Her Husband Paid the Ultimate Sacrifice in Service to America

Audri Beugelsdijk had been married for less than 11 weeks when she received a visit from a casualty officer. Her husband has been lost at sea on the USS Kinkaid.  “It’s just the last thing that you could imagine happening and it just turned my world upside down,” Beugelsdijk says. Beugelsdijk and her husband Jason Springer met in the Navy and the two “became very good friends and then it turned into something else, as often happens,” she says. “He loved what he did. He had a bounce in his…

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IRS seeks $104B for multi-year modernization fund to maintain customer service improvements

The IRS is telling lawmakers that billions of dollars in multi-year modernization funds are helping the agency provide a level of customer service that taxpayers expect — and is asking for more funding to keep up with that demand. The agency handled a million more calls this filing season, compared to the 7.7 million it answered last year — and three million more calls than in 2022. The IRS exceeded its customer service goals for the second year in a row, providing an 88% level of phone service during this…

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Does the military need a separate service for cyber? Some lawmakers think so; DoD isn’t sure

It’s been a little over three years since Congress created a dedicated military service to focus on space. Lawmakers are wondering whether it’s time to do the same thing for cyber. The Defense Department hasn’t yet taken a position on that question — officials say they’re still studying the topic of military cyber force design. But some members of Congress are getting impatient. Lawmakers have asked DoD for its recommendations on whether there ought to be a separate military services just for cyber forces more than once. In the 2020…

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OPM clarifies how agencies can help feds apply for Public Service Loan Forgiveness waiver by Oct. 31 deadline

With a fast-approaching deadline to apply for a Public Service Loan Forgiveness limited-time waiver, the Office of Personnel Management said agencies should help federal employees with their applications. If they have the documentation available, agencies can certify a current employee’s entire work history, including that individual’s time working previously at other agencies. “The federal employee should present a separate PSLF form for each federal agency and period of employment for which they are seeking certification and the agency official should certify each form as appropriate,” OPM wrote in an Oct.…

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Education Dept sets deadline for Public Service Loan Forgiveness waiver

The Education Department is trying to make it easier for public servants to receive student debt relief, but the changes to the federal relief program are only temporary. The agency added a waiver to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, in an effort to help more public servants receive debt relief, but to qualify for the program, applications must be in by Oct. 31. The PSLF program, in part, aims to encourage more college graduates to join the federal service. Borrowers who have worked for 10 years in federal…

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