Federal Drive with Tom Temin

With the departure of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, the Trump administration is starting to get that swiss cheese look again. That's two large-department openings. Plus FBI, Secret Service, the list goes on and on. For a fresh look at this recurring issue, Federal Drive with Tom Temin turns to Mallory Barg Bulman, vice president of research and evaluation at the Partnership for Public Service.

You might have guessed the roster of cybersecurity vendors and the federal dollars going to them are growing. But the rates of growth, that's something else again. Now the data analysis firm Govini has put some numbers around it. Matt Hummer, Govini's director of analytics, shares the details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Compliance collaboration and accountability are themes of the National Archives recommendations to agencies for improving how they handle paper and electronic trails. That's according to NARA's latest Federal Agency Records Management Annual Report. Federal News Radios Meredith Somers spoke with NARA Chief Records Officer Laurence Brewer on Federal Drive with Tom Temin to learn more about the progress agencies are making in their records management and where there's still room to improve.

Guess what? The Senate budget committee is actually going for a budget markup this week. Just hours into the new fiscal year, it will settle an issue that it could've been done six months ago. But that's our Congress. Plus, Republicans are going to go for variation 37 on health care insurance reform. Roll Call Senior Editor David Hawkings provides a look ahead on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

The government has a problem with closure. Closure of its contracts that is. Without closure, the government cannot be sure it received what it paid for at the right price. The Defense Department's contracts get hung up at the Defense Contract Audit Agency, where it takes more than two years on average to close a contract. Tim DiNapoli, director of acquisition and sourcing management issues at the Government Accountability Office, shares the details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Would you give up a career flying high performance fighters and jumbo transports into dangerous areas to handle the sedate sticks of commercial airlines? Apparently, some pilots would. Now the Air Force is asking its retired pilots to get out of their sheepskin-lined cockpit seats and c'mon back in. Federal News Radios Scott Maucione shares the details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

The Office of Personnel Management hires a new chief information officer and immediately gives him a big modernization project. OPM released a request for information to industry asking for feedback on how to bring the electronic personnel file into the modern technology era. In his weekly features, the Reporter's Notebook, Executive Editor Jason Miller breaks the news on Federal Drive with Tom Temin about OPM's new IT chief as well as digs deep into the request for information.

Federal cybersecurity requirements cover agencies and contractors alike. Given the Trump administration's executive order on cyber and guidelines from the Commerce Department, contractors have a list of questions they need to ask themselves. Karen Schuler and Gregory Garrett, information governance and cybersecurity consultants from the firm BDO, offer their take on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

With a new fiscal year under way, it's a good time for contractor sales and capture people, and the federal managers they want to meet with, to review some of the basics of the ballet they engage in daily, like being properly prepared for meetings. Larry Allen of Allen Federal Business Partners offers some advice on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Most Americans tend to see a driverless vehicle future as coming whether they like it or not. Citizens expect the Postal Service to deploy driverless delivery trucks. But they're not certain that would be a good idea. For more, Federal Drive with Tom Temin turns to Jake Soffronoff, a policy analyst in the Risk Analysis Research Center, which is part of the Post Service Inspector General Office.

The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation Level Data is a single authoritative source of relevant data for use by local, state, federal, tribal, private sector, and community partners. It serves as a hub to aggregate and disseminate open data to support the mapping activities for hurricane response and recovery. Tod Dabolt is the geospatial information officer in the Office of the CIO for the Department of the Interior. He tells Executive Editor Jason Miller on Federal Drive with Tom Temin about why this geospatial effort is making information sharing easier, better and faster than ever before.

The Defense Department is delaying its cyber deterrence strategy once again to the ire of lawmakers. Congress has been asking for the policy for years, but to no avail. Now that its required by law. DoD still hasn't delivered. But could the policy be just around the corner? Federal News Radios Scott Maucione has more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

It happens every 10 years or so. The General Services Administration launches a new generation of governmentwide telecommunications contracts. It'll happen again in about a year and a half, when the Networx program expires and the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions program takes its place. But not all agencies are ready. Carol Harris, director of information technology acquisition management at the Government Accountability Office, joins Federal Drive with Tom Temin with more.

Justice Department spending on analytics software grew by a third in the last two years and at the Homeland Security Department, it rose by 50 percent. For how much these and other law enforcement agencies are spending and what they're spending it on, Federal Drive with Tom Temin turns to Christine Fritsch, principal research analyst with Deltek.

American cities are right up there in the race to deploy digital services for better city management and better citizen experiences. But it all makes cities more exposed to cybersecurity threats. That's one reason the Homeland Security Department and the National Institute of Standards and Technology sponsor the Global City Teams Challenge to help cities design in cybersecurity. Sokwoo Rhee, associate director of the cyber-physical systems program at NIST, fills in the details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.