Federal Manager's Daily Report: Friday, October 15, 2004 FEDweek is the largest information resource in the federal government with now over one million weekly readers. To Subscribe, Go to http://www.fedweek.com/subscribepopup.htm *********************************************************** Valuable Information for the Federal Family
Federal Job Search http://www.fedweek.com/Jobs/default.asp Job Bulletin Board http://www.fedweek.com/Jobs/default.asp Brand New Federal Manager's Daily Report--FREE Daily Electronic Briefing http://www.fedweek.com/subscribepopup.htm ********************************************************** In This Week's Issue 1. DoD Needs Compliance Plan for Private Sector Funding 2. MSPB Retools e-Appeal 3. 2004 Service to America Medal Recipients Announced 4. New Publication Announcement: The Federal Employees Legal Survival Guide http://www.fedweek.com/Publications/default.asp *********************************************************** 1. DoD Needs Compliance Plan for Private Sector Funding Limits, Says GAO The Department of Defense has incomplete public-private funding data and lacks a plan to ensure compliance with private sector allocation limits, the Government Accountability Office has said. It cited, "recurring weaknesses in DoD's data gathering, reporting processes, and financial systems," that prevented it from determining if the military services exceeded the 50-percent funding limit on private sector work. Under 10 US Code 2466, military and defense agencies cannot contract out more than 50 percent of annual depot-maintenance funding, and DoD must submit a funding distribution report for the prior two fiscal years as well as one for the current and future four years, said GAO. It said the "prior-years" reports for each service contained errors that when corrected move private sector funding close to the 50-percent limit -- for example, the Navy left out $410 million in private-sector fleet maintenance contracts that bring its private sector funding level to 47.9 percent from 44.5 percent. Reporting errors and omissions have carried over from prior years, which has made DoD�s future-years report unreliable, and has limited "its usefulness to congressional and DoD decision makers," said GAO. While some in Congress have proposed using only one report coving the prior, current, and budget year -- as was recommended by GAO last year -- the current data indicate that the services are operating close to the 50-percent limit, yet they lack "a plan of action" to prevent going over it, according to GAO-04-871. It said three of four services did not independently review and validate their data, that training for collecting, aggregating and reporting 50-50 data was "limited and sporadic," and that "management emphasis regarding the need for accurate and complete 50-50 reporting was lacking." 2. MSPB Retools e-Appeal The Merit Systems Protection Board has announced an upgrade to e-Appeal, its online appeal filing system, that will allow participants in board proceedings to file any type of pleading -- not just new appeals as was previously the case. The system now enables the board and filers to upload a variety of file formats, or enter pleadings online, as well as receive documents the same day they are submitted, said MSPB. It said e-filers could submit part of their pleadings online and part in paper, and that the board would issue documents to participants as PDFs. A more complete description of e-Appeal, and the regulations governing electronic filing can be found in the September 27 Federal Register. 3. 2004 Service to America Medal Recipients Announced Federal employees from eight agencies have been awarded Service to America Medals -- created in 2002 by the Partnership for Public Service and the Atlantic Media Company - in recognition of their exemplary achievement. PPS listed the awardees as follows: "Robert Clifford, the FBI agent from Charlotte, North Carolina who helped convict more than a dozen leaders of the "November 17" group -- Europe's most notorious and elusive terrorist cell; Ambassador Prudence Bushnell from Falls Church, Virginia who guided the U.S. Embassy in Kenya through the 1998 bombings and was a leading voice for the nation in urging a response to the ethnic genocide in Rwanda ; Nicole Nelson-Jean. a Department of Energy employee who, at 28 years of age, led a U.S. delegation to the Arctic Circle to negotiate an agreement with Russian officials to better secure Russia 's nuclear weapons stockpiles; Brad Gair, a FEMA employee from Brooklyn, New York who oversaw the government's recovery efforts at Ground Zero after 9/11 and supervised other FEMA rebuilding work in the wake of multiple natural disasters; Dr. Deborah Jin, a National Institute of Standards and Technology physicist from Boulder, Colorado who created a new form of matter that may have the potential to improve the nation's energy efficiency; Stephen Browning from Sausalito, California who led U.S. efforts to help Iraqis rebuild their electrical infrastructure and acted as the administrative head of multiple Iraqi ministries; The "Operation Kids for Cover" team led by Peter Darling from Newbury, Massachusetts which shut down an international drug smuggling ring using rented babies to smuggle cocaine in baby formula cans; and the FTC team led by Eileen Harrington from Kensington, Maryland who created the national "Do Not Call" registry, which has reduced the number of telemarketing calls for more than 60 million Americans." Nominations for the 2005 medals are now open, and should be submitted at: www.servicetoamericamedals.org. 4. New Publication Announcement: The Federal Employees Legal Survival Guide http://www.fedweek.com/Publications/default.asp Passman & Kaplan announces the October 2004 publication of the SECOND EDITION of the Federal Employees Legal Survival Guide. This comprehensive book, first published by Passman & Kaplan in 1999, has been called the definitive how-to guide for enforcing the rights of federal employees. The second edition of the Guide includes 100 PAGES OF ADDITIONAL NEW MATERIAL (now 616 total pages) and useful advice. New features include information on internet legal research, preparing for and conducting a hearing, sample discovery requests, and up-to-date contact information for federal personnel agencies. The Guide also includes a listing of frequently used civil service acronyms and practical appendices of sample forms, charts illustrating appeal rights, and commonly-needed deadlines. As with the first edition of the Guide, Passman & Kaplan has attempted to move away from the "legalese" which so often complicates an already-bewildering array of regulations and policies. Although the Federal Employees Legal Survival Guide, Second Edition is clearly an invaluable resource for practioners, Passman & Kaplan has maintained its commitment to target the book to the average federal employee. *********************************************************** To place your order for The Federal Employees Legal Survival Guide just go to http://www.fedweek.com/Publications/default.asp and place your secure order online. The cost of this publication is only $49.95 Plus $6 s&h--Remember, this is a 616 page reference that is chalked full of invaluable information that every federal manager must have! 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