The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

With everyone seeming to come to the office on random days, some federal managers have instituted "community days," designated days when everyone is required to come in. Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with someone who thinks "community days" could do more harm than good: Long-time federal labor relations guru Bob Tobias.

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Tens of thousands of American women suffer dangerous complications during pregnancy each year. Some die. Now the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $24 million in grant money to form a new center of excellence devoted to maternal health research and improvement. For more on that, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with Dr. Nahida Chakhtoura, the Chief of the NIH Pregnancy and Perinatology Branch.

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On today's episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin:

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Time is a funny concept when it comes to federal technology initiatives.

There’s never enough time to fix everything. The initiative needs more time to bake. The law, policy or regulation will take time to implement and show results. When it comes to cybersecurity, time isn’t on our side.

I can only imagine that for every agency chief information officer, singer, songwriter Joe Jackson may have summed it up best in his song Got the Time: “Time – got the time tick-tick-tickin’ in my head.”

The recent updates from the General Services Administration on the Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program and the Office of Management and Budget around the 21st Century IDEA Act underscore the trials and tribulations of time in the federal IT community

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The so-called "mutual fund window" at the Thrift Savings Plan could disappear if a congressional policy becomes law. A House committee would bar funds relying on corporate environment, social or governance sensitivities. Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with Certified Financial Planner Art Stein to see what he's discovered about ESG funds.

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Two young State Department foreign affairs officers helped secure recent releases of Americans held in by foreign countries. That fact has landed them as finalists in this year's Service to America Medals program, aka "the Sammies." Fletcher Schoen developed the negotiation strategy for basketball player Brittney Griner, among others. And Jennifer Harkins was instrumental in the 2022 release of nine Americans held by Venezuela. Both them spoke with Federal Drive Host Tom Temin.

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It takes a lot of thought to buy artificial intelligence. Contractors trying to sell the stuff, need to put some careful thinking into their proposals and not rush through them. Then there's an even bigger question for contractors: using AI to draft the proposal itself. Anything could happen. For some tips, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with attorney Craig Smith, a partner at Wiley Rein.

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On today's episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin:

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The speed of software innovation in industry has the Defense Department struggling to keep its policies on pace with what the commercial sector can provide. To address the problem, the Army’s new chief information officer said he is prioritizing new policy for cybersecurity, software and data to try and keep up with technological advances.

His first effort — developing interim policies that address immediate challenges while working on bigger, all-encompassing guidelines.

“You see a really big focus on policy, and there’s a reason for that — it’s a space where we’ve kind of waited to do it. We’re going to change these long-standing huge policies that are out there in the Army,” Leonel Garciga, the Army chief information officer, said Wednesday at an AFCEA TechNet conference in Augusta, Ga.

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An IRS watchdog is calling on the agency to make better use of pay incentives already available to stay on track with plans to build up its workforce.

The IRS has more than a dozen pay incentives available to recruit and retain employees with skills that are essential to its operations.

But the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, in a recent report, found the IRS only used these pay incentives to recruit, retain or relocate about 1,400 employees between fiscal 2019 and 2022.

The agency, during this period, made a total payout of $1.5 million through these incentives.

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