The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

Federal Drive host Tom Temin continues his week-long series, "The Worst Place To Work in the Federal Government." Because of its last place in this year's rankings, that title goes to the Bureau of Prisons, part of the Justice Department. In today's interview, Tom starts with the notion that the federal correctional facility is the basic unit in the Bureau of Prisons. Tom's guest is a corrections consultant, who served in the Senior Executive Service and as warden of ADX Florence, the system's most secure prison. The Colorado facility is also known as Super Max. For lessons learned there and how BOP can regain its footing, we hear from Robert Hood.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Office of Personnel Management took a step to address more immediate concerns from retiring federal employees, ahead of the agency’s long-term efforts to modernize retirement services.

A new “retirement quick guide,” which OPM published Monday, aims to help federal employees and recent retirees better understand and navigate the current federal retirement process.

“This is a need right now,” Lori Amos, OPM’s deputy associate director for retirement services, told reporters Monday. “This is our current state — we’re paper-based. We need to manage expectations, we need to get information to our customers, because we don’t want them worried about their annuity payments. This is for today.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is rolling out a new pay model for its IT and cybersecurity employees later this year — whether or not a governmentwide effort to increase tech workers’ salaries moves forward.

VA expects the Special Salary Rate will significantly raise the salaries of more than 7,000 of its personnel nationwide. If adopted by all agencies, the SSR would increase the pay for about 100,000 federal IT and cyber employees governmentwide.

But the viability of a new governmentwide pay model for federal IT and cybersecurity employees is uncertain, as agencies brace for possible cuts to discretionary, non-defense spending as part of ongoing debt-ceiling negotiations.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

That smooshy sound you hear is everyone squirming in their seats as the national-debt default looms closer. The weird thing is, the government is fully appropriated for the rest of fiscal 2023, with four months of high spending yet to go. Contractors worry agencies might treat a default as if it were a shutdown. For more observations, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with federal sales and marketing consultant Larry Allen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anyone with so-called transition eyeglass lenses knows that they take forever to darken when you go outside. They also take quite a while to lighten up when you go inside. Now, photochemical scientists from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, together with an R & D company, have developed -- for the Defense Department -- lenses that go from light-to-dark and dark-to light, in the blink of an eye. For more, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with BGSU distinguished professor Dr. Jayaraman Sivaguru.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bureau of Prisons correctional officers, and nearly everyone is a correctional officer, operate in a crucible. They deal with Bureau management, which has trouble maintaining staffing and measuring its programs. Inmates are, well, inmates. Some are beyond redemption, some work to improve their lives. In the fourth interview in his series, The Worst Place to Work in the Federal Government, Federal Drive host Tom Temin talks with Shane Fausey, the President of the National Council of Prison Locals, Council 33, of the American Federation of Government Employees.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

First, there as the pandemic. Then, there was the change in administration. At the same time, there were several high profile cyber threats to deal with. But the time has come to put the 21st Century IDEA Act, passed and signed into law in 2018, to the front of the priority list. The Office of Management and Budget finally is ready to issue implementation guidance for the nearly four-plus-year-old law.

Federal Chief Information Officer Clare Martorana said yesterday the new guidance will hopefully come out this summer, following a similar path as the zero trust guidance from 2022, which came out in draft first giving industry and agencies the chance to offer feedback.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

During the height of the Great Depression in 1932, Army troops charged into a Washington, D.C. encampment of World War I veterans and their supporters who had gathered to get money owed to them by the government. The so called “Bonus Army” was driven across the river at bayonet point and dispersed.

The event went down in history as a nadir in the government’s treatment of its veterans, and it’s one you might say we have been trying to live down ever since.

For veterans, the transition from a military career to life in the civilian world creates an inflection point that many find difficult to navigate. To assist in the transition, the Defense Department created the Transition Assistance Program (TAP). The program offers counseling and education to service members preparing to leave the military.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.