House bill would provide $749 million for DHS cybersecurity
May 8th, 2012 | 2013 Budget Congress Cybersecurity Homeland Security Information Technology | Posted by Nicole Johnson
Cybersecurity funding at the Department of Homeland Security would increase 63 percent from $459 million to $749 million under a proposed 2013 spending bill by the House Appropriations Committee.
The increase would fund new initiatives to improve federal network security and defend against foreign espionage, according to a committee press release. The House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee will mark up the bill on Wednesday.
Cyber funding would be $20 million below the president’s $769 million request. Both the administration and some members of the Senate are backing legislation that would give DHS new authorities to regulate cybersecurity. The 2012 Cybersecurity Act, S 2105, would authorize the DHS to regulate security standards for certain privately owned critical networks, such as those affecting the power grid and other systems that, if attacked, would cause death, severe economic damage or national security risks.
Skeptics of DHS’ ability to regulate industry point to the department’s troubled chemical facility security program, or CFATS. Congress in 2007 directed DHS to beef up the physical security and cybersecurity of chemical facilities. But that program suffered from unstable leadership, inadequate training and poor hiring decisions.
The spending bill would provide $45 million for CFATS, $29 million below what was requested and $47 million below current spending levels. “This reduction is due to significant managerial problems, program delays and poor budget execution,” the new release said.
Tags: CFATS
GOP budget plan would drastically hike FERS contributions
March 28th, 2012 | 2013 Budget | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Republican Study Committee yesterday proposed steep increases to the amount federal employees would contribute to their pension plans.
The committee’s budget plan for next year — called “Cut, Cap and Balance: A Budget for Fiscal Year 2013″ — calls for federal employees to split the cost of their pensions with taxpayers. Federal Employees Retirement System employees now contribute 0.8 percent of each paycheck toward their pensions; the government covers the remaining 11.7 percent. This would mean FERS employees would pay 6.25 percent of each paycheck toward their pension. (Plus another 6.2 percent towards Social Security, of course, and their regular Thrift Savings Plan contributions if they choose to participate.)
Employees under the older Civil Service Retirement System would be unaffected, since they already pay the same 7 percent toward their pensions as the government.
The Republican Study Committee said this would save $110 billion over ten years.
The proposal also calls for switching to a so-called chained CPI method for inflation-based adjustments to federal pensions, which the GOP said would save $26 billion over a decade.
And it wants to turn the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program to a premium support system, which it expects would save $27.6 billion over ten years. Under this plan, the government would cover the first $5,000 of premiums for a self-only health plan, or the first $11,000 for a family plan, and federal employees would cover the rest. The GOP plan doesn’t say whether or by how much those subsidies would increase in the future, but when the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles deficit committee considered a similar plan for FEHBP, it proposed increasing subsidies by the gross domestic product plus one percentage point. Critics of that plan said the growth would not keep up with inflation, eventually shifting the bulk of health care costs onto federal employees.
(Speaking of Simpson-Bowles, CNN reports that there may be some life in it yet … but probably not much. Seems that not even Clint Eastwood can save that plan.)
Last year’s Republican Study Committee budget proposal would have frozen pay for five years and cut the workforce by 15 percent. But yesterday’s plan does not include those provisions.
Tags: budget cuts, FERS, pension, Republican Party
2013 budget cuts: What do you think?
February 14th, 2012 | 2013 Budget | Posted by Stephen Losey
While spending in the Obama administration’s proposed fiscal budget is essentially flat overall, some agencies are facing cuts. The Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury departments and the Environmental Protection Agency are just a few of the organizations that could possibly see declines in their budgets next year.
What do you think about the proposed budget? How would cuts affect your organization, and what would they mean for you personally? E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com or Sean Reilly at sreilly@federaltimes.com to share your thoughts. If you’d like to talk anonymously, that’s fine.
Tags: budget cuts, what do you think?
USAID, Treasury seek biggest IT budget increases
February 13th, 2012 | 2013 Budget Information Technology OMB | Posted by Nicole Johnson
The federal information technology budget for 2013 would invest in cybersecurity while remaining relatively flat overall, under the president’s plan.
Overall IT funding for civilian agencies and the Defense Department would decrease 1 percent from $79.8 billion this year to $78.9 billion in 2013.
Here are the winners and losers in the proposed budget:
Biggest increases (Agency, proposed funding for fiscal 2013)
*U.S. Agency for International Development, $112.4 million, 25% increase
*Treasury Department, $3.6 billion, 11% increase
*Education Department, $578 million, 11% increase
*Small Business Administration, $112 million increase, 10% increase
Biggest cuts
*Housing and Urban Development Department, $392 million, 20% decrease
*Office of Personnel Management, $65 million, 10% decrease
*National Archives and Records Administration, $100 million, 6% decrease
*Energy Department, $2 billion, 5% decrease (Decrease accounts for Energy’s completion of its super computer, Sequoia).
Twitter talk: The FY13 Budget
February 13th, 2012 | 2013 Budget Agencies NASA White House | Posted by Blair Tomlinson
Budget to be released Feb. 13
January 23rd, 2012 | 2013 Budget | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Office of Management and Budget just confirmed to Federal Times that the fiscal 2013 budget will be released Feb. 13.
An administration official said Feb. 13 was chosen “based on the need to finalize decisions and technical details of the document.”
The budget usually comes out the first Monday in February, which would be Feb. 6. Until today, reporters had been hearing rumors that the White House would stick to that traditional schedule.