Federal Manager's Daily Report Thursday, September 9, 2004 Published by FEDweek, the federal government's largest information resource with now over one million weekly readers to its electronic newsletters.
*********************************************************** Federal Manager's Daily Report is a brand new FREE daily electronic report for all federal managers and supervisors featuring the day's top stories on management and workforce issues. Please pass this information on to your fellow colleagues. You can sign up for this free daily report at http://www.fedweek.com/subscribepopup.htm. *********************************************************** In Today's Issue: 1. GAO: Management Needs to Reduce Cost Increases at Bonneville Power Administration 2. Talks Between FDIC and Employee Union Break Down 3. Advisory Recounts Instance of Conflict of Interest, False Travel Claims *********************************************************** 1. GAO: Management Needs to Reduce Cost Increases at Bonneville Power Administration Both cost and demand continue to rise at the Bonneville Power Administration, which sells electricity from the federal power system to public utilities at lower prices than others in the Pacific Northwest -- but its plan to deal with the predicament lacks key elements, the Government Accountability Office has said. It said BPA's cash reserves had fallen to $188 million at the end of fiscal 2002 and it nearly missed its Treasury payment in 2003, the result of its obligation to meet the demands of utilities in the region, even if they exceed the production capacity of the federal power system. BPA often has to purchase expensive additional power to do so. Other obligations such as providing financial benefits to investor-owned utilities and protecting fish and wildlife have also increased costs relative to other vendors, said GAO. It said BPA's does not pass on the costs of acquiring additional power to its customers and fails to provide them with incentive to cut back or conserve. BPA wants to limit its commitment as the net provider of wholesale electricity in the region and proposes to limit the amount of power customers can get at its lowest rates, according to GAO. It said however, that BPA has not clearly defined the limits for its commitments or how it would implement incremental rates, and that BPA had similar plans in the late 1990s but did not implement them because of pressure from customers to serve more demand. While BPA has taken positive steps to centralize its risk management process to better control costs, its new approach lacks key elements to successful implementation, including details on specific activities, resources, and time frames needed to implement the plan, said GAO-04-694. 2. Talks Between FDIC and Employee Union Break Down Talks between the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the National Treasury Employee Union about a legislative personnel package have broken down, NTEU has said. It said the talks concerned the scope of possible legislative changes to the FDIC personnel system and that the two sides had been close to an agreement on a proposal that lacked many "anti-employee" provisions that had been in FDIC's original proposal. It said that if the package FDIC intends to take to Congress after its August recess includes many of those provisions then it will fight the package. The provisions included, "a reduction in employee appeal rights; unilateral authority to change the RIF rules; greatly expanded authority to use term employees; and an elimination of collective bargaining over compensation and benefits," said NTEU. 3. Advisory Recounts Instance of Conflict of Interest, False Travel Claims An advisory from Department of Defense's Standards of Conduct Office includes the description of a former Air Force employee that was sentenced for conflict of interest, and a DoD employee sentenced for false travel claims. The Air Force employee was sentenced last July in a U.S. District court to two years of probation and ordered to pay $12,000 restitution plus a $1,000 fine for "sole sourcing" a contract to his brother's company, which then subcontracted to another company that the former employee set up, according to the SOCO. It said the former employee violated 18 U.S.C. 208 by preparing a statement of work and a cost estimate for coming back as a contractor to the Air Force. "The conflict resulted from his personal and substantial participation in drafting the contract in his official capacity that he would sign in a personal capacity to benefit his own financial interest," said SOCO. In another matter, it recounted the case of an employee of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service who was sentenced in a U.S. District Court for submitting false lodging claims. It said the employee pled guilty to submitting nine false claims totaling $11,418 for lodging and rent reimbursement, which he had claimed even while sharing an apartment with another DFAS employee who worked in the same office. He was sentenced to four months of home confinement, two years of probation, ordered to perform 200 hours of community service, and fined $2,000 plus $11,418 in restitution, it said. SOCO also announced that it has completed and posted its 2004 computer-based ethics-training module for the ethical issues surrounding contractors in the workplace -- for which the training module and slides are available here: http://www.defenselink.mil/dodgc/defense_ethics/ Published by FEDweek LLC 11551 Nuckols Rd. 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