News Briefs

THE DAILY FED

News Briefs

Virtual Government '97 Conference

This conference for federal, state and local information technology executives, managers, practitioners, and supporting industry will be held February 11-13 in McLean, VA. Speakers include Vice President Al Gore, John A. Koskinen (Deputy Director for Management, OMB), as well as Congressmen, senior business leaders, and other cabinet officials.

Some topics include the internet & intranet, wireless, universal service, certificate authorities, key recovery, data mining, year 2000, privacy & security, and more.

Please visit the conference Web site for more information.

The following news summaries are from OPM AM, the daily newsletter of the Office of Personnel Management. OPM AM is available on OPM Mainstreet, the agency's electronic bulletin board, at 202-606-4800.

THE FEDERAL DIARY--"Workers in many agencies face the possibility of layoffs this year even though Uncle Sam has exceeded body-reduction goals set by President Clinton in his first term" (The Washington Post).

HARASSMENT--"The OPM has appealed a case in which a former Army executive fired for sexual harassment had his penalty reduced to a 90-day suspension. The MSPB's decision to reduce the penalty was 'outrageous,' OPM said, because a suspension is too lenient a penalty" (The Federal Times).

FBI--"The FBI has suspended a forensic scientist whose long-standing complaints about procedures at the FBI crime laboratory led to a Justice Department investigation that supports some of his charges and concludes that evidence in dozens of cases has been mishandled, federal officials said yesterday" (The Washington Post Page A11).

POLITICAL APPOINTEES--"Sens. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) And John McCain (R-Ariz.) have introduced a bill to cut the number of political appointees from their current level of approximately 3,000 to 2,000. The one-third reduction would save about $390 million over six years, the senators estimated (The Washington Post Page A11).

OF INTEREST--Experience is out, inexperience is in, in today's rapidly changing, technologically sophisticated, globally distributed and competitively uncharted world of business (USA TODAY)...Union efforts are hitting a snag on Capitol Hill (The Wall Street Journal, Work Week)...Technology adds punch to secretarial jobs (The Washington Times, Careers).