovered $2.4 billion in fraud-related losses in fiscal 2009 through settlements and judgments made under the False Claims Act, the Justice Department announced Nov. 19.

Nearly $2 billion of the $2.4 billion recovered was from settlements on cases brought by whistleblowers under special provisions of the False Claims Act that allows whistleblowers to keep a portion of the settlements resulting from their actions. In 2009, whistleblowers were awarded a total of $255 million from such actions.

Two-thirds of the recoveries, approximately $1.6 billion, were from fraud against government health care programs, particularly Medicare and Medicaid.

Settlements and judgments related to fraud on government contracts recovered $600 million, including $422 million in recoveries from Defense contracts.

Of the $422 million returned to Defense, $59 million came from fraud perpetrated by contractors supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

GAO: DoD doesn't weigh risks of outsourcing work

The Defense Department doesn't require managers to assess risks when they hire contractors to support inherently governmental functions, such as budgeting, contracting and intelligence gathering, the Government Accountability Office found.

GAO found that more than 75 percent of the task orders it reviewed were for services that closely supported government decision makers. It reviewed 64 task orders made between 2004 and 2007. But Defense managers apparently did not consider whether outsourcing that work would cause the government to lose accountability or control over it, GAO said in the Nov. 20 report.

Although 2008 Defense guidance requires managers to first consider whether civilian employees can take on the activities before contracting for them, the guidance doesn't require managers to document whether they considered the risks posed when contractors perform work supporting inherently governmental functions, GAO said.

GAO recommended that the Pentagon require managers to weigh such risks before outsourcing that kind of work. Defense officials concurred.

DFAS assumes VA's payroll processing

The Defense Department's Finance and Accounting Service is now handling the payroll process for the Veterans Affairs Department's 298,000 employees.

"This shift allows us to focus on our primary job — serving America's veterans — while taking care of the VA employees who serve our veterans," said Eric Shinseki, VA secretary.

GSA evicts union from Chicago office

A Chicago union local says its eviction from an office is the latest development in a declining relationship with the General Services Administration.

Charles Paidock, Great Lakes regional vice president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, said his local was told Nov. 16 to move out of its office in Chicago's Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse by Dec. 1.

NFFE still has an office in the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building, but Paidock said that office doesn't have room for the three to four people plus nearly 50 boxes of records from the Dirksen office.

Paidock sees the eviction as GSA's way of jockeying for position before the union and the agency begin contract negotiations in January. He also suspects GSA is retaliating against NFFE's unfair labor practice complaint filings, he said.

GSA denied NFFE's accusations. In a statement, the agency said the Dirksen office space was provided "as a courtesy" to NFFE and GSA had to reassign the office due to space limitations.

NFFE plans to pursue arbitration to get its office back.

Report: Paid parental leave would lower quit rate

Offering paid parental leave to its employees would save the government millions of dollars in recruitment and retention costs because fewer new parents would quit work, a new report concludes.

The Institute for Women's Policy Research released the report at a Nov. 23 Capitol Hill briefing, where unions and associations urged Congress to pass pending legislation that would give both mothers and fathers who work for the government four weeks of paid leave on the birth or adoption of a child.

The Congressional Budget Office calculates that HR 626, which passed the House in June but is stalled in the Senate, would cost $67 million in 2010 and $938 million from 2010 to 2014. But the bills' proponents argue those figures don't take into account savings in the areas of recruitment and training.

The report estimates 2,650 fewer employees would quit each year if the parental leave benefit were passed, saving $50 million a year in recruitment and retention expenses.

Proposed reactors would boost NRC's workload

New bipartisan legislation would create a program to design and certify a new class of small nuclear reactors that could be used in multiples at a single site. If approved, the bill could dramatically increase the workload of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

NRC licenses nuclear reactors, and the federal government and private sector would share costs of the new small nuclear reactors program under S 2812, introduced Nov. 20.

Smaller reactors can be cheaper than the larger, 1,000-megawatt reactors NRC currently licenses. The bill is sponsored by Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska., and Mark Udall, D-Colo.

VA undersecretary for benefits to resign

Patrick Dunne, the Veterans Affairs Department's undersecretary for benefits, will resign in early 2010, VA announced Nov. 20.

Dunne has served as undersecretary since October 2008. He led the Veterans Benefits Administration as it faced criticism from Congress and veterans organizations about a disability claims backlog and about problems with implementation of the new G.I. Bill.

GSA employees move out during HQ renovation

Employees at the General Services Administration will be in temporary digs while the headquarters building receives a major upgrade.

GSA awarded a lease last week for 288,255 square feet of space in northeast Washington, D.C., that will temporarily house about 1,200 employees while the agency's headquarters building is renovated. GSA is funding the first phase of its headquarters renovation with $161 million in Recovery Act funds.

The five-year lease with Stonebridge Carras of Bethesda, Md., is one of the largest in the Washington area this year. Design work for the temporary headquarters will begin later this month, and employees are expected to relocate there in the spring of 2011.

The temporary headquarters is in a new complex called Constitution Square, where GSA secured 521,000 square feet of leased space for the Justice Department last year.

Census worker committed suicide, police say

A Census Bureau employee found dead Sept. 12 in southeastern Kentucky killed himself and staged his death to make it look like a homicide, authorities said last week.

William Sparkman, 51, was found hanging from a tree with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest. Police concluded that the word "fed" was written from the bottom up and that Sparkman was hanging low enough to the ground that he could have stood up and saved himself, The Associated Press reported.