The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

No one is looking back fondly on last year when it comes to the Thrift Savings Plan. The markets had a terrible year across the board. And the TSP board is still catching up from a difficult deployment of a new system for plan members to manage their accounts. To find out what to expect in 2023, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Abe Grungold, financial coach and retired federal executive.

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So-called black swan events seem to be happening in flocks. The pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, earthquakes and floods. For government, it all adds up to the need for resilience and preparation. And, according to new research by the IBM Center for the Business of Government, a technological approach is also needed. For more on this, Federal Drive host Tom Temin talked with Syracuse University professor and Government Accountability Office managing director, Chris Mihm.

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For long-serving federal executives, retirement from government is merely a gateway to a next phase. A case in point is Letitia Long, who retired back in 2014 as director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. She sits on several corporate boards and chairs one of the big trade associations. For some insight into her post-government life and a few other matters, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Letitia Long.

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Contractors start the new calendar year with customers funded for the fiscal year. But some new rules and procedures will take some attention. To get an outlook for 2023, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with federal sales and marketing consultant Larry Allen.

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You might think chief financial officers count beans and leaf through spreadsheets. But their profession needs training, skills development, and innovation as much as anyone else. A project at the Office of Personnel Management sought to ensure financial people stay up to date. For more on the award-winning program, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with OPM's strategic foresight program analyst, Eric Popiel and the Commerce Department's deputy chief financial officer, Steve Kunze.

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In doing economic analyses leading to changes in federal benefits, agencies are obligated to do them a certain way. During the pandemic, the Agriculture Department redid an index resulting in a big boost in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The Government Accountability Office finds, USDA didn't quite proceed properly. To get more on this, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Kathryn Larin, GAO's Director of Education, Workforce and Income Security.

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The Office of Personnel Management is making big plans to pivot its main website to focus more on its usefulness from the user perspective. To accomplish that feat, it will require a nearly complete overhaul of how OPM.gov is currently organized.

“[Currently], it’s really set up like a legacy government website, in that it’s structured around the actual organization and offices of OPM as an agency, versus what somebody would want to look for,” OPM Chief Information Officer Guy Cavallo said in an interview with Federal News Network.

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The Republican-led House is looking at opportunities to eliminate duplicative federal agencies and programs, as well as rescind $80 billion that would help the IRS rebuild its workforce and its legacy IT systems.House Republican leaders are doubling down on a promise made before last year’s midterm elections to make defunding the IRS a top legislative priority at the start of the 118th Congress.

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As the calendar flips into 2023, the federal technology community can count on a few things. Cybersecurity/zero trust, IT modernization and customer experience will remain hot topics. Conferences, webinars and “fireside chats” will continue to abound on these and other related topics as industry follows the buzzwords.What will be new in 2023 is the change in Congress where Republicans won the majority in the House in November. Experts believe new committee chairmen will usher in a new and aggressive brand of oversight of the Biden administration. Of course some, maybe most, will be big “P” politically motivated, but certain areas like the technology modernization fund or cybersecurity will get fresh attention by the new leadership.

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Congress made hiring a civilian workforce with an expertise in cybersecurity a top priority in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. In addition to recruiting a cyber workforce, the Defense Department will set up a program to bring in new talent by educating them. The department will expand its funding of university-level cyber education. Under a program called the Department of Defense Cyber and Digital Service Academy, DoD will provide scholarships through institutions of higher education to students who take courses of study related to cybersecurity.

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