Digital Government

Recruiting 11,000 IT Workers

The Partnership for Public Service is launching a new program designed to recruit, hire and retain entry-level information technology workers in the federal government. The program, called FedRecruit: IT Pilot Program, is designed to help agencies meet the need to fill what the <a href="http://wiredworkplace.nextgov.com/2009/09/it_hiring_to_surge_by_2012.php">Partnership estimates will be about 11,000 technology job openings</a> during the next three years.

Acquisition

Bring back share in savings

It's time to revive the statutory encouragement for this innovative approach to services contracting, Steve Kelman writes.

People

Penny-pinching strategies sprout from collaboration

The acquisition community is percolating with ideas for reducing costs, writes GSA's Mary Davie.

Cybersecurity

Wronged travelers to get new system for filing complaints

The Homeland Security Department has agreed to replace its IT support system for the Traveler Redress Inquiry Program to fix longstanding problems, a new report states.

Modernization

5 steps to making the cloud a reality

Former OMB official Mark Forman asks how much creative destruction agencies are willing to embrace.

Modernization

Web-based health insurance portals get Senate committee nod

The health reform bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee would establish Web-based health insurance portals to be used by millions of consumers.

Ideas

Millions More for Cargo Screening

The Homeland Security Department will spend $88 million in Recovery Act funds on scanning technology that will be used to inspect commercial goods crossing U.S. borders.

Cybersecurity

DHS would get more IT dollars under unified funding measure

A Senate-House committee wants to give the Homeland Security Department more money for several large information technology programs in fiscal 2010.

People

Get a Life!: Advice on making that job change

Taking advantage of your current job can help in search for a new government position, writes blogger Judy Welles

Acquisition

Administration clamps down on nonperforming contractors

The Obama administration has some new proposals designed to help agencies get hold of what they're paying to outside contractors, and help ensure that poor performers and passive performers don't get what they don't deserve.

Modernization

Industry group meets to consider upgrading VA patient record system

Part of the agenda includes possibility of making the aging but popular electronic health record system for veterans and their families a platform for a national network.

Digital Government

Data starts flowing in from recipients of Recovery Act funds

About 112,000 reports on stimulus spending have been submitted to the government.

Digital Government

Petzel for Top Doc at VA

By default, it sure looks like <a href=http://www.visn23.va.gov/Leadership/Network_Director.asp>Dr. Robert (Randy) Petzel</a>, director of the Veterans Affairs Department's Midwest Health Care Network, has all but landed the job as VA's new undersecretary for health.

Ideas

House Kisses Mainframe Goodbye

While our focus at Nextgov is mainly on information technology in the executive branch, I'd like to take a moment to mark the end of an era in the legislative branch's IT saga. On Friday, the House of Representatives <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/100909-congress-mainframes.html">decommissioned its last mainframe</a>, which had been in place at the Ford Office Building since 1997.