‘How you do it matters’: GAO heightens concerns about federal workforce

Comptroller General Gene Dodaro’s very last congressional hearing on the Government Accountability Office’s high-risk list went back over some familiar yet urgent ground, as the long-time head of GAO repeatedly warned Congress about the future of the federal workforce. “I’ve been very concerned about the federal workforce,” Dodaro told lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during a hearing last week. “It doesn’t have the proper skills that are needed to address many of these important areas that are providing critical services to the American people, and at…

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Amid safety concerns, AFGE urges Congress to increase Bureau of Prisons funding

Union officials are urging Congress to provide more funding to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. BOP has spent years struggling with staff attrition, and safety and security issues. The American Federation of Government Employees said the fiscal 2024 budget for BOP, as part of the recent government funding deal, would only worsen the agency’s current 40% staffing shortage. And AFGE warned that a 38% cut to funding for facility maintenance would make federal prisons more dangerous environments for both employees and inmates. (BOP needs more funding, not Less, to address…

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Concerns over NASA’s SEWP VI small business strategy come to surface

Concerns about NASA’s sixth iteration of its governmentwide acquisition contract known as SEWP have been bubbling underneath the surface for much of the past few months. Industry experts have quietly been wringing their collective hands over NASA’s plans for the small business size standard it detailed in the draft solicitation. The worry is the new size standard would exclude or make it nearly impossible for a large swath of small businesses to compete on the contract. Those fears broke through the surface in a new letter from Reps. Roger Williams…

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GSA’s commercial platforms gaining steam, but data, other concerns persist

Three years into the Commercial Platforms Initiative, the vision Congress had for the initiative isn’t necessarily coming to fruition. But new data and analysis shows that doesn’t mean it’s a failure by any means. The number of agencies using the platform more than quadrupled between 2020 and 2022 to 27 and the spending, while far below initial estimates of $ 6 billion have increased to $ 40 million last fiscal year. And beyond the raw numbers, agencies told the Government Accountability Office in a new report that it is saving them…

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