News Briefs

THE DAILY FED

News Briefs

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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--"Despite an early scare from the budget bogeyman, the 300,000 retired federal employees in the Washington area will receive full-strength, one-time cost-of-living adjustments in January....Retirees are on track to receive their regular January raise, which with two months (August and September) left in the COLA countdown is pegged at a minimum of 1.9 percent. The COLA also will be reflected in military retiree and Social Security checks" (The Washington Post).

OFFICIAL WASHINGTON HEADS FOR THE HILLS, OR THE BEACHES--"This has been the week that the federal machine loves. The President is at Martha's Vineyard, Vice President Gore is at Figure Eight Island near Wrightsville Beach, N.C., and the 535 members of Congress are off the Hill" (The Washington Post).

WEB PRIVACY SURVEY CRITICAL OF SITES RUN BY FEDERAL AGENCIES--"Internet sites operated by federal agencies routinely collect data about visitors without saying how the information will be used, a practice that clashes with the Clinton administration's call for safeguarding privacy on the global computer network, according to a study released yesterday. Thirty-one of 70 government sites in the survey retrieved details, including names, ages and work histories, from the public. But only 11 of the sites provided statements about how the information was collected and used, according to the report by OMB Watch, a private research group based in the District" (The Washington Post).

CLINTON TO NOMINATE SOUTHERN LABOR AIDE AS DIRECTOR OF OSHA--"The White House said President Clinton will nominate Charles Jeffress, who helped to revive North Carolina's foundering worker-safety program, to head the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration" (The Wall Street Journal).

WELFARE TEST SUGGESTS COMBINING WORK WITH FISCAL INCENTIVES FOR LONG-TERMERS--"Combining work requirements with generous financial incentives may be the best way to increase employment and incomes among long-term welfare recipients, according to a new study. The study, to be released today by New York's Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., found promising results from an experimental program in Minnesota testing that dual approach. After 18 months, the study found, some 52% of long-term recipients participating in the experiment had paid employment, and nearly 30% had incomes above the poverty line" (The Wall Street Journal).

SENATOR PUSHES ALL WORK, NO PLAY ON FEDERAL COMPUTERS--"When lawmakers return in September, their agenda of weighty affairs of state will include whether to push forward with a proposed ban on computer games in every nook and cranny of the federal bureaucracy. The prohibition is part of the Senate version of a bill that passed in late July and funds the White House, Post Office, Treasury Department and assorted other government agencies. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-N.C.), would require the removal of existing games programmed on government computers and bar future purchases of computers with games already installed....Faircloth's amendment was the result of an Internet lesson gone wrong. While showing the senator how to operate his own Web site, an employee accessed the office computer games. That was the end of those games and the beginning of Faircloth's crusade" (Los Angeles Times, August 26).

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Access America Conferences

The National Performance Review (NPR), will launch a series of informational conferences aimed at providing government employees and private industry IT officials with techniques and strategies for implementing the goals of Access America, an NPR report outlining steps to increase access--via the Internet--to government services. The first conference will be held September 25 in Baltimore, Md. and then will travel to other cities across the country. Expert panels will discuss IT topics, including Internet/Intranet successes, the future of Distance Learning and collaboration, IT acquisition and procurement reform, and privacy and security.

DTIC Annual Conference

The Defense Technical Information Center is presenting its Annual Users Meeting and Training Conference on Nov. 3-6, 1997 at the DoubleTree Hotel, National Airport, Arlington, Va. The conference theme is Information in the New Millenium. Contact Ms. Julia Foscue at 703-767-8236 or by e-mail at jfoscue@dtic.mil.