New GSA workplace arrangements cause unease among some
General Services Administration rank and file employees slated to come back this spring to the agency's renovated headquarters building in downtown Washington, D.C., face the prospect of returning to a building void of assigned desks or workplaces. One decried the arrangement as creating an anonymous and depersonalized workplace, while another wondered where he'll be able to store physical objects such as papers.
Supreme Court rules against federal government on discrimination procedure
The case concerned a former Labor Department employee named Carolyn Kloeckner, who said her hostile work environment constituted sex and age discrimination. She was later fired, and said that was also a result of discrimination.
Despite six-figure salaries, Commerce Dept. specialists tasked with data entry
Highly paid export specialists at the International Trade Administration lose a third of their time to data entry and other administrative work, the Commerce Department office of inspector general says. Its specialists make about $100,000 annually plus benefits, a report (.pdf) dated Nov. 30 says.
Classification must be revamped under presidential leadership, says PIDB
The current security classification system must be simplified and modernized under presidential leadership to meet security and public demands, says the Public Interest Declassification Board. Efforts to simplify the system and adopt new technology are the core recommendations because they can streamline the classification and declassification process.
TOP HEADLINES
Fed fears the cliff and Americans want resolution
The U.S. economy is already seeing small adverse effects from the fiscal cliff impasse, but the crisis can still be resolved without any long-term damage, said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have specified exactly negotiations are currently but polls show that Americans simply want a resolution.
FAR update delay lets $2.3B in contracts go unjustified
Federal agencies awarded more than $2.3 billion in contracts awarded without posting a written justification because the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council was almost a year late in updating its 8(a) sole-source contract regulations, says the Government Accountability Office.
NASA tops Best Places to Work list
NASA snagged the top spot for large federal agencies, while the FDIC and the Surface Transportation Board were named the best medium and small agencies. The rankings are based on interviews with 700,000 federal employees.
Poll: State marijuana laws should trump federal enforcement
In a new Gallup survey, 64 percent of adult respondents said the federal government should not enforce federal anti-marijuana laws in states where it is legal. In 1969, when Gallup first asked about legalizing marijuana, only 12 percent supported such a change. Regardless of polls, the DOJ is still reviewing the legalization laws passed in Colorado and Washington state.
New GSA workplace arrangements cause unease among some
General Services Administration rank and file employees slated to come back this spring to the agency's renovated headquarters building in downtown Washington, D.C., face the prospect of returning to a building void of assigned desks or workplaces. One decried the arrangement as creating an anonymous and depersonalized workplace, while another wondered where he'll be able to store physical objects such as papers.
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The advent of big data has revealed gaps in technology standards and the federal government's ability to take advantage of it, said Donna Roy, executive director of the information sharing environment office within the Homeland Security Department. "The biggest gap at the federal level is in the recruiting and in the business case around staffing up the human support cadre," Roy said while speaking Dec. 13 at a morning AFCEA-Bethesda event.
Boeing has developed a strong model for the Transportation Security Administration to test the effectiveness of its airport security efforts, but the information input into it is sometimes weak, the Rand Corp. says in a new report (.pdf).
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