State Department

Record Number Of Federal Agencies Earn Clean Financial Audits

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While planning at federal agencies is likely to remain in disarray as a result of Congress’ latest failure to resolve federal deficits, the actual financial statements at 23 out of 24 earned their best audit reviews yet, the Office of Management and Budget announced Friday.

The declaration meant that each agency, with the exception of the Pentagon, had satisfied independent auditors that their financial statements were accurate and reflected sound financial management practices. The results were the best record to date in the two decades since the passage of the 1990 Chief Financial Officers Act, when major agencies were required to produce audited financial statements comparable to what private corporations must produce. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 22, 2011 at 9:35 AM

Feds@Work: Demographer Contributes To Peaceful Voting Process

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Oliver Fischer, a young Census Bureau demographer, landed two unusual assignments that contributed to U.S. policy aimed at bringing about a fair and peaceful vote for Southern Sudan to declare its independence from the northern part of the country.

Starting in 2006 and continuing through the early part of 2011, Fischer had two roles-that of a census expert helping to set the stage for an accurate vote count, and later as a member of the State Department’s Civilian Response Corps working in extremely dangerous parts of Southern Sudan to provide American diplomats with information in the run up to the referendum. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 21, 2011 at 11:00 AM

Congress Needs To Get The Facts Straight About Information Sharing

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When the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs gathered last week to hear testimony about the state of information sharing across all levels of government, the committee leaders and even some of the expert witnesses pointed to the killings of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki as two examples of how information sharing across federal agency boundaries has improved.

Wrong. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 20, 2011 at 3:24 PM
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