Federal Newscast

Democratic lawmakers are criticizing the Trump administration’s recent push to pay political appointees more money. In a letter to the Office of Personnel Management, Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee called OPM’s recent encouragement on the issue an “egregious abuse” of taxpayer dollars. OPM recently recommended that agencies pay their political appointees the maximum salary possib...

The Defense Department is taking a closer look at how it supports military families who choose to homeschool their children. In a recent memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness to conduct a departmentwide review of the current support available to homeschooling military families, including the feasibility of providing resources for t...

Probationary employees who were fired from the Department of Homeland Security have been granted class certification on an appeal case with the Merit Systems Protection Board. The DHS employees allege that the agency violated the law when it terminated them earlier this year. They argue that the mass firings at DHS were really an unlawfully conducted reduction in force (RIF). Gilbert Employment La...

The Defense Manpower Data Center has expanded its online ID card issuance system to include overseas dependents of service members. Since its launch in 2023, the program has eliminated more than 300,000 in-person visits by allowing service members to request their ID cards online. DMDC now wants to improve the system by allowing users to upload updated photos directly into the system. It is explor...

Veterans Affairs is giving organizations more resources to prevent veteran suicide. VA is issuing more than $50 million in grants to community-based organizations that provide suicide prevention or emergency clinical services to veterans at risk of suicide. Groups have until the end of September to apply for these grants. Veterans who are experiencing suicidal thoughts can reach the Veterans Crisi...

Correctional officers at the Federal Bureau of Prisons are using a different approach to urge congressional action. A new billboard campaign led by the American Federation of Government Employees is calling on Congress members to reject President Trump’s effort to strip collective bargaining rights. Many bipartisan lawmakers have supported federal correctional officers for a long time. But the uni...

The collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal employees remain in limbo after an appeals judge ruled in favor of the Trump administration. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March ending collective bargaining rights for national security employees. The order expanded who is considered a national security employee to more than three dozen agencies. The appea...

A top House Democrat wants an investigation into the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to IRS systems. Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Gerry Connolly requested the investigation in a May 15th letter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. He raised concerns about DOGE plans to centralize IRS data. Connolly also highlighted potential issues with...

To reduce leased space costs by 30 percent within the next 18 months, the Defense Department is closely tracking building occupancy to find underutilized spaces. It is also moving more personnel to existing military installations to reduce the number of people working in rented office buildings. Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment Robert Thompson said t...

Customs and Border Protection is looking to expand its use of facial recognition. In a new request for information, CBP says it’s seeking solutions for capturing facial images of occupants in vehicles. The technology would be used at ports of entry to compare biometrics in CBP’s Traveler Verification Service. CBP and other Homeland Security agencies have been expanding their use of facial recognit...

Health and Human Services is reinstating some employees after firing thousands last month. HHS is bringing back about 100 employees at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The agency researches and makes recommendations to prevent work-related injury, illness, disability, and death. Most of the reinstated employees work in Morgantown, West Virginia. HHS fired about 10,000 emp...

The Labor Department is making major cuts to a watchdog office that ensures federal contractors aren’t discriminating against their employees. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs laid off about 90% of its staff last week, leaving only about 50 employees nationwide. OFCCP was created in 1965 to protect American workers from race and gender discrimination by federal contractors. Emplo...

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is considering updates to a key cybersecurity law. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 20-15 expires this September. The intelligence committee last week received briefings from multiple agencies on how the law has worked out so far. The statute incentivizes private industry to share cyber threat data with the government. But Intelligen...

Democrats are attempting to secure full collective bargaining rights for federal health care employees. A new bill from Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth would allow nurses, clinicians and other professionals at the Veterans Health Administration to negotiate with management over their workforce concerns. The bill has been introduced in the past. But this time around, Duckworth says the bill is esp...

Lawmakers are calling on the Trump administration to prioritize funding for more recruiting at the Coast Guard. Last year, the Coast Guard exceeded its recruiting goals for the first time since 2017. But the service is still 3,000 members short of its targeted enlisted goal. Lawmakers say the 2026 budget should seek to fill those gaps and return the Coast Guard to its full operational capacity. Th...

A federal court is putting a hold on the Trump administration’s plans to eliminate three small agencies. A judge at the U-S District Court in Rhode Island issued a preliminary injunction … putting a temporary hold on cuts to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service which helps resolve collective bargaining disputes and the Institute of Museum and Library Services the primary source of federa...

Just over 7,800 federal employees retired last month, the lowest amount so far in 2025. The Office of Personnel Management says more than 33,500 federal employees retired in first quarter of 2025 compared to 29,700 hundred during the first three months of 2024. OPM's retirement backlog dropped to 16,700 hundred, almost 4,000 less than March. On average, OPM is processing retirement claims in 54 da...

Defense Secretary Hegseth has launched the development of a new National Defense Strategy — a major policy document that sets the Pentagon’s strategic goals and priorities. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, who played a key role in crafting the 2018 National Defense Strategy during Trump’s first term, will lead the new NDS effort. Hegseth said, “The NDS is the single most import...

The international stock index I fund was the big winner among Thrift Savings Plan funds in April. Its monthly return was 4.16%. That also leaves it as the highest year-to-date, at an even 9%. The government securities G fund and fixed income investment F fund both also showed positive returns last month, at 0.35% and 0.39 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, the common stock index C fund and small ca...

Federal firefighters within the Defense Department continue to struggle with significant workforce shortages. The DoD has been operating below the minimum required staffing level for firefighters since 2019. That’s according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. GAO says the staffing gaps partially stem from worse pay and work schedules than those offered by local fire departm...

Agencies received a record 1.5 million Freedom of Information Act requests in fiscal 2024. That’s according to the Justice Department Office of Information Policy’s latest summary of federal FOIA data. Agencies nearly kept pace by processing one-point-four-nine million FOIA requests last year. Still, the governmentwide FOIA backlog increased to 267,000 cases by the end of fiscal 2024. See Privacy...

President Donald Trump has appointed new members to a group that will recommend reforms to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Trump on Monday formally appointed 20 members to the FEMA Advisory Council. They include Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Robert Fenton, Junior, the regional administrator for FEMA Region 9.  The council is co-led by Homeland Security S...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed all members of the Defense Department’s advisory boards. Joe Kasper, Hegseth's former chief of staff, launched a review of all advisory committees in March, required them to justify their existence. Kasper instructed the committees to explain how their advice “benefited the DoD, the Federal Government, and the United States,” and how it aligns with Pres...

The Coast Guard has digitized 40% of its paper health records as of February. In a new update on the initiative, the Coast Guard said the goal is to completely digitize all paper health records by the third quarter of fiscal 2027. The service began the effort to digitize 45,000 paper health records in November 2022. Digitized records can be viewed on the MHS Genesis portal and are also accessible...