Federal Drive with Tom Temin

As the year winds down, federal contractors are starting to prepare for 2020. Congress is still unable to create long term spending packages. Meanwhile there's some new rules for them to follow in order to do business with the government. For insight, Federal News Network's Eric White spoke with federal marketing consultant Larry Allen on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Nearly a year after President Donald Trump signed the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policy-Making Act, agency chief data officers have projects in mind but limited budgets to implement them. The Data Foundation has highlighted some agency best practices for funding this work including a proposed a government-wide fund. Nick Hart president of the Data Foundation president and CEO of the Data Coalition. He spoke with our Jory Heckman about where agencies go from here.

This much we do know. If there's a government shutdown, it won't spoil Thanksgiving. Instead, it threatens Christmas after Congress passed and the President late last week signed a continuing resolution through December 20th. It leaves a lot of open questions, though, as we heard from Bloomberg Government Editorial Director Loren Duggan.

For Washington wonks, it's a dream come true. The Government Publishing Office has digitized more than 1300 Congressional hearings dating back to 1958. And it's all available to the public. Everything from Watergate to noise from Friendship Airport. It's all there. Joining the show with the story of how they did it, the GPO's Superintendent of Documents, Laurie Hall.

Few businesses generate more complaints than nursing homes. Under law, state governments are supposed to monitor nursing home complaints and respond to them. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is supposed to oversee the states. To help track it all, the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General published an interactive map showing complaints and how well states responded. Here with more, a Social Science Research Analyst from the HHS OIG, Kimberly Ruppert.

In the past few months the Navy has unleashed a handful of policies to make itself more interconnected. Now sailors can expect another strategy coming out in December. The digital blueprint is supposed to keep the data moving smoothly among the pieces of the Navy. Federal News Network’s Scott Maucione has the latest details.

The Trump administration has laid out a strategy for artificial intelligence and predictive analytics in government. It means agencies need to get a better handle on their own data. So the White House will soon release a final version of its Federal Data Strategy, setting goals for agency chief data officers over the next year. One of their biggest challenges: culture change. Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman has more.

Attorney Bruce Hoffman came from a private law firm to the Federal Trade Commission where he's spent the last two years as director of the Bureau of Competition. A lot has happened and now he's headed back to the private sector. He joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin for an exit interview.

The number of federal workers who have the flexibility to work from home seems to be on the decline. There are valid arguments for and against telework, but as ICF Senior Vice President Jeff Neal explained to Federal News Network's Eric White, there's a compromise somewhere. Hear more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

The results of the first two years of Pentagon audits show that auditors are finding financial problems faster than DoD is managing to solve them. Nonetheless, department leaders are predicting steady progress toward financial improvement. They say a majority of Defense organizations will earn clean audit opinions within the next five years. Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu had more details on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

It's hard to believe the DATA Act is more than six years old. The law requires federal agencies to report spending data in specified formats, all in service of greater financial transparency. So how are you doing? For more on the latest check by the Government Accountability Office, Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke to Michelle Sager, GAO's director of strategic issues.

The General Services Administration’s migration of its FedBizOpps.gov website to its beta.sam.gov portal will not be remembered as a smooth transition. The first three or so days were fraught with slow load times, infrastructure problems, and a site that wasn’t ready for prime time. Judith Zawatsky is the assistant commissioner in the Office of Systems Management in GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service. She told Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller in an exclusive interview about how GSA actually was prepared for the transition challenges, and also how the site has rebounded over the last week. Hear more on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Two Republican senators from Missouri and Tennessee have sponsored a bill to relocate several federal agencies' headquarters to states with difficult economies, including their own. According to Alan Berube, this concept may not be the best idea but neither is it the worst. He is a senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, and he joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to share more.

When it moves, the Army goes by some sort of vehicle. It's vast fleet, though, is getting old and worn out. So it's starting to spend big on refurbishing and developing the next generation of combat vehicles. With some numbers on this growing market, Frost and Sullivan senior aerospace and defense analyst, John Hernandez joined the show.

You’ve heard of hack-a-thon challenges where techies ferret out holes in Defense Department networks. Well now the Pentagon has an Artificial Intelligence prize challenge. DoD and other agencies are looking for better ways to serve communities affected by natural disasters. The competition is supposed to find the best options. Federal News Network’s Scott Maucione spoke with Nirav Patel, project manager at the Defense Innovation Unit, about the X-View-2 challenge.