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.

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--Today's column reminds federal workers that it is the last day in the current TSP open season. You can sign up for or make changes to the TSP through close-of-business today...At 10 a.m. tomorrow on WUST radio (1120 AM) George Nesterczuk will preview the 1997 agenda for the House civil service subcommittee, headed by Rep. John L. Mica (r-Fla.). Nesterczuk is staff director of the subcommittee (The Washington Post).

FEDERAL NEWS--OPM proposal would better protect former employees with disabilities (Government Employee Relations Report, Jan. 27 and Federal Human Resources Week, Jan. 27)...Three out of five federal employees believe they enjoy adequate protection against discrimination, reprisal for whistleblowing and other prohibited personnel practices, but a sizable minority disagrees according to an as yet unpublished MSPB study (Federal Human Resources Week, Jan. 27)...Measures targeting FLSA and FMLA could affect public employees...OPM proposes rule eliminating separate "summer jobs" program (Government Employee Relations Report, Jan. 27).

IRS--The IRS conceded that it had spent $4 billion developing modern computer systems that a top official said "do not work in the real world" (The New York Times).

DIVERSITY--"A corporate diversity program can promote understanding and defuse tensions between workers of diverse background. It can also backfire (The Wall Street Journal, Workplace).

OTHER VIEWS--FEHBP a model for Medicare (Orange County Register, Santa Ana, CA, Jan. 5; and Daily News, Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 7; American Medical News, Chicago, IL, Jan. 13)...The number of government supervisors are decreasing (Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, Jan.5)...HMO receives high marks (This Week in Delaware, Columbus, OH, Jan. 12)...College degree more important than ever (Macon Telegraph, Macon, GA, Dec. 30)...Federal workforce is downsizing (Louisville Herald, Louisville, OH, Jan. 9).