Yesterday, Congress approved a Continuing Resolution (CR) that will keep the government running until December 9, 2016. The House passed the CR (H.R. 5325) by a bipartisan vote of 342-85 as 170 Republicans and 172 Democrats voted for passage. Earlier in the day, the Senate passed the CR 72-26. The president is expected to sign [...]
Department of Defense (DoD) Secretary Ashton Carter urged Congress to end budget gridlock and achieve budget stability through bipartisanship. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, Carter said budget stability is “critical in order for DoD and our people to address all the national security challenges we face.” Carter identified three areas in the [...]
Continuing budget uncertainty, constrained funding levels, and the threat of sequestration are threatening the military’s ability to achieve and sustain readiness levels necessary to meet current mission demands and build the forces capable of meeting future security threats, military leaders told Congress this week. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Gen. Mark A. [...]
Congress returns this week (after a seven-week recess) with less than four weeks until the end of the fiscal year and nine weeks until the November elections. Facing this time constraint on FY2017 funding and the desire by members to get back out on the campaign trail, House and Senate leaders will meet this week [...]
President Obama notified Congress this week that he has determined federal civilian employees should receive a 1.6 percent across-the-board pay raise in 2017. This is the same civilian and military pay raises the president included in the FY2017 federal budget request in February. Each year the president is required under Title 5 U.S.C., sections 5303(b) [...]
The Department of Defense (DoD) reported that since August 8, 2014, the cost of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria (Operation Inherent Resolve-OIR) against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) totaled $8.7 billion as of July 31, 2016. Flying operations accounted for 43 percent ($3.7 billion) of total costs, while mission [...]
The General Services Administration (GSA) announced this month that federal employees will receive slightly higher daily Per Diem reimbursement rates for official travel in FY2017. Per Diem rates are the maximum amounts a federal employee can receive as reimbursement for allowable expenses while on official duty travel. GSA sets per diem rates for locations in CONUS. [...]
Federal agencies have received guidance on providing performance awards to members of the Senior Executive Services (SES) and to Senior Level (SL) and Senior Professional and Scientific (ST) employees in FY2017. This guidance was required in Executive Order 13714, “Strengthening the Senior Executive Service (SES), issued by President Obama Dec. 15, 2015. A memo containing [...]
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter swore in Gen. Joseph Lengyel as Chief of the National Guard Bureau (NGB) at the Pentagon. Lengyel succeeds Army Gen. Frank Grass who is retiring. Grass had been the first NGB Chief to be on the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Secretary of Defense Ash Carter thanked Gen. Grass for [...]
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued a new Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Strategy to address the government’s shortfall in cybersecurity professionals,OMB sent a memo to all Departments and Agencies identifying workforce needs and laying out a strategy to recruit, train, develop, and retain and sustain “a capable and competent workforce in key functional [...]