Federal firefighters could see bigger paychecks next year

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  • House appropriators are taking steps that could give federal firefighters a permanent pay raise. Fiscal 2025 spending legislation advanced this week, and it includes about 300 million dollars to boost pay for firefighters working at the Interior Department and the Forest Service. Although House Democrats opposed many of the GOP’s proposed spending cuts, they came out in favor of the pay raise for the frontline workers. Federal firefighters currently have a temporary pay boost, but many advocates have been pushing to make the raise permanent.
    (House Appropriations Committee – Fiscal 2025 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Act)
  • Federal employees have a right to bring whistleblower complaints to Congress. Now Democratic lawmakers are trying to make sure they don’t face retaliation. Senator Richard Blumenthal is leading 10 of his colleagues in introducing the Congressional Whistleblower Protection Act. The legislation allows federal employees, contractors and applicants to file an administrative complaint if an agency blocks them from sharing information with Congress. If agencies don’t take corrective action 180 days after an employee files a complaint, the bill will allow them to file a lawsuit to recover lost wages and benefits.
  • The nominee for the DoD’s cyber policy shop Michael Sulmeyer [Suhl-myer] wants to tackle persistent cyber mission force readiness challenges. Federal News Network’s Anastasia Obis has more. During his confirmation hearing Thursday, Sulmeyer said the DoD should consider extending aspects of the U.S. Special Operations Command model to U.S. Cyber Command to address cyber readiness concerns. Meanwhile, lawmakers are resurfacing the idea of a separate cyber force to address persistent readiness problems. If confirmed, Sulmeyer would lead the Pentagon’s first-ever cyber policy office.
    (Senate Committee on Armed Services – Sulmeyer looks to SOCOM to boost CYBERCOM’s readiness as lawmakers bring back cyber force idea )
  • House and Senate appropriators are more than a billion dollars apart on the total funding for the Agriculture Department, Food and Drug Administration and related agencies spending bills. The House passed its version of the fiscal 2025 spending bill on Wednesday with a total funding allocation of 25 point 8 billion dollars, which is 2 point 6 billion below President Joe Biden’s request and more than 350 million dollars under the 2024 level. The Senate committee passed its version of the Agriculture bill with a total funding allocation of 27 billion dollars, which is 821 million dollars over this year’s allocation. Both bills now head to their respective floors for a full vote.
  • One in five new NSF hires this year has been an intern through the Pathways Program. Now NSF is trying to make its full-time positions appealing to the early-career talent. Part of that involves revamping training and development opportunities for interns. “We’re trying to be a little bit more intentional about what students need if they’re coming in from no experience,” Elicia Moran, NSF’s Pathways Program officer, said. “Do they need problem-solving skills, networking? And then, really focusing on the competencies for the job path that they’re going onto for the future.”
  • The Marine Corps’ new artificial intelligence strategy is a milestone in the service’s efforts to modernize its forces. The strategy is a component of the service’s digital modernization strategy dubbed Fighting Smart. The service wants to build a competent AI workforce, deploy AI at scale and strengthen partnerships to meet the service’s vision for AI. To achieve the goals laid out in the strategy, the service will establish AI task groups to support commanders with their use cases and establish a repository of potential AI use cases from across the service.
  • A new initiative by FedRAMP with about 20 cloud service providers will try to ease burden of getting new features approved and available for agencies. The agile delivery pilot will take advantage of secure software delivery practices to reduce the time it takes to get a significant change request approved. Eric Mill, the executive director of cloud strategy at GSA, says this process has been a long-time frustration for companies. He says the goal is to show that speed and security are not opposite goals. GSA is accepting applications for the pilot through July 26 and will select the participants by August 16. The pilot is part of a longer-term effort to move FedRAMP cloud service providers toward continuous assessments rather than assessing point-in-time snapshots.
  • The FAA has 3-thousand fewer air traffic controllers than it needs to maintain adequate staffing. Dave Spero is the president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists … which represents some FAA employees. He says the agency is also short on technicians. SPERO: “Training new technicians is cumbersome, technicians must be skilled and proficient on multiple systems. It takes years to fully train a technician.” The Transportation Security Administration says a record 3 million people flew the Sunday after the Fourth of July. And eight of the 10 busiest days for air travel took place after May 23 this year.

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