Federal Drive with Tom Temin

Congress has no problem appropriating dollars by the trillion. It likes rounding off big time. But federal agency financial staffs have to account for everything down to the penny. How'd they do in the past year, the year of Covid? For results of its latest annual CFO survey, we turn to the CEO of the Association of Government Accountants, Ann Ebberts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Pandemic has made a hash out of many families' lives, bringing anxiety, health, child care and even relationship stress. That's especially true for military members, who already live with a lot of stress. Now there's a source of help delivered right to service members' smart phones. Joining the Federal Drive with details, Zona Lewis, associate director for military community outreach at Military One Source. And Erika Slaton, associate director for military community support. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Modernizing mission applications sometimes means double checking they're coming up with the right information. That's what the Army is doing as it moves to a new phase in its personnel and pay system. One of the stories in this week's DOD reporters notebook. Joining the Federal Drive for the roundup, Federal News Network's Jared Serbu and Scott Maucione. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fraudsters, pathfinders, pilots and a final rule. 3-PAOs, DIB-CAC [DIB-CACK] and C-U-I. Sounds lke avante garde poetry? Nope, these are the terms of art you need to know about the Defense Department’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification or CMMC program. In his weekly feature the Reporter's Notebook, executive editor Jason Miller writes about the progress DoD is making in rolling out this supply chain security program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congress has a lot of measures in mind for federal agencies and federal employees. But they've also got to get through an impeachment trial and lots of pandemic spending. We get the week's outlook now from WTOP capitol hill correspondent Mitchell Miller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Satisfied that the National Guard had secured the inauguration, Congress sent guard members down to the parking garage to rest. But that slight belies passage of legislation that secured new benefits for the Guard. JC Cardinale is legislative affairs manager at the National Guard Association of the United States, and joined the Federal Drive with details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is undergoing a change in leadership and makeup as the Biden administration takes over. Now we check in the former chairman, and a commission through 2022, Janet Dhillon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agencies put out a governmentwide call to hire data scientists, and got more than 500 applications in less than two days. Applicants will go through a Subject Matter Expert Qualification Assessment, where in-place agency data scientists initially vet candidates. The U.S. Digital Service is piloting this concept for data science hires, having had success using this model to bring customer experience experts into government. For more, Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman spoke with U.S. Digital Service's, Amy Paris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s not uncommon for Defense leaders to rewrite acquisition policy. But the most recent effort is a bit different. DoD’s latest overhaul of what’s commonly known as the “5000 series” breaks apart what’s been the key guidebook for Defense acquisition and divides the system into “pathways.” It’s called the Adaptive Acquisition Framework, and the Defense Acquisition University is leading the effort to teach the workforce how to use it. Mike Cooligan is the associate director for production, coordination and optimization at DAU. He spoke with Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This year the Veterans Health Administration is marking 75 years of operations. Its leadership says the agency has come a long way in those decades, as a continuously learning organization. For a view of VHA from the point view of its constituents, the Federal Drive turned to the National Legislative Director of Disabled American Veterans, Joy Ilem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plans for dealing with pandemics go back a ways. Yet the government seemed a little off guard when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit U.S. shores. Now a bipartisan commission, which warned of the need for strong biological defense plans back in 2015, recommends what it calls an Apollo plan for dealing with the next one. I spoke with the co-chairmen of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense. Former Senator Joe Lieberman, and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. I asked, didn't the George W. Bush administration develop a pandemic response plan. You hear Ridge first. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In their tries at becoming more efficient, a growing number of federal agencies are turning to robotic process automation, or RPA. It's a method for having computers do repetitive or low-value tasks, instead of people. Now George Mason University has teamed up with RPA vendor UI Path to give a push to governmental use of robotic process automation. For more, the Federal Drive turned to the director of the Center for Business Civic Engagement at George Mason University, Dr. David Rehr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The priority list for the Veterans Affairs Department is growing. It's juggling electronic health record modernization and an overhaul of its financial business management system. It's implementing several big pieces of legislation. And it's still responding to the pandemic. Denis McDonough is President Biden's pick to lead the VA. He acknowledges he's not a veteran. But he says he does have experience working through big, complicated problems at complex agencies. More now from Federal News Network's Nicole Ogrysko. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The government has been using the Defense Production Act since the beginning of the pandemic. But the how has changed over time. Now many observers expect the Biden administration to broaden use of the DPA as pandemic response starts to rely less on individual states. Federal News Network’s Scott Maucione talked about what to expect with Center for Strategic and International Studies senior fellow Andrew Hunter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With all of the intelligence policy debates of the last few years, people sometimes forget the CIA has a kinetic, operational role in dangerous places throughout the world. For what it looks like, the Federal Drive turn to a retired, 26-year veteran of those foreign assignments, Marc PolymerOpoulos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices