• Service members are apparently not getting enough sleep each night to properly do their jobs. A watchdog organization found that service members are consistently getting less than 6 hours of sleep. Military personnel say they fall asleep on the job, which Government Accountability Offce said creates serious safety concerns. The GAO wants the Pentagon to conduct an assessment of DoD's oversight structure for fatigue-related efforts. And the Defense Department recommended that troops get seven hours of sleep each night.
  (Service members don’t get enough sleep, putting their lives at risk - GAO)
• Attention vendors, who provide grants services to the government, this RFI's for you. The Grants Quality Service Management Office (QSMO) is ready to expand its marketplace of service providers. But first, it is taking the pulse of the vendor community to gauge the capabilities of the sector. The QSMO's new Request for Information (RFI) is asking vendors for details about their grants management system, including whether it is set up as a software-as-a-service, whether it integrates with SAM.gov and login.gov and whether it is highly configurable and does not require code changes. Responses to the RFI are due by April 30.
  (Grants shared services office kicks off marketplace expansion - General Services Administration)
• Agencies have likely escaped budget cuts due to sequestration for another year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed the fiscal 2024 spending bills and estimated that the discretionary budget authority for defense and non-defense agencies falls under the caps established in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. CBO, however, said the final decision about whether cuts are needed under sequestration will come from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), based on its own estimates of federal spending. OMB told Congress in August it did not think sequestration cuts would be necessary based on current estimates, but it will send another letter to Congress later this year with the final decision.
  (CBO estimates sequestrations cuts not necessary for fiscal 2024 - Congressional Budget Office)
• There is a new artificial intelligence chief at the top U.S. spy agency. John Beieler has been named the chief AI officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He also serves as the top science and technology adviser to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Beieler now leads a council of chief AI officers across the 18 components of the intelligence community. One of the first tasks for that group is developing an AI directive for the IC. Beieler said it will cover everything from data standards to civil liberties and privacy protections.
  (Intelligence community gets a chief AI officer - Federal News Network)
• The Postal Service may soon ask for a sixth rate increase, since November 2020, that would go into effect this summer. But the Postal Regulatory Commission is taking a closer look at whether this new pricing model is actually helping USPS improve its long-term finances. The regulator is asking for public feedback on whether the current pricing model is working for USPS and its customers — and if not, what modifications to the ratemaking system should be made, or what alternative system should be adopted? The regulator will accept comments through July 9.
  (Postal Regulatory Commission seeks feedback on USPS pricing model - Federal News Network)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is preparing to host its biggest biannual cybersecurity exercise. Dubbed “Cyber Storm,” the event will kick off this month with more than 2,000 participants from government and industry. The weeklong exercise simulates the response to a cyber attack on multiple critical infrastructure sectors. This year’s Cyber Storm comes as CISA rewrites the national plan for responding to major cyber incidents. CISA expects to release the updated plan by the end of 2024.
  (CISA’s ‘Cyber Storm’ will help it update National Cyber Incident Response Plan - Federal News Network)
• The IRS is looking to take the next steps in its most ambitious project under the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRS is letting taxpayers in 12 states test out its “Direct File” platform this filing season, as it gets feedback from earlier users, in the hopes of scaling up the pilot program. In a roundtable discussion with Direct File users, the IRS said all participants said they would recommend Direct File to eligible friends and family. Roundtable participants included college students, military veterans, as well as nonprofit and government employees.
  (IRS' direct file platform receives positive initial feedback - Treasury Department)
• The Air Force wants to bypass governors in seven states and transfer the National Guard space units to the Space Force. Air Force officials are calling for legislation to bypass existing law requiring them to obtain a governor’s consent before making changes to a National Guard unit. It would allow the service to transfer 14 Air National Guard space units located in New York, Florida, Hawaii, Colorado, Alaska, California and Ohio and make them part of the Space Force. Not surprisingly, the idea is facing criticism from governors.
  (Air Force wants to override law in 7 states, transfer Guard units to Space Force - Federal News Network)

The post Feds in fatigues, too fatigued to properly do their jobs, GAO says first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Biden administration’s 2025 budget request includes $1.6 billion for the Census Bureau and an increase of $218 million from what was just enacted for 2024. Good but not enough, according to The Census Project. For more on that, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with project co-director Howard Fienberg.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin Maybe store it out for us. The importance of 2025 request both to the Census Bureau’s current operations and the programs they run between the Big Ten-year counts, which is pretty heavy load. And how this contributes also or should to what they have to do in 2030.

Howard Fienberg Most listeners probably are aware that a ten-year buildup to every decennial headcount. I mean, obviously the biggest amount of money is spent in the year zero. In this case, it’ll be FY 2030. But there’s a lot of preparations that go into it, and it is a funding cycle that of course, Congress struggles with, because it’s a very regular one by logic standards, but hard one based on how Congress funds things. But you know, year zero you spend a ton of money and then you go down to very little for a few years and you start ramping back up again. And we’re in the point where they should be dramatically ramping back up, because this is when the bureau is deciding on its design. It is figuring out what major tests it’s going to need to run, both behind the scenes and in the field in order to prepare for an accurate count of the population at the end of the decade. So, a lot of the major decision making is going on in FY 25.

Tom Temin And in the meantime, though, they have their regular economic surveys that they do. People don’t realize how much they do. So, getting to that request for 2025, do you feel that the blanket covers the bed, so to speak, for what they need to do currently and also what they need to do as set aside activities leading to 2030? Are they got enough.

Howard Fienberg Next to really know? So, I mean, the census project has put out our own budget recommendation prior to the president’s budget urging 2 billion. A lot of that is based on the needs of the American Community Survey, which, of course, part of the decennial program. But it was originally the census long form. And in order to run the ACS every year and continue to get accurate data, it needs some more investment because the sample size, for example, has not increased since probably in 2010. I forget exactly the date, but they’ve not increased the sample size in well over a decade and a half at least, and they have not been able to invest in non-response follow up as well, which is a huge part of this that we found that probably less than a third of the households that need to be contacted for follow up are actually receiving any kind of follow up. So the accuracy and the ability to deliver the most accurate data for the country is impaired, absent some more investment in this critical survey and ACS and decennial together, they are the manner in which, you know, funding is derived and delivered geographically for the country and demographically for hundreds and hundreds of federal and state programs.

Tom Temin Right. So, they need then it sounds like maybe a technological push also because people respond less and less to various forms of mail, even email. Now nobody trusts anymore. Is that a fundamental problem they’ve got to overcome is just making people trust the delivery of the medium that asks for the data that the Census Bureau needs.

Howard Fienberg That’s a piece of it. And certainly, it’s common across any survey, and research studies in general. In my day job, I’m a lobbyist for the Insights Association and the market research and data analytics industry. You know, response rates depending on how you define it, because it’s different across media. But response rates are not what they were ten years ago or 20. So the automatic assumption that everybody under the sun is going to respond to the ACS, and you can’t just make that assumption and the response rates don’t reflect that. You know, it’s something that used to get, you know, 90 to 95% across the board. It’s not really hitting that anymore. And, you know, there is a lack of trust. Certainly, we talk with congressional offices, and they hear from their constituents on a regular basis. Oh my God, what is this that I was sent? And so that’s a normal thing for any congressional office to receive from their constituents, because, you know, people just lack that basic trust in what they’re receiving.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Howard Fienberg. He is co-director of the Census Project. And getting back to the budget request for 2025, you mentioned they have to beef up the American Community Survey. So, it sounds like that’s an expensive proposition. Would helping response rates to that lead to understandings that could help them in 2030 where response rates, that’s going to be an issue also of course.

Howard Fienberg Yeah. And the ACS has always been the test bed and where you test out. What are your messages going to be for reaching the population? How are you going to do the follow up? What kinds of questions can you ask? All the questions that are going to be asked and how they’re going to be asked on the headcount. Those are all seated and tested on the ACS and other surveys and all the back end work that’s going to go into their modernization of their technology, infrastructure, all the things that go on the back end that is really implemented through a survey like the ACS, because the ACS is happening every year.

Tom Temin And the sense that the bureau is on the ball for 2030.

Howard Fienberg Maybe that’s it’s hard to say at this point because we’re still early on it. This is where things started to fall apart in the last few decades, not necessarily because of funding levels per se, but because of the timing. And you can see it happening here just like prior decades. You’re getting sequestration where it’s just an across-the-board meat cleaver approach and just hacking away stuff, but also continuing resolutions. And, you know, like any agency, they have to juggle priorities. And all right, we’re going to put, you know, more things over here. And this activity is going to go by the wayside. That’s not a big deal in some agencies. But at the Bureau over the long term in, you know, say the last decade, the CR is directly resulted in the cancellation of most of their field testing before the 2020 census, and we do not want to see that happen again. So in 2020, they ended up only doing a field test in Providence, Rhode Island, which is not representative of a whole lot of the country and all the rural testing suburban areas, urban areas, all tribal reservations, all these things got wiped out, and we don’t want to see that happen again.

Tom Temin That’s outside of their control in a lot of ways.

Howard Fienberg Correct. But the more that can be done to fund each fiscal year as the decade wears on, that gives them more flexibility to be able to get those activities planned and executed.

Tom Temin And outside of the budget request. How do you think that the influx of illegal migrants that are being shipped all over the United States, and we’ve got this big, huge hairball of a problem? It’s a logistics problem. It’s a political problem, you name it. But those individuals are subject to counting wherever they might be. Correct? The Census Bureau doesn’t count citizens. It counts every person in the United States. Do you think that’ll be a challenge for them just because of the numbers?

Howard Fienberg Yeah. No, it’s always a challenge because yes, they tend to be moving around less likely to respond to government entreaties to, you know, provide their information. It’s a challenge every time. And in particular, at this point, they’re going to be moving around perhaps more than in the past. And it looks like there are a whole lot more of them than there were ten years ago.

Tom Temin Right. And it could introduce the danger of double counting if the migrants that are in are moving around, they could get counted twice or maybe more than once, just because of the mobility that’s available to them now.

Howard Fienberg Presuming they’re responding? Yes.

Tom Temin Presuming they’re responding. Right. So yeah, I don’t know how you figure that one out, but and you know, this is going to be something that Congress is going to have many minds about also.

Howard Fienberg Yes. And there will be battles in Congress about a citizenship question about how the apportionment counts should take account of citizenship or residency, legal, illegal immigration, and so forth. You know, we don’t have a dog in that fight that’s going on already. It’s outside of the Census Project’s concerned.

The post One reaction to 2025 Census budget request: good but not enough first appeared on Federal News Network.

After a months-long hiring freeze, the Social Security Administration is once again facing even further declining staffing numbers.

But with agency spending now determined for the rest of fiscal 2024, and hiring now unfrozen, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley is readying the agency’s plans to rebuild its workforce as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Currently, SSA is at its lowest staffing levels in 27 years, while serving more customers than ever before, O’Malley told lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee during a hearing last week. As a result, customer service has worsened — there are longer wait times on phone lines, and longer delays in receiving decisions on disability applications and appeals.

The perfect storm of challenges, largely due to years of continuing resolutions and hiring freezes, is leading to overworked employees who often leave their jobs within just a year or two, O’Malley said during the joint hearing of the Social Security and Work and Welfare subcommittees.

“We need to do better by them,” O’Malley said. “They’re overwhelmed, stressed out — but still, every day, they’re trying to make it work.”

In the 2024 spending agreement Congress reached last week, SSA received $14.2 billion for its administrative expenses. It’s a slight increase over SSA’s enacted budget of $14.1 billion for 2023.

“It’s a lot better than a cut — and I know cuts were on the table,” O’Malley said.

Spending proposal for 2025

A couple years back, SSA was successful in boosting its staffing numbers — at least for a short time. But the agency quickly faced attrition, particularly in teleservice centers and state disability determination services (DDS), as a result of overworked, overwhelmed employees who didn’t receive enough training to do their jobs effectively.

Although SSA’s latest hiring freeze has ended, there have already been net staffing losses as a result of a months-long string of continuing resolutions — landing the agency once again at the lower staffing levels it had a year ago.

“Unfortunately, we expect that backlogs and wait times will grow in 2024 due to the hiring freeze and minimal overtime,” SSA said in its 2025 budget request justification document. “While we expect to process more cases this year, we will have significantly less staff at the end of the year than at the beginning.”

O’Malley called the declining staffing numbers a “severe setback.”

Right now, SSA employees “are understaffed, and they are overwhelmed,” O’Malley said. “Not surprisingly, when somebody’s been on hold for an hour, they come off that call hot. We right now have an attrition rate of about 24% in our teleservice centers.”

Much more is necessary for the agency to improve staffing, and by extension customer service, for years to come, O’Malley said. The Biden administration is requesting $15.4 billion for the Social Security Administration’s 2025 budget.

The goal is to bring the agency back above the end-of-year staffing levels from 2023 — aiming to reach nearly 60,000 employees, and at the same time, begin to process more cases.

The request would invest in more SSA staffing across the board — with a proposed $269 million for field offices, $85 million for processing centers, $89 million for hearing centers, $79 million for teleservice centers and $2.8 billion for DDS.

More plans to rebuild staffing

To try to make the proposed investments worthwhile, O’Malley is outlining a specific, targeted hiring plan for the agency, aiming to improve not only hiring, but also retention of employees.

“We need to change our strategy as an agency,” O’Malley told lawmakers. “I think we target too much on college graduates and not enough on high school and community college graduates. And with proper training, that could really be an investment that holds for a long time.”

After the Senate confirmed O’Malley as commissioner in December, he spent his first few months on the job visiting Social Security Administration offices across the country to learn about the challenges staff face on the job and to look for possible solutions.

As the agency looks to rebuild, taking into consideration conversations with staff, O’Malley detailed plans for how the agency will hire for the long-term, aiming to avoid attrition and mitigate high turnover rates SSA has historically experienced.

Over the next year, SSA is planning to focus in part on veterans hiring, training and retention, while also partnering with universities and institutions that work with underserved communities. SSA is also requesting funding to hire 1,500 interns in 2025.

“We are increasing the use of social media platforms to recruit students, recent graduates and direct hire applicants and attract top talent from anywhere in the country,” SSA said.

Concerns remain in Congress

Still, some lawmakers, including subcommittee Chairman Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), called on O’Malley to target improvements for the Social Security Administration in the immediate short-term.

“My free advice is to get the existing workload under control — get it back on track before we go dumping more cases into it,” Ferguson said during last week’s hearing.

A few other lawmakers also pointed to the importance of IT modernization as a way to ultimately improve workforce performance and morale.

“We improve people’s work experience by investing in these technologies to make their job satisfaction go up,” Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) said. “You get better productivity out of them, and we’ll see better hiring come from this type of stuff.”

Even so, O’Malley said, currently 90% of SSA’s IT budget goes toward simply maintaining outdated, legacy systems — and not toward actually modernizing SSA.

“Think, if you will, about the city of Jerusalem being built up over years, except this is cobalt and green screens,” O’Malley said during the hearing. “Only 10% of [the budget] goes to modernization.”

The budget request for 2025 includes $1.7 billion to invest in IT modernization. The funding will in part go toward efforts to expand online services and provide SSA employees with more user-friendly systems and tools to perform their work.

The Social Security Administration has the next 90 days to provide a report to congressional appropriations committee members with details on full-time employees, new hires in each agency component and retention rates of staff.

The post O’Malley outlines plans to rebuild Social Security Administration workforce first appeared on Federal News Network.

In voting last week, Congress managed to fund the half of government it had not already. For some highlights of the bill and other congressional matters, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with WTOP Capitol Hill Correspondent Mitchell Miller.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  So, they did get the government funded six months almost into the fiscal year.

Mitchell Miller Yes. Not without a lot of drama, which is usually the case around here. But among the many things that are included in this legislation is a new requirement related to telework. It’s going to require the Office of Management and Budget to submit all agencies their return to office action plans within 90 days after this is actually signed into law. Agencies are going to have to provide more information on their telework policies. The average number of employees working in the office during a two-week period. And as you well know, it’s been nearly a year since OMB called on federal agencies to return staff to the office at least 50% of the time. The action also looks for workforce factors, including productivity and employee engagement. Ways to measure these type of things. So, this has been part of this effort of lawmakers to push to try to get these federal agencies and federal workers back into their offices.

Tom Temin Yeah, in some ways, then the Republicans, which are in favor of more return to the office, are oddly aligned with the white House on that particular matter.

Mitchell Miller Yeah, that’s right, because the white House has also been pushing these agencies to do more. So there really is kind of a coalition here. You know, the some of the federal unions, as you know, have been pushing back on some of the things that have been done. Others have been a little more amenable. But clearly, this push, again, related to telework is going to keep happening.

Tom Temin And the IRS funding that it originally was promised for the ten years seems to be shrinking.

Mitchell Miller Right. So, there was a huge amount of billions of dollars going to the FBI. And now Congress is giving it a bit of a haircut, in fact, quite a significant haircut of about $20 billion. This is money that was going to go to an over the years modernization series of funds to the IRS to try to get them to upgrade all of their computer equipment and a variety of record keeping. And, the agency still has about $60 billion under this modernization plan, but this was considered a victory for Republicans to cut back on some of that and then a much smaller amount of money, but certainly significant to our area. There is more money going to the FBI headquarters, which is going to be built in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Maryland delegation securing $200 million to go toward, projects related to that. That’s on top of 375 million that was appropriated the previous year. Lawmakers say that there’s about $1.5 billion in the pipeline now for these for this new headquarters. So still a long way away from, that first spade going into the dirt. But also, Virginia lawmakers are trying to reverse this decision. They were, of course, competing for another site in Northern Virginia. They are really touting a GSA inspector general’s investigation that is ongoing. However, I think it’s pretty unlikely at this point, given all the talk about this and new headquarters, whether this is actually going to be reversed.

Tom Temin Yeah, $200 million this year. That’ll just about cover the environmental impact studies, maybe then putting up a little fence around the property. I wanted to also ask you about the pay raises. Those seem to have gotten solidified for federal employees and service members in there.

Mitchell Miller Right. So, this is, of course, a big one. And it’s related in part to the inflation. There’s a 5.2% pay increase for military personnel, also the same amount, for federal government employees. So pretty significant bump there in this major omnibus bill. However, as we look ahead to 2025, the white House has proposed a pay raise of only about 2%. And as you know, that has caused some complaints from many of the federal employees’ unions. But for now, there will be this more than 5% pay hike coming.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Mitchell Miller, Capitol Hill correspondent for WTOP. And of course, now Congress is going to be leaving for a couple of weeks of recess. But there is the 2025 budget proposal. Anyway, that came out a couple of weeks ago from the white House. Any action on that? What are they going to do next there?

Mitchell Miller Right. Well, they have started to kick off some hearings related to that. And there is a lot of discussion about, the proposals. Of course, it’s 7 trillion plus dollars, from the white House. That starting point to get the discussion going. And then this past week, Republicans also released their own proposal for fiscal 2025. And the one that thing that’s really getting a lot of attention, not surprisingly, during this political year is a GOP proposal to raise the age for Social Security. They are recommending that it be bumped up from the current 67. But being a political year, they didn’t say what that would actually be. But as you might imagine, a lot of, congressional Democrats are jumping on that, saying that that Republicans want to cut back or to make it longer for you to actually get your Social Security. So, I think that will be a big talking point moving ahead. But some of these hearings now are moving forward. Finally, as we have completed work on 2024’s fiscal year, close to six months after it was supposed to be approved.

Tom Temin Yeah. And that idea of some sort of form of Social Security reform probably comes on the fact that the CBO itself reported that for the next ten years, there’s going to be trillion plus dollar deficits. And it’s not driven by what Congress appropriates to operate the government, but by CMS, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security spending and interest on the debt, which is growing.

Mitchell Miller Right. And there’s been a handful of lawmakers from both parties who have been warning about this for years, but it always seems to be taken over by what some people call the politics of today, that whatever is happening now, they just want to push it down the line. And that is going to come at some point. And a lot of the people that have also been warning about the federal budget deficit have been pointing to this as well. However, there just doesn’t seem to be the political courage to move forward with anything specific on this.

Tom Temin And what can we expect on Ukraine aid, Israel aid? This is all kind of in limbo at this point, right?

Mitchell Miller House speaker Mike Johnson has been very coy on this. He’s basically been trying to put everything on the shelf until everything was finally completed with the federal budget process, which was obviously an ordeal as we just discussed. One possibility is that Ukraine aid and Israel aid might come up in separate proposals in the House and then specifically related to Ukraine. One of the measures that’s getting a lot of attention right now, or at least being floated as a trial balloon, is providing it as partly a loan to Ukraine. This is got a lot of support from Republicans. Democrats are still kind of feeling it out. Former President Trump has indicated that he likes that. And of course, a lot of House Republicans go along with what he wants. So, they are kind of discussing whether or not that might happen. Keep in mind that the bulk of aid for Ukraine would actually be going back to replenish military equipment here in the U.S., and that would only be a fraction that would actually go specifically to Ukraine without any strings attached. But there are lawmakers who now want to attach those strings, and then we’ll have to see separately what happens for Israel, because there’s a big push there as well.

Tom Temin Yeah, well, it was Franklin Roosevelt that started Lend-Lease. So, there’s some precedent for this in the in the recesses of history. And just a final question about the state of security on Capitol Hill itself, lawmakers starting to get concerned about their own personal safety.

Mitchell Miller Right. There was a hearing last week that was very interesting. There’s been a lot of talk from House Republicans about crime citywide in D.C., but this really focused in on what’s been happening around this Capitol complex and in the blocks that extend nearby. And there’s been a lot of high-profile situations where a lawmaker was carjacked just a few blocks from here. There have been staffers who have been held up at gunpoint. Another lawmaker was assaulted. And so there has been real concern about what is happening along the blocks around the U.S. Capitol. And some are saying are, you know, tourists or people that come to D.C., are they going to be safe? And during this hearing, it was acknowledged by the U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger, that that stepped up criminal activity has actually caused his officers to have to push out several blocks away from the Capitol to help Metropolitan Police here in DC to deal with these issues. And while crime overall in D.C. has gone down, there are areas around Capitol Hill including robberies and stolen cars are continuing to uptick. So, a lot of concern about that around here. Now, on the other side, Chief Manger did point out that in the Capitol complex itself, the crime rate is very, very low and it is obviously very, very well protected. But keep in mind, there are thousands of staff members that come in back and forth, not to mention all of the visitors that come to the Capitol in this whole area every day. So, it is a concern that’s got the attention of lawmakers, for sure.

The post Roundup of what just happened in Congress for 2024 first appeared on Federal News Network.

“This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted,” Biden said in a statement. “But it rejects extreme cuts from House Republicans and expands access to child care, invests in cancer research, funds mental health and substance use care, advances American leadership abroad, and provides resources to secure the border. … That’s good news for the American people.”

It took lawmakers six months into the current budget year to get near the finish line on government funding, the process slowed by conservatives who pushed for more policy mandates and steeper spending cuts than a Democratic-led Senate or White House would consider. The impasse required several short-term spending bills to keep agencies funded.

The White House said Biden signed the legislation at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was spending the weekend. It had cleared the Senate by a 74-24 vote shortly after funding had expired for the agencies at midnight.

But the White House had sent out a notice shortly after the deadline announcing that the Office of Management and Budget had ceased shutdown preparations because there was a high degree of confidence that Congress would pass the legislation and the Democratic president would sign it Saturday.

The first package of full-year spending bills, which funded the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and the Interior, among others, cleared Congress two weeks ago with just hours to spare before funding expired for those agencies. The second covered the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State, as well as other aspects of general government.

When combining the two packages, discretionary spending for the budget year will come to about $1.66 trillion. That does not include programs such as Social Security and Medicare, or financing the country’s rising debt.

On Ukraine aid, which Biden and his administration have argued was critical and necessary to help stop Russia’s invasion, the package provided $300 million under the defense spending umbrella. That funding is separate from a large assistance package for Ukraine and Israel that is bogged down on Capitol Hill.

Biden, in his statement, again pressed Congress to pass additional aid.

“The House must pass the bipartisan national security supplemental to advance our national security interests. And Congress must pass the bipartisan border security agreement — the toughest and fairest reforms in decades — to ensure we have the policies and funding needed to secure the border. It’s time to get this done.”

A bipartisan border package collapsed last month when Republicans senators scuttled months of negotiations with Democrats on legislation intended to cut back record numbers of illegal border crossings.

To win over support from Republicans, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pointed to some of the spending increases secured for about 8,000 more detention beds for migrants awaiting their immigration proceedings or removal from the country. That’s about a 24% increase from current levels. Also, GOP leadership highlighted more money to hire about 2,000 Border Patrol agents.

Democrats are boasting of a $1 billion increase for Head Start programs and new child care centers for military families. They also played up a $120 million increase in funding for cancer research and a $100 million increase for Alzheimer’s research.

The spending package largely tracks with an agreement that then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California worked out with the White House in May 2023, which restricted spending for two years and suspended the debt ceiling into January 2025 so the federal government could continue paying its bills.

Prospects for a short-term government shutdown had appeared to grow Friday evening after Republicans and Democrats battled over proposed amendments to the bill. But shortly before midnight, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced a breakthrough.

“It is good for the country that we have reached this bipartisan deal. It wasn’t easy, but tonight our persistence has been worth it,” Schumer said.

The House passed the legislation Friday morning by a vote of 286-134, narrowly gaining the two-thirds majority needed for approval.

The vote tally in the House reflected anger among Republicans over the content of the package and the speed with which it was brought to a vote. Johnson brought the measure to the floor even though a majority of Republicans ended up voting against it. He said afterward that the bill “represents the best achievable outcome in a divided government.”

In sign of the conservative frustration, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., initiated an effort to oust Johnson as the House began the vote but held off on further action until the House returns in two weeks. It’s the same tool that was used last year to remove McCarthy.

The vote breakdown showed 101 Republicans voting for the bill and 112 voting against it. Meanwhile, 185 Democrats voted for the bill and 22 against.

___

Freking and Jalonick reported from Washington. AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.

The post Biden signs $1.2 trillion funding package after Senate’s early-morning passage ended government shutdown threat first appeared on Federal News Network.

The vote was 74-24. It came after funding had expired for the agencies at midnight, but the White House sent out a notice shortly after the deadline announcing the Office of Management and Budget had ceased shutdown preparations because there was a high degree of confidence that Congress would pass the legislation and the president would sign it on Saturday.

“Because obligations of federal funds are incurred and tracked on a daily basis, agencies will not shut down and may continue their normal operations,” the White House statement said.

Prospects for a short-term government shutdown had appeared to grow Friday evening after Republicans and Democrats battled over proposed amendments to the bill. Any successful amendments to the bill would have sent the legislation back to the House, which had already left town for a two-week recess.

But shortly before midnight Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a breakthrough.

“It’s been a very long and difficult day, but we have just reached an agreement to complete the job of funding the government,” Schumer said. “It is good for the country that we have reached this bipartisan deal. It wasn’t easy, but tonight our persistence has been worth it.”

While Congress has already approved money for Veterans Affairs, Interior, Agriculture and other agencies, the bill approved this week is much larger, providing funding for the Defense, Homeland Security and State departments and other aspects of general government.

The House passed the bill Friday morning by a vote of 286-134, narrowly gaining the two-thirds majority needed for approval. More than 70% of the money would go to defense.

The vote tally in the House reflected anger among Republicans over the content of the package and the speed with which it was brought to a vote. House Speaker Mike Johnson brought the measure to the floor even though a majority of Republicans ended up voting against it. He said afterward that the bill “represents the best achievable outcome in a divided government.”

In sign of the conservative frustration, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., initiated an effort to oust Johnson as the House began the vote but held off on further action until the House returns in two weeks. It’s the same tool that was used last year to remove the last Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California.

The vote breakdown showed 101 Republicans voting for the bill and 112 voting against it. Meanwhile, 185 Democrats voted for the bill and 22 against.

Rep. Kay Granger, the Republican chair of the House Appropriations Committee that helped draft the package, stepped down from that role after the vote. She said she would stay on the committee to provide advice and lead as a teacher for colleagues when needed.

Johnson broke up this fiscal year’s spending bills into two parts as House Republicans revolted against what has become an annual practice of asking them to vote for one massive, complex bill called an omnibus with little time to review it or face a shutdown. Johnson viewed that as a breakthrough, saying the two-part process was “an important step in breaking the omnibus muscle memory.”

Still, the latest package was clearly unpopular with most Republicans, who viewed it as containing too few of their policy priorities and as spending too much.

“The bottom line is that this is a complete and utter surrender,” said Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo.

It took lawmakers six months into the current fiscal year to get near the finish line on government funding, the process slowed by conservatives who pushed for more policy mandates and steeper spending cuts than a Democratic-led Senate or White House would consider. The impasse required several short-term, stopgap spending bills to keep agencies funded.

The first package of full-year spending bills, which funded the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and the Interior, among others, cleared Congress two weeks ago with just hours to spare before funding expired for those agencies.

When combining the two packages, discretionary spending for the budget year will come to about $1.66 trillion. That does not include programs such as Social Security and Medicare, or financing the country’s rising debt.

To win over support from Republicans, Johnson touted some of the spending increases secured for about 8,000 more detention beds for migrants awaiting their immigration proceedings or removal from the country. That’s about a 24% increase from current levels. Also, GOP leadership highlighted more money to hire about 2,000 Border Patrol agents.

Democrats, meanwhile, are boasting of a $1 billion increase for Head Start programs and new child care centers for military families. They also played up a $120 million increase in funding for cancer research and a $100 million increase for Alzheimer’s research.

“Make no mistake, we had to work under very difficult top-line numbers and fight off literally hundreds of extreme Republican poison pills from the House, not to mention some unthinkable cuts,” said Sen. Patty Murray, the Democratic chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on that committee, appealed to her GOP colleagues by stating that the bill’s spending on non-defense programs actually decreases even before accounting for inflation. She called the package “conservative” and “carefully drafted.”

“These bills are not big spending bills that are wildly out of scope,” Collins said.

The spending package largely tracks with an agreement that then-Speaker McCarthy worked out with the White House in May 2023, which restricted spending for two years and suspended the debt ceiling into January 2025 so the federal government could continue paying its bills.

Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told lawmakers that last year’s agreement, which became the Fiscal Responsibility Act, will save the federal government about $1 trillion over the coming decade.

___

Associated Press congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro and staff writers Farnoush Amiri and Chris Megerian contributed to this report.

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The Office of Justice Programs is among the biggest grant-making operations in the federal government. Each year, through several program channels, it administers some $5 billion in grants to a variety of organizations, starting with local police departments. For some details,  The Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke to Assistant Attorney General Amy Solomon.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin Let’s begin with just a topical question, then we’ll get into some of the details here. The appropriations for the Justice Department just came in with that first round that Congress got around to passing. So we’re halfway through the fiscal year. Does that make it harder to administer and make $5 billion worth of grants?

Amy Solomon Well, it certainly would be easier if we had a budget in appropriations at the beginning of the year would be helpful for our planning, of course. But we’ve gotten used to administering our grants with budgets that come later in the year. And so we have to make some assumptions. So we put out most of our solicitations, we make some assumptions about funding levels, and we put in asterisks in those solicitations to let folks know that the actual funding levels will, of course, be dependent on appropriations. We have a good number of our solicitations out right now, and we’ll put the rest out over the coming weeks and months.

Tom Temin So a lot of the approval and say so that, yes, this would be a worthy grant you can do ahead of time, even before the money is ready to send them the money.

Amy Solomon Well, we have some predictability about the types of grants that we’re going to award because of our legacy programs, which tend to continue. The amounts may change. So again, we make some assumptions. We start the process because we couldn’t afford to wait until we actually have a budget. But we don’t make the awards, of course, until we have approvals from Congress in our budget in hand.

Tom Temin Yes. You don’t want to prosecute yourself for ante deficiency or something like that if that were to happen.  And you have been in the Justice Department a couple of rounds here. Are you an attorney or are you a grant person, or how do you come to this particular line as assistant attorney general?

Amy Solomon Yeah. Thanks, Tom. So I am not a lawyer. I’m a policy person and I’m a criminal justice person. I’ve been at OJP three times. I was here as a young presidential management intern in the late 90s under Janet Reno, working at the National Institute of Justice. A starry eyed about all that promised in this field. I came back for seven of the eight Obama-Biden years and was the director of policy here at the Office of Justice Programs. And also ran the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, which had 20 federal agencies working together to improve reentry outcomes for people leaving prison in jail. So this is my third time back. I came in spring of ’21. And I am odd, really odd, by the career public servants who have expertise and passion for making our community safe.

Tom Temin All right, so getting to these OJP programs, there are several channels. Give us an overview of the way the whole $5 billion actually gets out there.

Amy Solomon So we have an overarching mission that’s focused on leveraging the resources we have. So that’s grant funding, it’s also technical assistance, it’s research, it’s statistics, it’s guidance, it’s convenings. All the tools that we have in our toolbox, we are trying to get them to communities and jurisdictions to help them keep their communities safe. So our overarching mission here is around advancing public safety, building community trust, and also strengthening the community’s role as co-producer and public safety along with the justice system. So we have six program offices at OJP, at the Office of Justice Programs that are all focused on the gamut of issues from prevention and youth issues to all of the adult sectors, to addressing services for victims of crime. Again, we housed the research arm of the Department of Justice, the National Institute of Justice, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. So through these grantmaking offices is how we make our wards.

Tom Temin You’re almost like an NIH for justice, if you will, all these different ways of getting things out for the particulars. And I wanted to ask you just about police departments, because they have really been in a, let’s say, seesaw, of politics outside of their control, just the way the nation has gone back and forth on certain issues. And so many police departments find themselves under-resourced. They don’t have enough people. What are you hearing in terms of demand signals from that particular sector for grants? What are their concerns these days?

Amy Solomon First, let me say that while we are the largest grant making office at the Department of Justice, we have two sister grantmaking offices, and one is the Cops office that really focuses on bringing resources to more police departments to help them both fill their ranks and do their work in the communities to keep communities safe. So we too have grants and resources focused on helping law enforcement. Their safety, their wellness, their training. And we know that recruitment and retention, for example, is a huge issue for law enforcement across the country. And so we have tried to develop resources and strategies that we hope will be helpful to them during this difficult time. You could see in the president’s budget, there are a lot of resources being proposed to help law enforcement right now.

Tom Temin And with respect to I wanted to ask you also about the victims assistance programs. We’ve covered that over the years. And what are the trends there? What are the priorities that the grants are trying to serve in that particular area?

Amy Solomon One of our central priorities is to expand access to resources, to services and equity, to serve all victims of crime. And one issue, with the Crime Victims Fund, which is a fund that helps provide victim services and compensation to states and then to victims in every state and territory. It is fluctuated over the years, in terms of the amount that has gone into it. So we are really trying to shore that up so that we can provide stable, predictable resources at a significant level for victims of crime. And that’s something that you saw in our ’25 budget request.

Tom Temin And I don’t know quite how to ask this question, but if you look at any given jurisdiction, there is always a balance between criminal justice, law enforcement, the administration of prosecutorial and defense capabilities. This is a tense there’s deliberately tension in the system. Do the grant allocations try to support that kind of balance among competing interests, if you will, for lack of a better word, in the whole criminal justice complex in a given area. Does that change from year to year or how does that all work?

Amy Solomon Simply put, our focus is on getting resources to communities and jurisdictions to help keep them safe. And no matter where you sit in the system, what part of the system you work in, no matter where you sit on the political spectrum, we all care about neighborhoods that where children can play, where people feel safe. And so what we are trying to do is to get resources to the places where they’re needed most, where we’re authorized to do so. And that includes not only all of the law enforcement sectors that you were referencing, but also community based organizations who can work in partnership with law enforcement and justice system actors to help keep their community safe. Just to give one example where we’re really leaning in there, community violence intervention is an effort that the president, the Hill, and certainly the Department of Justice are leaning into. And this is one of those areas where we have resources for the first time, starting a couple of years ago, $100 million a year to invest in communities, to help community groups work with the justice system, actors and law enforcement to focus on the highest risk people in the highest risk neighborhoods to disrupt cycles of violence, use credible messengers to reach people and bring them back into places where they can expand opportunities and keep communities safe. And this is a network, an ecosystem we’re trying to build that we really think will help be a protective factor in communities that are hard hit.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Amy Solomon. She’s assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs. And as you get further and further from governmental organizations and the community organizations and so on, what are the mechanisms you have to make sure that you can oversee the grants properly? That’s kind of the underside of grant making. But nevertheless, we’ve seen some bad outcomes from time to time.

Amy Solomon We have a lot of experience here. And it really starts on the front end with, making the grant decisions. And I will say, from where I sit, I’m so impressed by all of the factors and considerations that go into that process. So when we get grant applications, which are many more than we can find, we are reviewing for basic minimum requirements. Then we’re sending to expert, independent peer reviewers to really grapple with the subject matter expertise to put recommendations into our career staff who are then trying to balance against geographic distribution, strategic priorities and other factors before making these decisions and looking for risk. Looking for risk factors for past performance. And then when grants are made, it comes along with a lot of training, with monitoring, with performance metrics. And our teams who are managing these grants are really working across the board from the beginning of when the grants are made throughout the life cycle of the grant to communicate with the grantees, to do desk reviews, to do site visits on occasion, to look for any risk flags to make sure they’re making progress. And we’re actually trying to provide a lot of proactive tools and technical assistance, because we all want to see the grantees succeed.

Tom Temin And do you have a mechanism for making sure that there’s not duplication? You could find probably areas from Homeland Security grants, for example, that might touch on areas that the OJP is touching on. Maybe not precisely the same, but you also don’t want to have duplicative money going for the same purpose locally.

Amy Solomon That’s right. We do that analysis across the department and the government every year and have an internal report that actually looks for that.

Tom Temin All right. And just a final question. You’ve been around Washington a little bit. And the members of the Hill that you referenced earlier have their different priorities, some of them maybe towards law enforcement, some more towards justice related programs, some more towards victims. Does it all come out in the wash so that the Justice Department averages what it needs to do, in its view, to make sure that all of the priorities get the funding levels they need?

Amy Solomon I hope so. I can tell you that again, in this area, there are many, many areas of bipartisan support and bipartisan agreement about what’s important. And so we are really trying to lean into those so that we can provide resources in the victim services area, reducing gun violence. We’re very supportive in implementing the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was enacted in ’22. There are lots of places where we are coming together, because we know it’s important to the field in our communities.

 

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It’s almost six months late, but the final Congressional agreement to fund the rest of the federal government for 2024 would deliver $825 billion to the Defense Department while also adding a bit of budget flexibility that could help DoD deal with late appropriations and other mid-year surprises in future years.

The process changes stop short of what the department and reform advocates have been asking for, but would grant more authority for the department to move money around within its accounts without getting explicit permission from Congress — so-called “below threshold” reprogrammings. As of now, only $10 million at a time can be internally reprogrammed inside DoD’s procurement, operations and maintenance, R&D and military personnel accounts. The new bill raises those thresholds to $15 million.

It’s the first time in 20 years those thresholds have been meaningfully increased, and they generally haven’t kept pace with inflation — a fact lawmakers recognized in the new bill.

And the current $10 million thresholds are much too small, said Peter Levine, a former undersecretary of Defense who also served on the congressional commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) reform.

“It’s strikingly low level in a budget that’s $800 billion. It may sound like a lot, but it is a very small share of the Defense budget,” he said during the PPBE commission’s formal rollout event for its final report earlier this month, before the spending bill’s passage. “Things change on a daily basis, things change on a monthly basis, new threats emerge, we have new technological opportunities, and we need to be able to respond faster. We can spend so much time fighting over the little things that we lose the big picture. We just need to be able to give the department flexibility to deal with those little things so that we can focus on the big picture and get the big picture right.”

Among 27 other recommendations, the commission’s final report recommended even higher reprogramming thresholds: $25 million worth of flexibility inside DoD’s Research, Development, Test and Evaluation accounts; $40 million for procurement; $30 million for operations and maintenance; and $15 million for military personnel.

Lawmakers decline other proposals for budget flexibility

Congress wasn’t willing to go that high, nor was it ready to push ahead with many other recommendations for budget flexibility — at least not this year. In a report accompanying the new bill, lawmakers directed DoD not to make any other changes to the structure of its annual budget proposals to Congress.

Similarly, for the second year in a row, appropriators included language blocking DoD from starting any new programs under its Software and Digital Technology Pilot Program. That’s an initiative designed to reform the way the department pays for software-intensive programs by letting it fund them from a single appropriations category, or color of money, rather than having to determine whether it can legally use procurement, R&D or operation and maintenance funding. DoD did not propose any new “colorless” pilot programs in its 2024 or 2025 budgets.

The PPBE commission recommended expanding the approach to include all software programs, but also suggested taking the general concept even further: funding even larger non-software systems with a single appropriation type.

“When it comes to colors of money, we’re talking about placing the funding in the predominant activity,”  said Lara Sayer, the commission’s executive director. “If you have an aircraft program, do you really want to have to split up [operations and maintenance] and sustainment and then production funding? If it’s an aircraft program, I want to use my aircraft procurement budget to do my software development, production, sustainment, for the entire platform.”

In their report, Congressional appropriators signaled an openness to implementing some of the commission’s recommendations, but said those decisions would require consultation with DoD and industry, and that lawmakers want to see quantitative data to back up any proposed changes. They also noted that the strict oversight measures that are currently in place were prompted by DoD’s past missteps with cost growth and financial mismanagement.

Adding flexibility while maintaining oversight

Susan Davis, a former California Congresswoman who also served on the commission, said maintaining a trust relationship between DoD and Congress is critical, but the commission thinks it’s found ways to add flexibility to the budget process while still maintaining congressional oversight.

“First, we encourage improved in-person communication between the DoD and Congress. That sounds pretty simple, but the reality is that it doesn’t always happen, and we think it could be transformative,” she said. “We recommend the DoD, the services, and DoD components establish a process that engages with the appropriate congressional committees on a more frequent basis to improve communication, and share relevant information with Congress. And DoD should work with Congress to establish common formats for its budget justification books. There should be consistent language and appropriate depth of budgetary and programmatic content. And we recommend that the DoD establish classified and unclassified searchable repositories so both branches can be engaged and sharing information together. Overall, we think Congress will be willing to grant the DoD more flexibility if the DoD improves their transparency and communications with Congress.”

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The fiscal 2024 homeland security appropriations measure includes $1.1 billion to continue the pay increases at TSA that began last July. Those raises brought TSA salaries in line with the rest of the federal government. The agency is already reporting drastically reduced attrition rates as a result of the pay bump.

Some Republican lawmakers had advanced legislation to reverse the higher pay rates for some non-Transportation Security Officer employees. The issue was reportedly among the areas of contention this week as appropriators raced to reach an agreement on the homeland security spending bill.

But the final bill ultimately continues the new pay rates, at least through the end of this fiscal year. In a statement, American Federation for Government Employees President Everett Kelley applauded the provision for TSA pay.

“We are very happy that Congress is providing the Transportation Security Administration with the funding it needs to competitively pay its workers and address recruiting and retention challenges that affect everyone who travels by air,” Kelley said.

However, the funding of TSA pay, separate from other federal employees, through the appropriations process means the issue will continue to be subject to the often-protracted annual battle in Congress over spending.

Meanwhile, TSA recently reached a landmark, seven-year collective bargaining agreement with AFGE. The union ratified the contract last week. TSA leadership is reviewing the final details before signing off.

Border Patrol hiring

With border issues taking center stage in the debate over the spending bill, the agreement ultimately provided $496 million to swell the Border Patrol’s ranks to 22,000 agents. It also includes $125 million for Border Patrol overtime pay.

Customs and Border Protection is currently recruiting Border Patrol agents at the GS-11 level. The agency is offering a $20,000 recruitment incentive for agents who successfully complete the academy and another $10,000 to those who complete three years at a “hard-to-fill” location.

The spending bill also includes $20 million to hire an additional 150 CBP officers to support counter fentanyl efforts.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is forecasting additional hiring increases for CBP and TSA in fiscal 2025 budget plans.

The homeland security package also includes $11.5 million for CBP’s suicide prevention and wellness efforts, as well as “employee onsite clinicians and child back-up care,” according to a summary of the legislation.

CISA funding cut

For the first time in years, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will see a slight cut to its annual budget. The bill allocates $2.873 billion for CISA in fiscal 2024, about $34 million below the fiscal 2023 levels and $183.3 million below the Biden administration’s budget request.

Compared to last year, CISA will receive about $47 million less for the Joint Collaborative Environment program and $66 million less for the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program. At the same time, CISA will see a new funding line of $145 million for its Cyber Analytics and Data System effort.

CISA’s Chemical Security program also received a $15 million year-over-year cut in the bill. Lawmakers have yet to reauthorize the agency’s key chemical security inspections program.

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Congress is looking for details on federal telework as part of the latest government spending agreement — echoing months of return-to-office scrutiny from the House Oversight and Accountability committee.

Among its many provisions, the agreement congressional appropriators reached Thursday for the back half of fiscal 2024 government spending bills lays out six new requirements on federal telework and return-to-office for federal employees.

Within 90 days of the legislation’s enactment, the Office of Management and Budget will have to turn over all agencies’ return-to-office “action plans” outlined earlier this year, lawmakers said in an explanatory statement for the 2024 Financial Services and General Government bill.

The action plans, initially required as part of an OMB memo last April, detail agencies’ federal telework and in-office requirements, as well as measurements for workforce factors like productivity and employee engagement.

Now almost a year after OMB’s initial call for agencies to begin returning staff to the office at least 50% of the time, the White House has continued to press agencies who appear to be falling behind on the requirements.

As part of the appropriations package, agencies will also have to provide information on the average number and percentage of employees working in the office during a typical two-week pay period; their most recent policy on federal telework — including any agreements with unions; and how they measure productivity for teleworking employees.

In reaction to the new reporting requirements, the American Federation of Government Employees called on Congress to embrace federal telework and remote work as an important flexibility, which the union said improves morale, productivity, recruitment and retention.

“Language attempting to tie the hands of the administration when it comes to determining the correct balance of in-person and remote work at each of our federal workplaces is particularly frustrating,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

The National Treasury Employees Union, however, approached the provision and upcoming requirements for further information with a more hopeful mindset.

“We support a data-driven, fair analysis of the telework programs now in place for eligible federal employees across government,” NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald said in a statement. “NTEU is confident that Congress will ultimately agree that telework is a benefit to federal employees, their agencies and the taxpayers they serve, and reject arbitrary caps and other measures that inhibit this proven workplace practice.”

Reporting requirements on federal office space

In the spending agreement, lawmakers are also setting requirements for agencies to provide more information to Congress about federal office space. The federal footprint has been steadily declining, but agencies still holding onto excess and underutilized office space is a main reason the Government Accountability Office has kept federal real property management on its High-Risk List for over 20 years.

Agencies that have an office space utilization rate of less than 60% will have to submit to Congress a description of their current efforts to reduce their physical footprint. Agencies will also have to detail the total office space costs, the average utilization rate and the estimated cost of underutilized space, the lawmakers said.

The federal telework and office space reporting requirements come after nearly a year of the Oversight committee calling for more information and better data on telework, remote work and in-office requirements, as well as impacts on productivity and services to the public.

Staff for Oversight committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) did not immediately respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment.

At the same time, the Office of Personnel Management has said telework supports federal recruitment and retention, and offers agencies opportunities for cost savings, according to OPM’s latest telework report to Congress.

The new requirements also aren’t limited to civilian agencies. The Defense Department 2024 spending bill directs GAO to submit a report on telework to the congressional defense committees within 180 days of the bill’s passage, lawmakers said. That report should detail DoD’s adherence to telework and remote work policies, as well as details on the number of DoD employees who telework.

Lawmakers said the report will also have to weigh the cost and efficacy of telework and how it compares with in-person work, especially considering impacts on training and development of employees, and organizational cohesion.

DoD recently updated its telework policy for the first time since 2012, creating a more flexible policy that now addresses both telework and remote work.

As the 2024 spending agreement nears the finish line, the Biden administration is also already looking ahead to funding levels for 2025. Part of the administration’s plans for the coming fiscal year outline further studies on federal telework and the government’s hybrid work posture.

“OPM is conducting and disseminating three research studies on the future of work, assessing the effect of telework, remote work and hybrid work on hiring, engagement and retention, as well as a project to improve accessibility of organizational health and organizational performance data for agency leaders through toolkits and dashboards,” OMB said in a 2025 budget request document.

Bureau of Prisons, other federal pay reforms

At the top line, the Financial Services and General Government bill provides $13.7 billion in appropriations, which is $1.1 billion, or 4%, below enacted 2023 funding levels — and $5.7 billion below the White House’s 2025 budget request.

The package gives OPM about $412 million for salaries and expenses, and another $36 million for OPM’s inspector general office. That’s 12% below the Biden administration’s request of $465.8 million in discretionary spending for OPM in 2025.

The spending agreement also aims to address major staffing challenges at the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Congress is calling on OPM to work with BOP and consider possibilities for reforming or modifying the General Schedule to address pay rates for federal correctional officers, who currently have a 40% staffing shortage nationwide.

Lawmakers are also telling OPM to create a direct hire authority for all BOP facilities, and report back to the appropriations committees on the efforts within 90 days of the legislation’s enactment.

Earlier in March, Congress agreed to the overall budget for BOP in its first spending minibus. While staffing levels and salaries for BOP remained the same, the agency’s facilities maintenance budget decreased by 38%, putting the agency $110 million below the 2023 enacted level.

“While we wish more funds were included to address staffing and safety issues across the Bureau of Prisons, we are pleased that Congress directed the administration to research ways to improve pay for correctional officers and staff,” AFGE’s Kelley said.

A couple long-standing provisions for federal pay will also remain intact under the new funding agreement. For one, prevailing rate employees paid through the Federal Wage System will continue to see limits on their pay raises, ensuring they don’t exceed the raises for feds on the General Schedule.

A pay freeze will also remain in effect for the vice president, ambassadors at large, non-career members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and other senior political appointees positioned at or above level IV of the Executive Schedule.

Despite significant cuts for some agencies and federal programs, the White House is urging a quick passage of the appropriations package, according to a statement of Administration Policy from OMB.

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Democrats were able to swat back scores of policy mandates and some of the steeper budget cuts that House Republicans were seeking to impose on nondefense programs, though House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., highlighted some wins, including a nearly 24% increase in detention beds for migrants awaiting their immigration proceedings or removal from the country.

This year’s spending bills were divided into two packages. The first one cleared Congress two weeks ago, just hours before a shutdown deadline for the agencies funded through the bills.

Now Congress is focused on the second, larger package, which includes about $886 billion for the Defense Department, a more than 3% increase from last year’s levels. The 1,012-page bill also funds the departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Labor, and others.

“Congress must now race to pass this package before government funding runs out this Friday,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Nondefense spending will be relatively flat compared with the prior year, though some agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, are taking a hit, and many agencies will not see their budgets keep up with inflation.

When combining the two packages, discretionary spending for the budget year will come to about $1.66 trillion. That does not include programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and financing the country’s rising debt.

The House is expected to take the measure up first on Friday. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., urged Republicans to vote for the measure, noting that more than 70% of the spending goes to defense.

“At at time when the world’s on fire, more than ever, we need to make sure that we are properly funding our nation’s defense and supporting our troops,” Scalise said.

Then it would move to the Senate where senators would have to agree on taking it up expeditiously to avoid a partial shutdown. Usually, such agreements include votes on proposed amendments to the bill.

Johnson described the bill as a serious commitment to strengthening national defense while expanding support for those serving in the military. The bill provides for a 5.2% pay increase for service members.

In promoting the bill, Republicans cited several ways it would help Israel. Most notably, they highlighted a prohibition on funding through March 2025 for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which is the main supplier of food, water and shelter to civilians in Gaza.

Republicans are insisting on cutting off funding to the agency after Israel alleged that a dozen employees of the agency were involved in the attack that Hamas conducted in Israel on Oct. 7.

But the prohibition does concern some lawmakers because many relief agencies say there is no way to replace its ability to deliver the humanitarian assistance that the United States and others are trying to send to Gaza, where one-quarter of the 2.3 million residents are starving.

Democrats emphasized that humanitarian assistance will increase globally though, by about $336.4 million.

Sen. Patty Murray, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also highlighted a $1 billion increase for Head Start programs and new child care centers for military families. Democrats also played up a $120 million increase in funding for cancer research and a $100 million increase for Alzheimer’s research.

“We defeated outlandish cuts that would have been a gut punch for American families and our economy,” said Murray, D-Wash.

She also said Democrats successfully fought off numerous policy measures, known as riders, that House Republicans were seeking to add.

“From Day 1 of this process, I said there would be no extreme, far-right riders to restrict women’s reproductive freedoms — and there aren’t, she said.

Among the policy provisions that House Republicans did secure was a requirement that only allows for the American flag and “other official flags” to fly over U.S. diplomatic facilities. Under the Biden administration, U.S. embassies have been invited to fly the pride flag or light up with rainbow colors in support of the LGBTQ community.

There is also a provision that prevents the Consumer Product Safety Commission from banning gas stoves. But the White House has said President Joe Biden would not support a ban, and the commission, an independent agency, says no such ban was in the works.

The spending in the bill largely tracks with an agreement that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy worked out with the White House in May 2023, which restricted spending for two years and suspended the debt ceiling into January 2025 so the federal government could continue paying its bills.

Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told lawmakers Thursday that last year’s agreement, which became the Fiscal Responsibility Act, will save taxpayers about $1 trillion over the coming decade.

McCarthy, R-Calif., was ousted from the speaker’s role a few months after securing the debt ceiling deal. Eight Republicans ended up joining with Democrats in removing McCarthy as speaker. And some of those unhappy with that deal also expressed misgivings about the latest package.

“I hope there will be some modest wins. Unfortunately, I don’t expect that we will get much in the way of significant policy wins based on past history and based on our unwillingness to use any kind of leverage to force policy wins, meaning a willingness to walk away and say no,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va.

Work on the spending bills has been more bipartisan in the Senate. Murray issued a joint statement after the bill’s release with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, urging colleagues to vote for it.

“There is zero need for a shutdown or chaos — and members of Congress should waste no time in passing these six bills, which will greatly benefit every state in America and reflect important priorities of many senators,” Murray and Collins said.

Johnson said that after the spending package passes, the House would next turn its attention to a bill that focuses on aiding Ukraine and Israel, though lawmakers are scheduled to be away from Washington for the next two weeks. The Senate has already approved a $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, but Johnson has declined to bring that up for a vote.

The post Congress unveils $1.2 trillion plan to avert government shutdown and bring budget fight to a close first appeared on Federal News Network.

Lawmakers, in the second and final round of government spending bills for the rest of fiscal 2024, plan to cut $20 billion in funds the IRS got in the Inflation Reduction Act to rebuild its workforce and modernize its legacy IT. The agency still has roughly $60 billion to meet its modernization goals.

The Biden administration agreed to these IRS cuts, as part of a deal with congressional Republicans last year to raise the debt ceiling and avoid an unprecedented default on the federal government’s debts.

Rather than spread the cuts to IRS modernization funds, as lawmakers originally agreed to, the 2024 spending bill includes the full $20 billion reduction.

Despite approving this deal, the Biden administration is asking Congress to reverse the $20 billion cut to IRS funding, as part of its 2025 budget request.

Congress plans to keep the IRS at current funding levels for the rest of the year with a $12.3 billion annual budget for its day-to-day operations. The Biden administration also proposed keeping the IRS annual budget flat in its 2025 spending proposal.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in a press release Thursday that the spending deal gives the IRS the funding it needs to keep improving customer service, replace outdated computer systems and crack down on tax cheats.

“This bipartisan legislation invests in these critical priorities for our nation and more,” Van Hollen said.

The IRS has used its Inflation Reduction Act funding to grow its workforce to 90,000 employees for the first time in a decade.

Reuters recently reported the agency plans on reaching a 100,000-employee workforce within the next three years.

Lawmakers in the 2024 spending deal are directing the IRS to prioritize hiring that’ll provide “sufficient and effective 1–800 helpline service for taxpayers.”

“The [IRS] Commissioner shall continue to make improvements to the Internal Revenue Service 1–800 help line service a priority and allocate resources necessary to enhance the response time to taxpayer communications, particularly with regard to victims of tax-related crimes,” the spending bill states.

The legislation also gives the Treasury Department direct hire authority to fill positions to process backlogged tax returns and correspondence.

The spending bill, however, bars the IRS from using its funding “to make a payment to any employee under a bonus, award, or recognition program,” or rehire former IRS employees who are delinquent on their tax obligations.

Congress is also requiring IRS to maintain an employee training program that covers “taxpayers’ rights, dealing courteously with taxpayers, cross-cultural relations, ethics, and the impartial application of tax law.”

The spending bill requires the IRS to give the House and Senate appropriations committees and the Government Accountability Office quarterly updates on its major information technology investments.

Congress wary on USPS network changes,  seeks updates on mail theft

Congress is also prohibiting the mostly self-funded Postal Service from closing or consolidating small or rural post offices as part of its ongoing network modernization plans.

Lawmakers are sending a cautionary message to USPS in the appropriations bill, as the agency continues a major shakeup of its delivery network.

That shakeup includes USPS opening more Sorting & Delivery Centers across the country later this year. S&DCs are large facilities that consolidate the operations of letter carriers and mail handlers under one roof.

USPS already stated last year that plans to modernize its mail processing and delivery facilities won’t result in layoffs or post office closures.

As part of a 10-year reform plan, USPS is spending $40 billion to upgrade and improve its processing, transportation and delivery networks.

“As the USPS makes these investments, it should consider the needs of its employees and customers, as well as its commitment to provide prompt and reliable postal services to the nation,” lawmakers wrote.

The spending bill gives USPS $50 million to meet its legal obligation to deliver certain mailed materials for free to people who are blind or visually impaired.

Congress in the spending deal also “expresses concern about mail theft and the “adverse impact it is having on postal customers, including extended disruptions of regular service and theft of personally identifiable information.”

The spending bill gives USPS 60 days to brief lawmakers on actions taken to combat a rise in mail theft, as well as efforts to prevent mail theft.

The Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), in its latest annual report to Congress, said it made 1,258 mail-theft arrests in fiscal 2022, and that 1,188 of those cases resulted in convictions

USPIS has seen a 49% decrease in mail theft arrests between 2018 and 2022, and a 43% decrease in mail theft convictions over the same period.

House lawmakers recently introduced the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, which would give USPS $1.4 billion annually from fiscal 2025 through 2029 to install more high-security blue collection boxes, and replace the universal mail key, also known as an “arrow key,” with electronic versions.

The bipartisan bill would also impose stiffer penalties on individuals convicted of robbing or assaulting letter carriers. The bill has the support of all postal unions.

More funding for new FBI headquarters

Lawmakers are also putting more funding behind the Biden administration’s plans to build a new, suburban headquarters for the FBI in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The General Services Administration selected Greenbelt from a list of three final sites last November, but agency watchdogs are reviewing the decision, at the urging of Virginia lawmakers and FBI Director Chris Wray.

The Biden administration expects the FBI headquarters in Greenbelt will accommodate at least 7,500 FBI employees.

GSA and the FBI are looking for a federally owned site in D.C. to accommodate an additional 750-1,000 FBI personnel who would support day-to-day FBI engagement with the Justice Department, Congress and the White House.

Congress already gave $645 million in prior year appropriations to support the construction of a new, suburban FBI headquarters.

The Biden administration, in its 2025 budget request, is asking for $3.5 billion to complete funding for the new FBI headquarters.

As part of its request, the White House proposes setting up a Federal Capital Revolving Fund.

Under this proposal, Congress would appropriate the total amount of money needed for the project upfront. GSA would then repay the revolving fund, over the course of 15 years, by taking out about $233 million each year from the Federal Buildings Fund.

The White House says the FBI’s current headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover building in downtown D.C., “can no longer support the long-term mission of the FBI.”

“Major building systems are near end-of-life and structural issues continue to mount, making the current building unsustainable,” the 2025 budget proposal states.

Data analytics for pandemic watchdogs

The spending bill also gives the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee $2.85 million to “further develop” its data analytics capabilities. Of that funding, $850,000 would go to improvements for Oversight.gov.

The PRAC, an intergovernmental council of agency inspectors general, is looking for a permanent home for the data analytics tools it created to root out fraud in COVID-19 emergency spending, before it disbands in September 2025.

Current and former agency watchdogs lamented the loss of data analytics tools created by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, a predecessor group of IGs that oversaw stimulus spending following the 2008 Great Recession. The board never received funding from Congress to transfer its data analytics capabilities to another agency, before it disbanded in 2015.

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The Senate got its pound of flesh from the Technology Modernization Fund after all.

Despite the efforts by industry and the Office of Management and Budget over the last six plus months to change the committee’s mind, Senate appropriators rescinded $100 million from the TMF for fiscal 2024.

Senate lawmakers released the remaining 2024 appropriations bill today that detailed the decisions to reduce funding for centralized IT modernization accounts across the board.

The TMF is taking a double hit as the Senate also zeroed out any new funding for this year, possibly leaving the IT modernization effort in a tough spot from a funding perspective.

“The draconian zeroing out and rescinding of these vital funds will only jeopardize the health and safety of veterans, first responders and families that rely on government services every day. We have got to stop treating government IT as a luxury,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), ranking member of the Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on cybersecurity, IT and government innovation, in a statement to Federal News Network. “The TMF is not a slush fund to be raided when budget negotiations get tough. It is a vital part of the federal government’s technology infrastructure and it plays an indispensable role in ensuring government agencies are functioning at their best on behalf of the American people we serve. I am deeply disappointed in the decision to slash this funding, but I will not stop fighting until our government has the resources it needs to keep up with 21st Century technological demands.”

On the bright side, however, the Senate only rescinded $100 million instead of the $290 million it initially wanted to pull back from the $1 billion  the TMF received under the American Rescue Plan Act.

It’s unclear how much of the $1 billion the TMF received from the American Rescue Plan Act remains. President Joe Biden’s fiscal 2025 budget request shows about $790 million left in the TMF that is unobligated for 2024, but that also includes money awarded to agencies, but not yet sent out the door.

“The rescission, although less than what was in the Senate bill, is disappointing and damages the U.S. government’s ability to strengthen its cybersecurity and modernize its IT systems,” said a spokesman for Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), in an email to Federal News Network. “Sen. Moran will continue to be a leader for this program and work to ensure that this program is funded next year to get our agencies back on track.”

An email to OMB seeking comment was not immediately returned.

TMF cuts are ‘pound foolish’

Since Congress created the TMF in the Modernizing Government Technology Act in 2018, the board has received $1.2 billion in funding from Congress and handed out $800 million to 51 investments across 29 agencies. The board says 40 of those investments are from ARP funding, but it didn’t say how much money it spent from that $1 billion investment.

The Biden administration requested $200 million for the TMF in its 2024 budget request. The TMF board received $50 million in 2023 from Congress. For fiscal 2025, the White House is asking for $75 million for the TMF.

Kevin Cummins, the former staff member lead in the Senate on the MGT Act, which authorized and advocated for funding the TMF through the ARPA, and now a partner with the Franklin Square Group, said the Senate’s decision is a pennywise and a pound foolish.

“Even worse than the dollar amount is the loss of Congressional support for the TMF this rescission represents. The idea for the TMF was proposed by President [Barack] Obama, implemented by President [Donald] Trump, and finally given a major funding infusion under President Biden. The TMF has always been supposed to be more than just an alternative funding mechanism. It is a better way to fund IT initiatives in the modern, cloud computing era,” Cummins said. “As a working capital fund, the TMF allows agencies to invest in IT and software upgrades more flexibly and closer to the way private companies undertake IT modernization, rather than the increasingly uncertain annual appropriations process.”

OMB recently updated the repayment expectations for agencies receiving TMF money, in part because of pressure from lawmakers, who have been unhappy with the administration’s decision in 2022 to change the repayment requirements.

TMF repayment options changed

An OMB spokesperson said in February that the updated TMF repayment policy will apply to all proposals submitted on and after Feb. 6.

“This policy will establish a consistent repayment floor of 50%, enabling the fund to invest in critical IT and cybersecurity modernization for years to come. Under rare exceptions, the GSA Administrator and OMB Director can approve a repayment rate lower than 50%,” the spokesperson said. “As the TMF Board allocates the last of the ARP funding, we are looking to the future of the TMF in a post-ARP setting – balancing congressional intent and agency flexibility to deliver the most impact for the American people.”

Julie Dunne, a former House Oversight and Accountability staff member and now a principal with the Monument Advocacy leading the federal procurement team, said given outside forces pushing on the budget, it’s not surprising the lawmakers ended up pulling the money back.

“In 2023, we had a $1.5 trillion deficit so it’s not surprising that appropriators went looking for recessions from the 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP). There is no doubt that the need for IT modernization in the federal government ecosystem remains and transitioning away from legacy IT was part of the original vision when I worked on the Modernizing Government Technology Act, which established the TMF,” she said. “I think the adjustment of TMF repayment terms after receiving the $1 billion under the ARP was a mistake and based on the 2024 outcome it appears that there may have been a failure of advocacy to make the case on the importance of the TMF and the success stories.”

To some experts, the rescission also signals the continued struggle of OMB to explain to Congress the true impact of TMF.

Mike Hettinger, a former House staff member and now president of Hettinger Strategy Group, said the Senate’s decision is not surprising.

“What this tells me is that congress still needs more proof from GSA that the projects funded by TMF are having the desired impact, despite progress from the TMF PMO in recent months on this front,” he said. “The TMF remains a vital tool in the IT modernization funding toolbox and everyone involved needs to continue to work to get it right. There’s clearly more work to be done.”

Other IT funds also cut

In addition to the TMF, Senate appropriators also rescinded $10 million from the U.S. Digital Service through the IT Oversight and Reform (ITOR) fund and reduced the Federal Citizen Services Fund, run by the General Services Administration, to $75 million in 2024 from $90 million in 2023.

The bill, however, includes $8 million for the ITOR fund in 2024, which is $6 million less than the administration requested and $6 million less than what Congress appropriated in 2023.

Lawmakers also are adding additional oversight to the citizen services fund. The bill includes a provision requiring GSA to “submit a spending plan and explanation for each project to be undertaken to the committees on appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of this act.”

“On the cuts to the Federal Citizen Services Fund, it’s a similar story,” Hettinger said. “Again, this tells me Congress is not yet fully bought in on how these funds are being used.”

One positive outcome of the 2024 spending bill came for the Treasury Department. After asking for permission to set up an IT working capital fund under the MGT Act authority, Congress granted the request.

The bill lets Treasury keep up to 5% of any unobligated appropriation for IT modernization efforts. Treasury’s discretionary budget for 2024 is $287.5 million for salaries and expenses.

Now there are three agencies with specific IT working capital funds authorized under the MGT Act. Treasury joins the Small Business Administration and the Office of Personnel Management in gaining this authority.

Additionally, GSA received $4 million for federal rulemaking modernization from its working capital fund.

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• Union officials are urging Congress to provide more funding to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. BOP has spent years struggling with staff attrition, and safety and security issues. The American Federation of Government Employees said the fiscal 2024 budget for BOP, as part of the recent government funding deal, would only worsen the agency's current 40% staffing shortage. And AFGE warned that a 38% cut to funding for facility maintenance would make federal prisons more dangerous environments for both employees and inmates.
  (BOP needs more funding, not Less, to address security issues - American Federation of Government Employees)
• U.S. spy agencies are doubling down on efforts to harness open source intelligence. Intelligence agencies will explore new partnerships and reimagine relationships with industry to take better advantage of open source data. That is according to the intelligence community’s first-ever OSINT strategy released earlier this month. The effort is led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency. The strategy said intelligence agencies will coordinate their open source data collection and expand their data sharing.
  (The IC OSINT strategy 2024-2026 - CIA)
• The Postal Service’s rate hikes on mail are driving away more customers than expected, according to a new report. USPS raised mail prices five times since 2020. That is when its regulator granted new pricing flexibility. USPS last raised mail prices in January, bringing the price of a first class stamp up to 68 cents. It may soon ask that regulator for a sixth price increase. But an industry study found that USPS saw a drop in mail revenue last year that was about $2 billion greater than expected. USPS recently told Congress that mail volume fell by more than 40% between 2007 and 2020 and that this trend will continue.
  (USPS mail price hikes driving away more customers than predicted, study finds - Federal News Network)
• How can agencies chip away at the monumental task of reforming human capital? A group of workforce experts has a few ideas. Agencies should target areas like recruitment of early-career talent and veterans. They can also look into strategies for reskilling employees in cyber and rehiring retired feds. Those are a few recommendations from a recent report on civil service reform from non-partisan organization Convergence. The report offers a blueprint using ideas and lessons learned from some agencies that have already been successful. In some cases, agencies can consider restarting pilot programs that were first launched several years ago.
  (Workforce cohort outlines specific ‘blueprint’ for civil service reform - Federal News Network)
• The Army is bringing back its AI competition. The latest contest is an opportunity for small businesses to share their disruptive AI technologies with the Defense Department. The contest is centered on Project Linchpin, the Army’s effort to create a pipeline of artificial intelligence. Participants will also have an opportunity to submit proposals for a Phase I or Direct to Phase II Army Small Business Innovation Research contract. White papers are due by May 17. Finalists will conduct an in-person demonstration of their solution at the 2024 AUSA annual meeting in October.
  (xTechScalable AI 2 offers cash prizes - xTech)
• In an effort to recruit and retain more service women, the Navy is standing up a women’s initiative team that will identify and tackle potential barriers women face across the service. The Office of Women’s Policy will oversee the team, which will report to the Office of Navy Culture and Force Resilience and to the deputy chief of Naval Operations for personnel, manpower and training. Communities and commands will designate officer and enlisted leads. Both men and women can hold leadership roles and participate in the women’s initiative team efforts.
  (Navy stands up women’s initiative team - U.S. Navy)
• A free online tax preparation tool run by the IRS is gaining momentum. The Treasury Department said more than 50,000 taxpayers have started or filed a tax return using the IRS’ Direct File platform. Taxpayers living in 12 states are eligible to use the platform to file their federal tax returns this year. The IRS is testing out Direct File this year in order to decide whether it should offer the platform in more states. The pilot program was launched using funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.
  (Join the IRS Direct File pilot - IRS Direct File )
• There is a new governmentwide website for sharing software security forms. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s repository for software attestation and artifacts went live this week. Federal software vendors can use the website to upload their software attestation forms and other documents. CISA finalized the attestation form earlier this month. Agencies will need to collect the form for all third-party software they use within the next six months.
  (CISA publishes repository for software attestation and artifacts - Federal News Network)

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The Congressional Budget Office recently advised Congress that unless full-year appropriations for 2024 get enacted by April 30, the White House might be obligated to initiate sequestration. You know, those “limits” on spending. But the shutdown deadline for six big agencies occurs this Friday. To find out how contractors are preparing, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with Stephanie Kostro, the Executive Vice President for Policy at the Professional Services Council.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  Why April 30th when appropriations could run out this Friday at midnight?

Stephanie Kostro It’s a great question. The Congressional Budget Office responds to requests from members of Congress regarding budget implications of legislation that has either been passed or is that under consideration? And they put together this memo back in January. They too then talked about April 30th and unpacking that a little bit. If you go back to the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which helped us avert, you know, avoid a debt ceiling issue, it also set caps for FY 24 and FY 25 funding. What it also did was say that if you don’t have the full year appropriations bills, and there are 12 of them passed by April 30th, you will trigger sequestration of 1%. Now that is a significant amount for some agencies. For example, the Department of Defense. And so, everyone is looking at April 30th as the hey, we’ve got to get out of this continuing resolution do loop and into full year appropriations so that we can avoid that. What the March 13th CBO memo did was lay out the different scenarios of what happens if we are under a continuing resolution versus what happens if we are under full year appropriations. And that’s what makes it interesting.

Tom Temin I means there’s a little bit more pressure on Congress if they care. I mean, some members of Congress would like the 1% sequestration to occur. Will that pressure them to do something this week? We thought it would be passed last week. The remaining six departmental bills.

Stephanie Kostro Well, Tom, you will remember that we entered 2024 under a Laddered C.R., which is to say, some of the four of the appropriations bills under a CR were going to expire earlier than the remaining eight. What Congress did earlier this month was passed what we were jokingly calling a half-bus. You know, we’ve got omnibuses which cover everything. Cromni-buses is where some of them are under CR and some of them are under regular appropriations. This half-bus actually passed six of the 12 full year appropriations bills. But in many cases, these were the low hanging fruit. This was Veterans Affairs, Transportation, HUD, interior. Ag(riculture) was a little bit, controversial only because there was an increase in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. But that half-bus was relatively non-controversial. The remaining six are more controversial. It’s Department of Defense, it’s Department, Homeland Security and border security, etc.. And so, we’re looking to have those bills passed by the March 22nd deadline, which of course is later this week. What happens under the Fiscal Responsibility Act. And I’m just going to call it the FRA. What happens under the FRA if you are under a continuing resolution until April 30th, it will require sequestration for Defense, about 1%. The non-defense agencies are underspending here and in fiscal year 24, and their CR funding is actually below the level set, by the FRA. So, under sequestration, Defense does take quite a big hit. And so, we’ve got lots of people in industry, particularly the defense industry, going, hey, how can we prepare? What can we do? How can we talk to Congress about the importance of getting this done? There are also, of course, any time a CR runs out under the looming threat of a shutdown. And we were also talking to member companies about that.

Tom Temin And we’re speaking with Stephanie Kostro, executive vice president for policy at the Professional Services Council. Probably you would need to point out to your members that 1% across the board or whatever. That doesn’t mean the department is going to make a 1% cut on every line item. For example, they’ve got pay increases coming next year, they’ve got fuel and rent and things. So therefore, there’s not a lot of places they can necessarily cut evenly. So, it might fall disproportionately on contracting dollars in some cases.

Stephanie Kostro That’s exactly right. You know when they talked about sequestration just generally it is about a salami slice across the board. Everybody gets cut the same amount. But we know historically that they do try to protect military personnel pay and benefits, etc.. So, it is contractors who bear the brunt of sequestration. We learned that more than ten years ago when we underwent this, a similar situation. And as we look forward, you know, we are encouraging our contractors who are members of PFC and even those who aren’t, to go ahead and start talking to their contracting officers. One statement I made earlier in our discussion here, Tom, is some of these FRA, I guess hooks are already being felt in the Department of Defense, and we saw that in what they submitted for their FY 25 budget request just again earlier this month. That budget request is a straight line for things like artificial intelligence. A high priority for the Department of Defense. But they are not increasing funding because they don’t want to, quote unquote, bust the caps that are set by the FRA. And so, we are seeing real world translations of the FRA into what the Department of Defense is submitting. Another area is space. They are not necessarily increasing to the extent they want to because of the downward pressure from the legislation that was passed last year.

Tom Temin And they’re also slowing down or spreading out acquisitions of major platforms like submarines and ships in the request for 2025. The result being flow down of the slowdown to the thousands and thousands of subcontractors.

Stephanie Kostro That’s true as well, Tom. You know, we’ve heard from senior defense officials in the last few weeks about how they would like us as industry to invest in things like shipyards. But unfortunately, when you spread out the funding for these major platforms, there’s not a financial incentive to actually invest in shipyards and keep them running until those large platforms come through or large ship classes come through. We are talking with Department of Defense officials about what it means to spread things out that way, what it means for investments that companies are willing to make because they think there is a large probability that either things are going to fulfill themselves the way the department wants them to, or something can get sidetracked in the in the coming years. And so, we are working very closely with our member companies about how to talk to department about that.

Tom Temin Yeah, there’s a dissonance between the demand signals that the Defense Department would like to be able to communicate to industry, to foster that dip in investments in the DIB both services and things, contractors. But what they’re actually getting for appropriations means they can’t.

Stephanie Kostro That’s true. That’s true. And there’s a similar dynamic over on the civilian agency side. If we take ourselves out of the Department of Defense for a moment, many of them, because of that half-bus have their full year appropriation. But as we move forward, if everybody gets their full year approved appropriation, they might actually be cut going forward because some of them are overspending. So, this goes back to your question about how to apply a sequestration order across the board. Again, some programs are going to lose out more than others. And if you look at that Congressional Budget Office memo, they lay it out pretty clearly about what cuts may be coming under a CR, a continuing resolution or under full year appropriations. And so, I encourage everyone out there, if they’re interested, to look up that memo and check out to see where defense agencies fall and where non-defense agencies fall.

Tom Temin I guess in the ideal world, they could get their work done this week for 2024. And then, golly, they’ve got six months to write 12 appropriations bills and negotiate them. I don’t know what better things they have to do, but that would seem like a good priority.

Stephanie Kostro I think it’s fair to say if you’re a betting person, you are not going to bet that we will have full year appropriations for fiscal year 25 as of October 1st. Just history tells us that’s not going to happen. But also in a presidential election year, with a lot of Senate and House seats up in the air, I suspect we’re going to start 25 with a CR. And I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that.

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