The Department of Health and Human Services has awarded more than $50 million in funds to 75 community-based and patient-directed health centers across the U.S., Puerto Rico and Micronesia in an effort to expand healthcare services to citizens.

HHS said Dec. 15 the money will fund the delivery of pharmaceutical, mental health, substance abuse treatment and oral health services in areas where there are limited affordable healthcare programs.

Mary Wakefield, HHS acting deputy secretary, said the grant under the New Access Point program aims to extend healthcare coverage to more than 240,000 additional people.

“One in 13 people nationwide rely on a [Health Resources and Services Administration]-funded health center for their preventive and primary health care needs,” noted Jim Macrae, acting administrator of HRSA.

HHS added approximately 1,400 health centers at more than 9,800 locations serve more than 24 million people across the U.S. and its territories.

NASA is seeking proposals for observations the James Webb Space Telescope will perform after its planned October 2018 launch, Space News reported Friday.

Jeff Foust writes JWST officials said at a town hall meeting that one call for proposals is for astronomers that helped develop Webb telescope’s components while the other is for “early release” observations that all astronomers can propose.

NASA will also release a general call for proposals for the telescope’s first year of observations in late 2017, Foust reported.

Eric Smith, JWST program director at NASA, said the agency looks to resume vibration testing on the space observatory later this month after an anomaly caused the test to shut down in December, the report stated.

Smith noted the telescope optics and instruments will be delivered to Johnson Space Center in April to undergo tests in a thermal vacuum chamber then Northrop Grumman will integrate those components with the spacecraft bus and sunshade in October, Foust wrote.

The General Services Administration‘s 18F unit has collaborated with the Labor Department‘s Wage and Hour Division to transform the application system for Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act into a digital-first service.

Rebecca Refoy-Sidibe wrote in a blog post published Thursday the two entities partnered with vendors on the Agile Delivery Services blanket purchase agreement to create a prototype for a web application tool for the 14(c) certificate application process.

18F selected Applied Information Sciences as its partner to work on the prototype development project out of seven candidates that submitted responses.

Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act provides an option for the payment of subminimum wages to workes with disabilities due to limited capacities of workers with disabilities.

“18F wants to reimagine how the government works with vendors,” said Refoy-Sibide.

“Our work with WHD is part of a much larger effort to enable more businesses to do agile work for the government while making the government a better customer.”

The report also noted the agile-readiness of the vendor, shared responsibilities and stakeholder commitment as factors that helped impact the working relationship between AIS, 18F and WHD.

The Office of Personnel Management has released new guidance that aims to help agencies apply updated procedures on assigning job codes to cybersecurity positions.

The guidance published Wednesday seeks to align with the Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Assessment Act that requires OPM to create procedures to help agencies apply the coding structure within the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education’s cybersecurity workforce framework.

Federal agencies should establish procedures to identify and code filled and vacant civilian positions related to information technology, cybersecurity and other cyber functions three months within the memorandum’s publication.

The Act requires agencies to complete job coding work a year after procedures are established.

The guidance states agencies should use the Federal Cybersecurity Coding Structure to find appropriate codes while chief information officer staffers, managers and human resources personnel should work together to identify and assign codes to IT and cyber-related roles.

Agencies should designate Cybersecurity Data Standard Code “000” to positions that do not perform IT or cyber duties while Cybersecurity Data Standard Codes “100” through “999” must be assigned to positions with such functions.

Coded position descriptions for encumbered jobs must be submitted to the Enterprise Human Resources Integration data warehouse where OPM can receive the data.

Agencies will be required to report vacant positions by Cybersecurity Data Standard Codes in the next two years to help OPM track cybersecurity vacancies across the government.

Coding data is meant to help agencies and federal government determine and address recruitment, training, development and skill requirements of the cyber workforce, according to the guidance.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has said election infrastructure should be recognized as a subsector of the existing government facilities critical infrastructure sector and be a priority for cybersecurity assistance and protection.

Johnson wrote in a blog post published Friday such determination will add election infrastructure, including centralized vote tabulations locations, communications technologies, polling places and storage facilities, as a priority on the National Infrastructure Protection Plan.

“Now more than ever, it is important that we offer our assistance to state and local election officials in the cybersecurity of their systems,” said Johnson.

“Election infrastructure is vital to our national interests, and cyber attacks on this country are becoming more sophisticated, and bad cyber actors – ranging from nation states, cyber criminals and hacktivists – are becoming more sophisticated and dangerous.”

The post noted that there are currently 16 critical infrastructure sectors that include 20 subsectors which may ask for cybersecurity assistance from the Department of Homeland Security including commercial facilities, communications, emergency services and information technology.