The General Services Administration lost another IT system because of recurring contract management issues and lack of accountability, an internal audit found. The GSA Office of Inspector General assessed the reliability of GSA’s Acquisition Career Managment Information System, the federal government’s acquisition workforce training and education database of record. The ACMIS’ functionality was so poor [...]

Regulatory reform plans for federal agencies will save more than $4 billion over the next five years, the White House said Monday. Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, announced on the White House blog that federal agencies are releasing their final regulatory plans. The plans are in response to an [...]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has started the process of implementing recommendations made by a task force set up after the post-tsunami nuclear accident in Japan, the agency announced Friday. NRC staff are required to report by Sept. 9 on whether 11 of the task force’s 12 recommendations should be implemented. NRC announced staff will have [...]

The U.S. is facing a $1.3 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2011 and an unemployment rate above 8 percent through 2014, according to a projection from the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO’s latest mid-term outlook, released Wednesday, was originally completed in July. The CBO updated its outlook in August to reflect policy changes enacted in [...]

NASA is partnering with Tor-Forge Books to develop and publish a series of science-fiction novels, the space agency announced Monday. NASA announced the “NASA Inspired Works of Fiction” will be based on concepts pertinent to current and future agency missions and operations. Scientists and engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. will [...]

The U.S. Postal Service could save as much as $1.5 billion per year if it relaxed service standards for both First Class and Priority Mail by one day, according to a new study. The Postal Service’s inspector general contracted Christensen Associates, an economic analysis firm, to do the study. The Postal Service currently guarantees, on [...]

Assistors at the Internal Revenue Service’s e-help desk are not always taking the required steps to protect the confidentiality of taxpayer information, a Treasury Department audit found. In a report dated July 28 and posted Monday, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found managers do not always hold employees accountable for following IRS disclosure [...]

The Department of Health and Human Services finalized its conflict of interest rules Tuesday, requiring investigators at the National Institutes of Health to disclose all significant financial interests related to their responsibilities. The new rules also lower the threshold at which significant financial interests require disclosure, down to $5,000 from the previous $10,000 threshold. The [...]

Federal agencies need to do more to encourage public participation and measure the impact of public participation on agency decisions, an industry report says. The IBM Center for the Business of Government released its 70-page report Monday, reviewing federal agency plans for open government. Most agency plans did not fully meet the standards conducive to [...]

Blackberry devices used by federal air marshals have a backlog of security patches, leaving them open to security threats, the Homeland Security Department inspector general found. In a redacted report released Aug. 22, the inspector general found scans of the air marshal program’s Blackberry service turned up numerous vulnerabilities. The report says the Transportation Security [...]