Sorry, my bad
April 27th, 2009 | Uncategorized | Posted by Steve Watkins
It must have seemed like a longer-than-usual Monday for Louis Caldera, director of the White House Military Office.
He was the one who approved of sending a Boeing 747 – the Air Force One backup plane – and an accompanying F-16 fighter flying around southern Manhattan at low altitudes this morning. The purpose of the exercise was to serve as a photo op. But the low-flying planes panicked many New Yorkers, who fled their office buildings out of fear of another 9/11-style terrorist attack.
Late this afternoon, the White House press office sent out this apology from Caldera:
“Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision. While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, it’s clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.”
How not to do a photo op
April 27th, 2009 | Air Force Defense White House | Posted by Steve Watkins
The Air Force likely will have some explaining to do following this particularly poorly thought-out photo op, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Seems the Air Force thought it was a good idea to have a Boeing 747 fly very low around Manhattan while being escorted by an F-16. Apparently, the FAA and the New York City Police Department were told of the stunt, but no one warned the public. Understandably, more than a few New Yorkers made for the exits, as reported by WSJ:
The low-flying 747 sent workers worried about a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks fleeing their offices in the New York City area.Traders bolted from the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange after seeing the jets. The exchange, which sits on the east bank of the Hudson River in Lower Manhattan and is blocks from the site of the terrorist-destroyed World Trade Center, didn’t order an evacuation.
People trading oil, natural gas and other commodities on the Nymex floor apparently took no chances. A Nymex security official was “literally standing, holding his hands up in a calming gesture. Guys were running right past him,” said Pete Donovan, a vice president at Vantage Trading in the crude-futures ring. …
Construction workers fled the 43-story headquarters for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., currently under construction across the street from the trade center site. The workers later returned to the job.
In the end, there certainly were many photos taken, including these that were posted on the WSJ Web site.
Tags: Add new tag, Air Force, White House
Will you take the Obama challenge?
April 27th, 2009 | Agency Management Government reform | Posted by Steve Watkins
Want a chance to meet President Barack Obama? Come up with a way to save a lot of money at your agency.
The president laid out a challenge to federal employees this weekend in his weekly blog/radio address, calling for new thinking and creativity among the federal workforce:
“That’s why we’ll establish a process through which every government worker can submit their ideas for how their agency can save money and perform better. We’ll put the suggestions that work into practice. And later this year, I will meet with those who come up with the best ideas to hear firsthand about how they would make your government more efficient and effective.”
There is far to go in modernizing federal agencies to better apply technology, but there also is far to go in modernizing the mindset of how government operates and views itself, he said:
“So much of our government was built to deal with different challenges from a different era. Too often, the result is wasteful spending, bloated programs, and inefficient results. It’s time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.”
In that spirit, President Obama said he plans to motivate agencies to find savings within their current budgets by allowing them to keep a portion of money they don’t spend and reinvest it elsewhere toward programs that are more effective. The end goal, he said: a smaller budget and more effective government programs.
In addition, Obama said he’s also looking for ideas from businesses and reform experts on how to make government operate leaner and more smartly. Later this year, he said he will host a forum on reforming government for the 21st century as a way to bring outside voices into the government reform discussion.
So, will you take the Obama challenge? Tell us what great ideas you have for saving money.
Tags: Barack Obama
More coming on Gates' plan to shake up DoD
April 7th, 2009 | 2010 Budget Defense Procurement | Posted by Steve Watkins
Want to hear more on Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ plans to dramatically reshape his department’s programs and priorities? You can watch him discuss those plans in an interview tonight on PBS’ The New Hour with Jim Lehrer.
Gates announced yesterday his long-awaited plan to make some deep program cuts. His plan would end some defense programs such as the Air Force’s F-22 fighter and combat search-and-rescue helicopter program, the Army’s Future Combat Systems armored vehicle programs, the Navy’s new DDG-1000 destroyer, and the Marine Corps’ presidential helicopter program. And he proposes to beef up spending on other priorities such as the Joint Strike Fighter, medical research, more acquisition personnel, and insourcing work done by contractors.
What do you think of Gates’ plan? Do these program cuts make sense? Should military requirements be the only factor in deciding which programs to cut or should he also think about the jobs at stake? Will Congress allow these plans to go forward? Should the Pentagon hire thousands more acquisition staff? And is insourcing of contractor work long overdue or a terrible idea?
Tags: acquisition, Add new tag, Defense Department, Gates
Data for the masses
March 9th, 2009 | Transition | Posted by Steve Watkins
Carl Malamud is running for federal office. For head of the Government Printing Office, to be precise. But there’s no election.
No matter, he’s running anyway.
A week and a half ago, Malamud launched a virtual-roots campaign and Web site – yeswescan.org – in a bid to be appointed by President Barack Obama as the Public Printer of the United States.
GPO may seem like a sleepy government outpost to some, but not to Malamud.
For him, it would the opportunity of a lifetime. As founder of the California-based nonprofit group Public.Resource.org, he’s spent his career ushering years worth of government information and documents onto the Internet, greatly annoying federal officials along the way.
Carl Malamud
If appointed as head of GPO, the 49-year-old Malamud promises big changes. Among them: Make all legal materials readily accessible; tighten bonds with the nation’s librarians; create a United States Publishing Academy to educate the rest of government on how to print and publish effectively in the modern age; overhaul the Federal Register to be more useable and accessible; and post government Web sites and information to be more prominent on the Internet.
“For what it is worth, I think anybody who wants to operate at senior levels of our government owes the public as well as their potential employer a thorough, in-depth examination of what they think about the agency,” he told Federal Times. “This is particularly important to a service bureau like the GPO.”
To help his case, Malamud has fashioned an Obama-esque poster and campaign slogan: Yes We Scan.
Any bites yet from the Obama team? It doesn’t hurt that a former boss and fan of his, John Podesta, is running the Obama transition team. “He would certainly shake things up,” Podesta was quoted as saying in The New York Times.
Malamud said he’s been invited to submit “a whole bunch of information about the GPO to the president’s transition team.”
Senate panel approves Geithner as Treasury secretary
January 22nd, 2009 | Congress Treasury | Posted by Steve Watkins
The Senate Finance Committee approved the nomination of Timothy Geithner to be Treasury secretary a few minutes ago by an 18-5 vote, according to our congressional reporter Rebecca Neal. The committee’s approval was expected despite concerns by many senators that Geithner failed to pay more than $30,000 in self-employment taxes earlier this decade when he worked at the International Monetary Fund. Geithner apologized for the error, repaid his owed amount, and said it was an unintentional mistake. Some senators including Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said it sends a bad signal to appoint a Treasury secretary — which oversees the IRS — who failed to pay taxes.
Tags: Timothy Geithner
John Berry at OPM?
January 13th, 2009 | Office of Personnel Management | Posted by Steve Watkins
The Washington Post’s Al Kamen reports this morning that John Berry, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoological Park, has accepted an offer by President-elect Barack Obama to become director of the Office of Personnel Management.
Berry previously served as executive director of the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, a congressionally chartered nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of the nation’s wildlife, and before that, as assistant secretary of the Interior Department for management. In the mid-1990s he directed government relations for the Smithsonian and, between 1985 and 1994, served as legislative director for Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
John Berry
Among the first to welcome the news was the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley. In a statement released today, the union leader hailed Berry as someone who will “help return respect to the federal work force and help attract the best and the brightest to public service.” Kelley said she worked with Berry while he was an aide to Hoyer in the creation of the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, which created locality pay rates and customized pay scales for specialized groups of federal employees, such as administrative law judges and certain law enforcement officials.
What do you think of the choice of Berry as OPM director? What will be his biggest challenges?
Tags: John Berry, OPM
2009 pay raises are out!
December 19th, 2008 | Career Information Pay & Benefits Workplace | Posted by Steve Watkins
The widely anticipated pay raises for 2009 were just released this morning. In an executive order, President George W. Bush outlined how various pay schedules will be impacted by the 3.9 percent overall pay raise that Congress enacted. Also, the Office of Personnel Management released the new 2009 pay tables for the various localities.
Among the highlights:
- Basic pay under the General Schedule will go up 2.9 percent. The remainder of the 3.9 percent overall pay raise enacted by Congress will go toward locality raises.
- Among the 30-plus locality pay zones, employees in the Washington D.C.-Baltimore-Northern Virginia region will see the biggest pay hikes. Those folks will get an overall pay raise of 4.78 percent, including the 2.9 percent basic pay increase. That amounts to base pay plus 23.10 percent.
- Meanwhile, the lowest-paying locality zone — “Rest of the U.S.” — will see overall pay increases of 3.52 percent, including the 2.9 percent basic pay increase. That amounts to basic pay plus 13.86 percent.
- The highest-paying GS employees — which are those at GS-15 Step 10 in the higher-paying localities — will see their pay capped at $153,200, which is the pay rate for Level IV of the Executive Schedule. That’s up from the previous cap of $149,000.
- The maximum pay for Senior Executive Service members in certified performance-based pay systems will increase from $172,200 to $177,000, while the minimum pay will increase from $114,468 to $117,787. For SES members outside of certified systems, the max goes up from $158,500 to $162,900.
- Executive schedule pay increases from $139,600 to $143,500 at Level V, the lowest level, and from $191,300 to $196,700 at Level I, the highest level.
Now you can see what’s in your stocking for the coming year!
Tags: Pay & Benefits
Going out in style
December 11th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Posted by Steve Watkins
McGinnis testifies at a Senate hearing in September.
A fixture in the federal community stepped down last night — in grand style.
After more than 14 years at the helm of the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government, Patricia McGinnis yesterday passed the baton to interim successor Lynn Jennings, the Council’s executive vice president, at a gala dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington.
As president and CEO of the Council, McGinnis led the council in many initiatives, including: serving as an early advocate for the expansion of electronic government; expanding the Excellence in Government Fellowship program, a leadership development program for senior government managers; promoting Public Service Recognition Week; creating orientation programs for political appointees; and producing town hall meetings across the country between citizens and their government officials to discuss health care, employment and homeland security.
McGinnis also is credited with leading the effort to create the Education Department in 1980 when she worked at the Office of Management and Budget.
On hand for the occasion were about 400 people from throughout the federal community. In addition to recognizing McGinnis, the event marked the Council’s 25th anniversary by honoring 25 outstanding public servants. Those honored were: Former secretary of State James Baker III; former secretary of State Colin Powell; former Health and Human Services secretary Donna Shalala; former congressman and 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton; former Homeland Security secretary Thomas Ridge; Sen. Ted Kennedy, Rep. John Lewis, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Shirley Jackson, former New Jersey governor and 9/11 Commission co-chairman Thomas Kean, Sen. Richard Lugar, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma Wilma Mankiller, former Transportation secretary Norman Mineta, former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, former deputy director of the Peace Corps and former deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration Everett Alvarez, Jr., former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, former secretary of State George Shultz, former Senate majority leader George Mitchell, former director of OMB and the Congressional Budget Office Alice Rivlin; former deputy secretary of State John Whitehead, former Commerce secretary Peter Peterson, and Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve and current advisor to President-elect Barack Obama.
The Council continues a search for a permanent president and CEO to replace McGinnis. Meanwhile, McGinnis will remain a trustee of the Council and, we hope, will remain an active voice in the federal community.
Tags: public service
Cabinet maker
November 19th, 2008 | Agencies Agency Management | Posted by Steve Watkins
President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday on CBS’s “Sixty Minutes” he would start making Cabinet picks “soon.” Soon it is. In just the three days since that interview aired, several names have been reported as likely candidates for key administration posts:
- Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, to be director of the Office of Management and Budget.
- Eric Holder Jr., former number two at the Justice Department, to be Attorny General.
- New York Sen. Hillary Clinton to be secretary of State, although it is still unclear whether Obama has actually offered the job to her, even after conflict-of-interest issues concerning her husband Bill reportedly were worked out between Bill and Obama’s transition team.
- And just revealed today: former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle to become head of the Health and Human Services Department.
Soon means soon.
Tell us what you think of these picks. Would you suggest others?
Tags: HHS, Obama, OMB, State, Transition