When it comes to carrying out the work of the federal government, few initiatives have held greater promise or importance than the Senior Executive Service.
Commissioned by Congress more than three decades ago, the SES program was envisioned as a way to attract and develop an elite corps of America’s highest caliber executives and deploy them across the federal government to address both immediate and longer term management needs within federal agencies. Keep reading →
President Obama’s new budget shows savings of $50 million annually by curtailing the production of unwanted $1 coins. As a former budget director for President Reagan, I know first-hand how difficult it is to cut spending and how important it is to guard against faddish programs that claim savings but actually add to federal spending and to the deficit – which is what you’d get if you let Congress replace the dollar bill with the dollar coin.
The latest proposals to do just that are all the more vexing, given that consumers overwhelmingly reject the dollar coin. Keep reading →
A new report released today by the Partnership for Public Service provides fresh perspective on the long standing failure of the federal government to take advantage of its Senior Executive Service and a cadre of more than 7,800 senior leaders many of whom find themselves trapped in the agencies they work for.
The report, “Mission-Driven Mobility,” outlines barriers that SES members face in being able to move from one agency to another, and even within agencies, as intended when the SES was created by Congress in 1978 as a way to spread the experience of senior executives to improve the broader management of government. Keep reading →
Non-IT professional services continue to represent a major share of government contract spending. While the General Services Administration’s Schedules program offers technology and other professional services on an a la carte basis, agencies have asked us to provide a total professional services solution, which often requires acquisition of multiple services across separate functional areas.
To answer this request, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service is preparing a business case for approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for a new contract vehicle that we are calling Integrations.
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This article was adapted from a blog post originally published on GSA’s website.
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I saw the Tweets this morning about Aneesh Chopra “stepping down” based on a FedScoop article posted at midnight last night. Seems like a lot happens after normal business hours in this town.
I thought the most interesting words in the article were: “No information was provided on his future plans, but ongoing speculation includes running for political office to assuming an executive role leading the Washington offices of a major technology company,” writes Luke Fretwell in the article, which cites unnamed sources.
Then around noon the Washington Post just broke the story: Aneesh Chopra leaving the White House, likely to run for Virginia lieutenant governor, but said Chopra did not return requests for comment. (More on the story here.)
Chopra was part of a trio of D.C.-area tech and business heavyweights tapped by Obama at the start of his term to address government management and technological concerns. In the span of a few days in 2009, Obama named Chopra, Virginia’s former secretary of technology, to oversee the government’s tech upgrades, Jeffrey Zients, a D.C.-area business veteran, to serve as the first White House chief performance officer (Zients is now acting director of the Office of Management and Budget), and Vivek Kundra, a former District government official, who stepped down in June after serving as the first White House chief information officer, to go to Harvard briefly and and then recently joined Salesforce.com.
The White House announced today that Jeffrey Zients will serve as the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Zients is currently deputy director for management and chief performance officer at OMB. He replaces Jack Lew who last week was named as chief of staff to the president after William Daley announced he will be leaving the position later this month. Keep reading →
President Obama plans to ask Congress for the authority to merge six trade and commerce agencies in a move to pare redundant costs, according to a report in The Hill today.
The proposed merger is part of broader considerations to streamline government that have been under discussion by the Office of Management and Budget for a number of months, a senior administration told The Hill. Keep reading →
Recently, Shelley Metzenbaum, associate director of performance and personnel management at the Office of Management and Budget, blogged about Saving Taxpayer Dollars With Moneyball.
She said: “Using all the relevant data we can find to do more with less must be the rule, not an exception, in government.” Keep reading →
The White House has unveiled a new government web site section designed to help accelerate the environmental review and permitting process for 14 high priority infrastructure projects.
The new Federal Infrastructure Projects Dashboard is also intended to bring greater public attention to the projects, and the promise of jobs associated with them, said Jeff Zients, deputy director for management and chief performance officer at the White House Office of Management and Budget in a blog post yesterday. Keep reading →
The Government Accountability Office has identified a number of leading green IT practices used by federal, state, and local government and private-sector organizations that could save millions of dollars if implemented by additional agencies.
According to a GAO report released last week, several agencies have taken steps to implement federal green IT requirements but aren’t able to effectively measure the results of those efforts.
GAO recommended the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, in conjunction with the White House Council on Environmental Quality, direct agencies to implement the leading practices as well as develop baselines for their green IT-related goals and, where possible, targets that measure energy or cost savings or other quantifiable benefits. Keep reading →