Government Matters

The Department of Veterans Affairs will use the Pentagon's electronic health records system -- just one of several major modernization and digitization efforts VA is undertaking. Ray Tellez, deputy director in VA's Office of Business Process Integration, and Derek Herbert, assistant director of the Veterans Claims Intake Program, discuss the issue with Government Matters.

The fourth round of grades are out for the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act. The results are not very encouraging. A handful of agencies improved their grades, but most are stuck in neutral. David Powner, director of IT issues at the Government Accountability Office, discusses the issue with Government Matters.

The Trump Administration called this past week "Tech Week." Monday featured a meeting of the American Technology Council with leaders from Apple, Microsoft, and others. On Thursday, the White House welcomed cutting-edge private-sector technologists to talk about drones, the internet of things, and more. A third meeting -- on Tuesday -- included the heads of industry associations. Dean Garfield, president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, attended that meeting and discusses it with Government Matters.

In this week’s Pentagon Beat roundtable Jacqueline Klimas, defense reporter for Politico and Oriana Pawlyk, reporter for Military.com, discuss Senator John McCain’s threat to kill the nomination of Patrick Shanahan for Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the Air Force’s grounding of F35 planes because of health concerns for pilots.

Phyllis Schneck, managing director & global leader of cyber solutions at Promontory and former deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity and communications at the Homeland Security Department, discusses the Trump administration’s approach to developing a government-wide cybersecurity strategy.

Roger Zakheim, counsel at Covington & Burling, discusses what might and what might not be included in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, as defense budget negotiations get underway on Capitol Hill.

Tammy Flanagan, Senior Benefits Director at the National Institute of Transition Planning, discusses how President Trump’s budget request would impact the federal workforce.

Robert Bigman, founder of 2BSecure and former Chief Information Security Officer at the CIA, discusses a major exposure of voter-data, which was the result of misconfiguration, not hacking.

Chris White, CIO and managing director federal public sector at ClearEdge Partners, discuss the White House’s approach to I.T. modernization and cloud adoption.

Tim Camus, deputy inspector general for investigations at the Treasury Department, discusses the work his team did battling IRS impersonation scammers that earned them recognition as a finalist for the Service to America Medals in the Homeland Security & Law Enforcement Medal.

Cathleen Berrick, managing director of Defense Capabilities & Management at the Government Accountability Office, discusses her report, “Actions Needed to Address Five Key Mission Challenges.”

Martha Dorris, founder of Dorris Consulting International, discusses the customer experience legislation introduced by two members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that would make it easier to collect information on customer experience with the federal government.

Brian Jester, senior vice president of financial management solutions at CACI and Cindy Gallagher, senior vice president of global business services for Discovery Communications, discuss the lessons learned from the private sector when it comes to shared services.

David Hawkings, senior editor at CQ Roll Call, discusses what’s next for Congress as it begins to start working on the FY18 budget, and the debt ceiling debate.

Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners, discusses the Homeland Security Department’s $1.5B FLASH contract – what went wrong, and what’s next for DHS.

Michael Stough, Director of the Program Analysis and Evaluation division in the ffice of the chief financial officer at the Department of Homeland Security, and Lee Lofthus, Assistant Attorney General for administration in the Justice Management division at the Justice Department, discuss their testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on their respective agencies’ approach to OMB’s agency reorganization memo.

Frontis Wiggins, CIO at the State Department, discusses how he helped improve his agency’s FITARA score by a full letter grade.

Adam Mazmanian, executive editor at FCW, Nicole Ogrysko, reporter at Federal News Radio and Eric Katz, senior correspondent for Government Executive, discuss OMB’s latest guidance on reduction of burdensome and low-value work for agencies.

Sara Ratcliff, director of the Human Capital Management Office for the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, discusses the use of excepted service to hire in the IC.

John Conger, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discusses the Department of Defense push for another round of Base Realignment and Closure.

Inside the Army managing editor Courtney McBride and The Hill defense reporter Ellen Mitchell join Francis for this edition of the Pentagon Beat. They discuss a marathon budget week for Department of Defense officials on Capitol Hill.

Chris Lu, senior strategy advisor for FiscalNote and former deputy secretary of the U.S. Labor Department, discussed how agency leadership can approach government reorganization.

Ron Sanders, vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton and former chief human capital officer of the U.S Intelligence Community, discussed the role of Senior Executive Service members amid the agency reorganization.

Mallory Barg Bulman, vice president of research and evaluation at the Partnership for Public Service, detailed the Partnership's latest study on how chief operating officers (a.k.a. deputy secretaries) can make government more effective.

Robert Pearce, deputy associate administrator for strategy at NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, discusses the mission of his directorate, and the work its doing to enable the next generation of space explorers and scientists.

Brendan McGarry, managing editor for Military.com, discusses the marathon week ahead for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford, as they go on a budget blitz on Capitol Hill.

Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner for Trade at U.S. Customs and Border Protection and a finalist in the management excellence category of the Service to America Medals, discusses the work she and her team did to successfully develop and set up the “Single Window” system at CBP.

Jim Williams, partner at Schambach & Williams Consulting, LLC. and former commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, discusses the leadership shakeup at FAS just days after a major reorganization was announced at GSA.

David Hawkings, senior editor at CQ Roll Call, discusses the priorities for the new Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC).

Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, discusses the role industry can play as agencies prepare for the deadline for first round of reorganization plans to be submitted.