Federal Drive with Tom Temin

The fewest number of federal employees retired in 2020 than in any of the last 10 years. But with more than 30 percent of all federal employees eligible to retire in 2022, succession planning efforts are particularly important for agency functions like financial management which expects to be hit hard by long-time employees heading into the sunset. Federal News Network executive editor Jason Miller spoke with members of the CFO Council, who authored a recent strategy where succession planning was a key focus areas. Mike Wetklow, deputy CFO at the National Science Foundation, Ben Ficks, deputy CFO at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Steve Kunze, the deputy CFO at the Commerce Department—outline CFO Council plans for the future of its workforce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now that it's been on the street for more than week, the Biden administration's proposed budget for fiscal 2022 is about to have its hearing in Congress. For this and what else is ahead, Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Contractors have long complained that they don't get enough information in debriefings, those informational meetings contracting officers often grant after they've made the award. Well now, you've got until July 19 to comment on a proposed change to the Defense supplement of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Prompted by a 2018 provision of the defense authorization law, debriefings would get a big enhancement. For more, the Federal Drive turned to RJO attorney Jeff Chiow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Battle field networks that reconfigure themselves to maintain communications even in contested environments, that's what a new DARPA contracting opportunity is all about. It seeks a control layer that works by itself, so warfighters have one less distraction. Joining the Federal Drive with details, program manager Dr. Mary Shurgot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The pandemic hasn't been especially kind to federal agencies that deal primarily with paper. The National Archives and Records Administration houses millions of military and medical documents that veterans need, to apply for federal benefits. Most are still paper. Employees at the National Personnel Records Center are handling some records requests. But today the center has about 500,000 pending records requests and another 400-thousand records that need refiling. Scott Levins is the director of the NPRC in Saint Louis. In part one of his conversation with Federal News Network's Nicole Ogrysko, he explains how the backlog accumulated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many employees, federal and otherwise, want to return to their offices to work. Not because the offices are so great, but because they want to renew the human connections that have weakened over the past year or so. Smart managers understand how connections can spark several important benefits to employees and to the organization. Joining the Federal Drive with more, American University professor Bob Tobias. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After four years directing acquisition and sustainment activities in the Pentagon, you change a thing or two. And you learn a thing or two. Now former undersecretary Ellen Lord, who served for the duration of the Trump administration, has joined the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory as a senior fellow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Navy is starting to make some major strides toward corralling its scattered warehouses of data. The main effort is to offer data management as an enterprise service for both the Navy and the Marine Corps. The platform is called Jupiter. Over the past year, the Navy Department has onboarded thousands of users, and started advanced analytics on 30 different data use cases. Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu has more on what the Navy’s learned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agencies information technology are moving on from automation pilots, and taking the next step by setting their network-traveling bots free to work around the clock. The Defense Logistics Agency has released nearly 100 unattended bots, and the DoD Comptroller is gearing up to run its own unattended automation scripts. The Pentagon isn't alone. Citizenship and Immigration Services is rolling out automation as a service to help its workforce get more done. For an update on this work, Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman spoke with the RPA program manager at USCIS Meikle Paschal. And, who you’ll hear first, the Robotic Process Automation program manager for the DoD Comptroller’s office, Erica Thomas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rumor mongering on the internet, it's a constant threat. Last year, rumors threatened to muck up the 2020 decennial census count. My next guest built partnerships between the Census Bureau and the largest internet companies to successfully tamp down rumors and help maintain public trust in the bureau and the count. He's a division chief of the bureau's IT Service Management Office, and a finalist in this year's Service to America Medals program, Zack Schwartz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If your product doesn't meet the government's specifications, it can be dangerous, in more ways than one, to try and rig something up. But that's what a manufacturer of food processing equipment did, with predictable results. Federal procurement attorney Joseph Petrillo is here with more on the case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nearly every agency is involved in supply chain security in one way or another. Now Customs and Border Protection has expanded a cooperative agreement it's had for years, with the World Business Alliance for Secure Commerce Organization. With more on the agreement and what they'll actually do, CBP's Executive Director for Cargo and Conveyance Security, Thomas Overacker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The armed services aren’t seeing much of a change in funding from the 2022 White House budget. It looks like the Coast Guard is in the same cutter. The Biden administration’s budget request asks for $13.1 billion for the Coast Guard. That’s only $300 million more than 2021. Federal News Network’s Scott Maucione joined the Federal Drive with the details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agencies have new deadlines now to finish and submit reentry plans for their employees and contractors. The instructions come from the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force. And they call on agencies to detail a phased schedule for bringing more employees back into the office. They'll also describe what post-reentry personnel and workforce policies will look like. Federal News Network's Nicole Ogrysko joined the Federal Drive with what this all might mean for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now that a serious effort at Postal Service reform seems to be making traction in Congress, business groups are lining up to support it — but with some caveats. Federal Drive with Tom Temin got one view from the executive director of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, Art Sackler. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices