Federal Drive with Tom Temin

A simple competition for software licenses ended up in court after the losing bidder claimed a Procurement Integrity Act violation. At issue was a Navy-run competition to supply software licenses over five years under a blanket purchase agreement. Simple, but not trivial, with an estimated ceiling of $2.5 billion. Smith Pachter McWhorter procurement attorney Joe Petrillo filled in the Federal Drive with Tom Temin on the details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Somehow the national debt has managed to reach $28 trillion. But, where is it? It's in a set of electronic schedules maintained by the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Fiscal Service. In auditing the government's financial statements for 2021, the Government Accountability Office found a flaw: a deficiency in the information system controls. With what it is and the implications, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to the GAO's director of financial management and assurance, Cheryl Clark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The number of women veterans has been growing steadily over the years and so has the number of women veteran entrepreneurs. The Department of Veterans Affairs helps these small companies get a piece of the federal contracting business with a new, 14-week course. For details, the director of woman veteran small business initiatives, Michelle Gardner-Ince, spoke to the Federal Drive with Tom Temin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The White House’s 2023 budget request includes a big increase for cybersecurity. The Biden administration is pushing zero trust.. and a bigger workforce for the main cyber agency. Federal News Network's Justin Doubleday joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin for the latest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A bill in the Senate would, with bipartisan backing, order agencies to modernize their information technology. But it wouldn't come with any funds dedicated to doing so. So would it amount to anything? We get some insight from federal sales and marketing consultant Larry Allen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, has joined the effort to prevent suicides among active duty service members. The numbers are grim, 30,000 in the last 20 years. The DARPA approach seeks to prevent suicide by working what you might call upstream from conscious thoughts. It's called the Neural Evidence Aggregation Tool, or NEAT. Joining the Federal Drive with details, the program manager in DARPA's defense sciences group, Dr. Greg Witkop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hiring people by their demonstrated capabilities, instead of what they boast on their resumes. It's catching on at executive branch agencies. It even has a name: Subject-Matter Expert Qualification Assessment. Turns out, the Government Publishing Office has been hiring people this way for four years, and with what it considers great success. Joining the Federal Drive with more, the GPO's chief human capital officer, Dan Mielke. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The White House’s fiscal 2023 budget request sent to Congress today seeks across the board increases in discretionary spending for almost every agency. But the real message in this annual exercise isn’t the funding request, which most observers will tell you is dead on arrival in on Capitol Hill. The Biden administration is continuing the long-term effort to rebuild, reskill and revamp the federal workforce. Federal News Network's executive editor Jason Miller joined the Federal Drive with highlights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The great flywheel of appropriations gets a big shove today with release of the administration's 2023 budget request, six months before fiscal 2023 actually starts. That's not all in the way of spending Congress will be thinking about, as the Federal Drive heard from WTOP capitol hill correspondent Mitchell Miller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A crucial part of the State Department has a new head of a crucial function, at a time of high world tension. Erica Jaume is chief of the IT security and governance branch of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might not think of farm and urban in the same sentence. But the Agriculture Department does. In fact there's a new federal advisory committee designed to help the department better understand the needs of urban farmers. Joining the Federal Drive with more, chief of USDA's natural resources conservation service, Terry Crosby. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The General Services Administration will finally pull the plug on the use of Dun and Bradstreet numbers and fully move to a brand new identifier for contractors, called the Unique Entity Identifier or UEI. Memi Whitehead, the deputy assistant commissioner of GSA’s Integrated Award Environment, tells executive editor Jason Miller about what this six-year effort will mean for agencies and contractors alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Environmental Protection Agency will bring employees back to the office starting in May. The American Federation of Government Employees worked a deal for its members gradually come over the course of four pay periods. EPA is also promising routine telework. For details, Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman spoke with Bethany Dreyfus, the president of AFGE Local 1236, and with Joyce Howell, AFGE Council 238’s chief negotiator for the future of work, whom you hear first. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A large survey sponsored by Slack, a intra-company messaging application, raises the question: Is it really a good goal for organizations to get everyone back in the office? And a second question: Would companies and government agencies do better to educate managers on how to better deal with a workforce that's scattered -- some home, some in the office? To find out, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with FNN's resident workplace expert, Bob Tobias. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each year, the Justice Department churns out lots of data about criminal justice. Recently it launched an initiative to prod state and local governments to use the data more effectively to make policy and budget decisions. To find out how it works, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with the acting deputy director for policy at the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Ruby Qazilbash. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices