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Trump signs veterans benefits order calling for improved data sharing

Christian Robles — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 17:03:18 -0400

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday afternoon that seeks to give veterans quicker access to benefits and services by enhancing data sharing between the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, requiring a review of relevant information technology contracts and deploying new digital tools to process claims.

The order gives the Department of Defense 30 days to ensure all current servicemembers’ military personnel files, health records and service treatment records are shared with the VA as soon as they are released or discharged from military service. It currently takes 90 to 180 days for records to be exchanged when service members transition to civilian life because of legacy systems, according to a White House fact sheet.

The directive instructs DOD and VA to create guidance and information technology systems within 180 days that would ensure the “permanent, prospective and ongoing sharing” of records from the moment an individual enters military service until they no longer need VA benefits.

Enhanced data sharing between the two departments could help veterans receive benefits more quickly.

VA has reduced the amount of time it takes to process disability claims from 141.5 days to 76.1 days on average under the second Trump administration, according to a Tuesday VA press release. Sharing military records between DOD and VA could trim the average processing time by another 20 to 30 days, the release added.

“Giving VA continuous access to warfighters’ military records will eliminate weeks of waiting for Veterans applying for VA healthcare and financial benefits,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “We want to make the transition from military to Veteran status as seamless as possible, and we look forward to working with President Trump and Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth to do just that.”

The order also gives DOD and VA 120 days to conduct a review of existing information technology systems and software contracts. The analysis — in collaboration with the Health and Human Services Department and the Office of Management and Budget — will include a mandate that IT systems be interoperable with systems for military personnel, health records and service treatment records, according to the order.

The directive tasks DOD with updating relevant programs — including the Transition Assistance Program — within 180 days.

A DOD spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while a VA spokesperson pointed to the press release.

In addition to interoperability, the order tasks the two departments with deploying artificial intelligence and emerging technologies that would streamline veterans’ applications for benefits within 180 days. The digital tools would come in a “comprehensive single source” and include job training opportunities offered by the Labor Department, the order added.

VA is already using AI and automation to speed up veterans' claims processing. Democrats are concerned that those technologies are leading to greater errors in benefits processing, but VA officials have denied those charges and emphasized that human reviewers make final claims decisions rather than AI.

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GSA announces per diem increases for feds this fall

Erich Wagner — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:18:12 -0400

The General Services Administration announced Wednesday that it would increase per diem rates associated with lodging when fiscal 2027 begins on Oct. 1.

Each year, GSA updates the reimbursement rates it offers federal employees who travel on official business, based upon the average daily rate at hotels in each region of the continental United States. Beginning in October, the agency said it will increase the base lodging rate from $110 to $113 per night.

The update, announced in a filing scheduled for publication in the Federal Register Thursday, does not include changes to other federal per diem rates. The standard meal and incidental expenses rate will stay at $68, while non-standard meal and incidentals rates will remain between $68 and $92.

Last year, GSA kept all per diem rates static. The last time the reimbursement rate for meal and incidentals increased was October 2024.

Unlike previous years, no regions were added or removed from the list of locations with reimbursement rates higher than the base amount. In 2024, six cities were removed from the list, while in 2023, GSA added two cities while removing 16 others.

With Wednesday’s filing, GSA has updated its online tool where federal workers can check the per diem rates throughout the continental U.S., which is available on the agency’s website.

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Trump is staffing up agencies with political appointees. They’re not sticking around, new analysis finds

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 15:12:25 -0400

While Trump officials are installing a historically high number of political appointees in the federal government, those individuals are leaving their positions at higher rates than other recent presidential administrations, according to an analysis published Wednesday.

“The turnover among non-Senate-confirmed appointees stands out across every measure — in its scale, in its spread across agencies and in the speed with which appointees have left,” wrote Chris Piper, a researcher for the Partnership for Public Service nonprofit, which has been critical of the Trump administration’s cuts to the civil service.

During the first 18 months of Trump’s second term, more than 930 non-career members of the Senior Executive Service and Schedule C political appointees have left the federal government. That’s higher than the number who departed within the same timeframe under the presidencies of Barack Obama (426), Trump’s first term (592) and Joe Biden (432).

In response, the administration has brought on a higher-than-usual number of new appointees, according to the Partnership. Trump since January has made roughly 160 non-Senate-confirmed appointments per month compared with an average of about 70 under Obama, Trump’s first term and Biden during the same period.

As a percentage, nearly a quarter (24.6%) of the political appointees who were hired during the first 18 months of Trump’s second term have exited government, which is a higher rate than at the same point during the Obama (20.4%) and Biden (18.4%) administrations but lower than the share during Trump’s first term (28.3%).

“High turnover among political appointees is not an anomaly of the second Trump administration so much as a pattern across both of his terms,” Piper wrote.

Researchers wrote that the “steepest” losses have occurred at the Homeland Security Department, where 97 non-Senate-confirmed appointees have departed. DHS, which has received billions in additional dollars for immigration enforcement, also experienced turnover at the very top with Secretary Markwayne Mullin in the spring replacing Kristi Noem.

Additionally, the Partnership found that nearly 45% of the departing political appointees served for less than a year, and more than a quarter stayed with the government for six months or less. The researchers noted, however, that the percentages are likely higher because the Office of Personnel Management doesn’t record how long a political appointee stays in a given role but rather their total amount of time in government, which can include work under a different administration.

“The share who served less than a year, and less than six months, include…appointees who came in with prior federal service. Their recorded totals reflect earlier government work on top of their time in this administration,” Piper wrote. “Strip that earlier service out and the share of appointees who spent less than a year, or less than six months, in the second Trump administration would be higher still.”

In July, the Partnership similarly found that Senate-confirmed officials in the second Trump administration were leaving their positions at record rates. The nonprofit also reported in the spring that, under the current president, the federal political appointee workforce was at its largest size in decades while the number of career employees in the Senior Executive Service, the highest-ranking career staffers, had decreased by 30%.

The organization warned that high turnover among political appointees paired with fewer senior career leaders could make it more difficult for agencies to operate effectively.

“The second Trump administration has pushed a familiar pattern to a new high, losing more of these appointees, and losing them faster, than any recent president,” Piper wrote. “When churn at that level meets a career leadership already thinned by heavy attrition, agencies have less continuity to fall back on.”

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For federal executives, retirement means losing more than a job

Joy Levin — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 13:08:14 -0400

Career Senior Executive Service ranks have dropped nearly 30% since the end of the Biden administration, falling from 8,127 members to 5,837 by January 2026, the lowest level on record since at least 1998. Notably, the Partnership for Public Service warned in a March report that the shrinking career SES will mean a real loss of institutional knowledge and operational continuity across agencies. Furthermore, roughly 105,000 federal employees are projected to retire across all grades by the end of 2026.

Agencies and OPM extensively cover the financial impacts of this for retirees in FERS annuity calculations, TSP withdrawal strategy, and FEHB and Medicare coordination. What gets far less structured attention is whether the executives behind those numbers are personally ready for what comes after the title, the clearance and the mission disappear. The same retirement wave carries costs for the agencies losing this expertise, and agencies have preparation of their own to do.

What makes this different for federal executives

For a career GS-15 or SES executive, that gap works differently than for a private-sector retiree. A corporate title can often be replaced with consulting work or a board seat. A federal clearance typically cannot be carried forward without a new sponsor, and a mission-driven identity built over two or three decades of public service has no clean private-sector substitute.

A departing federal executive gives up more than a general sense of loss: signature authority over budgets and programs, standing relationships with the GS-14s and 15s they were mentoring toward the SES track, and a clearance that, until it lapses, still defines what rooms a person can be in.

What this means for Gen X/Generation Jones

Gen X and Generation Jones federal employees also have no experiential template for this: They are the first cohort retiring almost entirely under FERS rather than the older CSRS pension structure, and that timing carries implications for the federal agencies they are leaving, too, since this cohort is retiring into an SES bench that has shrunk by nearly a third in two years. Previous generations handed off to a peer who had come up through the same institutional culture. However, with political appointees now filling a large share of senior roles, the current wave increasingly hands off to a smaller, thinner circle of career colleagues, or to no one at all.

What federal executives can do

Federal executives approaching retirement can treat identity readiness as its own planning track, run on the same timeline as the benefits paperwork rather than after it. Four moves matter most.

First, map what the title actually provides, roughly 12 to 18 months out: Consider decision authority, access, daily structure and recognition. Decide which to rebuild deliberately. Retirement advice usually covers what to retire toward, but rarely what to retire with. SES executives leave with real skills and talents intact. Deciding which to keep using, and how, matters as much as deciding what to build next.
Second, run that mapping alongside the OPM retirement application rather than after it. Digital applications are averaging well over three months this year, and the full wait to a first annuity check often runs six to nine months, long enough that postponed identity work can sit untouched for most of a year.
Third, decide early whether cleared work is part of the plan. Transferring a clearance to a private-sector or consulting role generally has to be worked out before separation, not after.
Fourth, build the identity conversation into the benefits counseling session a spouse or partner often already attends, rather than scheduling it separately. Retirement changes the household's structure and belongs in that conversation.

What agencies can change

Agencies have leverage here, too:

Pre-retirement seminars can add a structured identity-transition module alongside the FERS and TSP content. A deeper approach, rather than a single slide or an optional webinar, gives both the executive and the agency a clearer transition to plan around.
Succession planning can build in a formal knowledge-transfer period, pairing a departing senior executive with a successor for the final several months, giving the departing executive a defined role until the end instead of a hard stop.
Structured retirement coaching support, in-house or external, can serve both sides of that handoff: a framework for the executive's identity readiness and better-documented knowledge transfer for the agency.
And HR leadership can start tracking identity-related retirement risk the way it already tracks eligibility and succession pipeline data on OPM's dashboard: Which senior leaders are eligible to retire, and which of them have no plan beyond the paperwork? None of this shows up on that dashboard today, which may be exactly why it has gone unaddressed.

Agencies have gotten very good at measuring who can retire and when. The open question is whether agencies, and the executives themselves, are equally prepared for what retirement actually asks of a person who has spent a career being the one with the clearance and the mission.

Joy Levin is a Certified Professional Retirement Coach and founder of Gen X Exec Encore. She spent nearly 30 years in market research before shifting her focus to executive transition coaching and works with Gen X and Generation Jones leaders, including federal executives, preparing for retirement.

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Air traffic controllers are still waiting on 2.8% of their congressionally approved pay raise

Erich Wagner — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 18:25:29 -0400

Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, both D-Ill., last week urged Federal Aviation Administrator Bryan Bedford to greenlight the remaining 70% of a pay raise Congress appropriated for air traffic controllers last April.

As part of the spending package that ended the 76-day shutdown of the Homeland Security Department, Congress authorized a 3.8% pay raise for federal air traffic controllers, backdated to January, and set aside $140 million in appropriations to pay for it.

But Washington Examiner reported last month that Bedford has thus far only authorized a 1% raise and has withheld the remaining 2.8% increase. That’s because the law authorizing the pay increase granted him “sole discretion” to ensure improvements in “workforce scheduling, staffing utilization or other operational efficiencies” first.

“I can tell you many examples I’ve looked at would indicate there is a lot we can do to better utilize the limited staff we have when there’s actually traffic to control, as opposed to having lots of staff around when there’s very limited traffic to control,” Bedford told the Examiner.

But in a letter to Bedford, the Democratic senators described the law’s conditions as “not a high bar” and said leadership is asking for too much from the beleaguered ATC workforce, who are already chronically understaffed and overworked in one of the most stressful government jobs. They suggested Bedford is using the pending pay raise as leverage in negotiations with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association to further increase employees’ workloads.

“Holding air traffic controllers’ remaining 2.8% pay increase hostage to force a workforce that has operated under mandatory overtime for years to work longer hours is petty, disrespectful and counterproductive,” Duckworth and Durbin wrote. “Whether the Trump administration’s Brand New Air Traffic Control System succeeds or fails will depend on the morale of the people expected to run it.”

The fracas over the pay raise comes as the Trump administration takes a more punitive approach to air traffic controllers. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy suggested ATCs could be “punished” if they called in sick during another government shutdown last fall, and the FAA moved to fire two air traffic controllers at LaGuardia Airport after they left work early upon completing their duties—a common practice across the agency—which reportedly contributed to a crash between an Air Canada jet and a firetruck last March.

Further stretching air traffic controllers’ hours or workloads will lead to more safety incidents, not less, the senators wrote.

“Squeezing more ‘utilization’ out o fair traffic controllers who have been understaffed, underpaid and overworked for years will weaken retention and undermine aviation safety,” they wrote. “Your own [workforce] plan says as much: ‘Chronic use of overtime leads to fatigue, controller burnout and ultimately loss of retention.’”

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CDC, after months of delays, gives employees 20 days to resubmit disability accommodation documentation

Jory Heckman — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:45:50 -0400

Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention waiting for the agency to process their accommodation requests for disabilities and medical conditions are facing an imminent deadline to submit supporting medical documentation – even if they have already done so.

CDC, in an email sent on Aug. 20, told employees with pending reasonable accommodation requests that they must resubmit their supporting medical documentation within 20 calendar days. That deadline is Sept. 9.

In the email obtained by Government Executive from two sources, CDC states that if employees don’t receive the requested documents within that timeframe, “your case will be administratively closed.” The email also tells employees that any interim accommodations “will also cease upon administrative closure of the case.”

“As part of the ongoing reconciliation of Reasonable Accommodation Program records, we need to ensure that the medical documentation supporting your request is available for review,” the email states.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ updated reasonable accommodation policy states employees have 20 calendar days to submit their medical documentation once requested by their agency, “though reasonable extensions may be granted.” If a reasonable accommodation coordinator finds an individual’s medical documentation is insufficient, they may get the opportunity to provide additional documentation.

CDC’s instructions go beyond what’s stated in the department’s policy. The agency is directing employees who have already provided supporting medical documentation to update or resubmit their medical documentation. According to the memo, the agency is seeking this paperwork from employees in the following circumstances:

“If you previously submitted medical documentation, please forward or resend a copy so that it can be associated with your current case.”
“If your previously submitted documentation is no longer current (i.e. older than 6 months) or your circumstances have changed, please provide updated medical documentation.”
“If you have not previously submitted medical documentation in support of this request, please provide the initial supporting medical documentation.”

CDC employees and their union, as well as a reasonable accommodation expert, say these instructions are unusual, and raise new hurdles for workers who have already waited months or longer for the agency to process their paperwork.

CDC faces a backlog of about 3,000 reasonable accommodation requests that it expects will take six-to-eight months to process. HHS overall is dealing with a backlog of about 9,000 reasonable accommodation requests.

When asked why CDC employees are being asked to resubmit or update their supporting medical documentation, an HHS spokesperson said in a statement that “this reflects a misunderstanding of the documentation process.”

“When an employee submits a reasonable accommodation request, they explain the accommodation they are requesting. Someone then follows up with the employee to determine whether medical documentation is needed to support the request. If documentation is required, the employee has 20 days to provide it. If they do not provide it within that timeframe, the request may be closed,” the HHS spokesperson said. “The employee may also let us know that they no longer need an accommodation.”

Jodi Hershey, a former reasonable accommodation specialist at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the founder of the workplace accommodation firm EASE, LLC, said CDC is “ignoring a basic principle” that “an agency shouldn't demand more medical documentation than it actually needs.”

HHS's policy states that once an employee submits medical documentation establishing a disability and describing functional limitations, the case moves to a decision. The policy states that component agencies may not request more medical information from employees once they have provided “sufficient information to document the existence of a disability and their functional limitations related to the request.”

“For employees who already submitted sufficient documentation, a blanket demand to resend or refresh it isn't just unnecessary. It runs against what the policy instructs,” Hershey said.

One CDC employee, who preferred to be unnamed due to fears of retaliation, said they have now submitted three different reasonable accommodation requests for telework and have never gotten a decision back on any of them.

The employee sent the first one in summer 2025 and didn’t receive a response until an official sent an acknowledgement of receipt in December 2025. Despite following up with the official, the employee said they never heard from them again.

The employee submitted another telework reasonable accommodation request in the spring through a new HHS form. Shortly thereafter, however, the individual was diagnosed with a new condition that necessitated them to send in another request in July, which they have not received a response to besides an automated confirmation of receipt.

“Nobody knows what's happening. There's no guidance. There's no clear communication,” the employee said.

The employee’s supervisor has permitted them to telework some days throughout this process, but the individual said they’ve still had to use sick leave and that their health has “declined rapidly.”

“I went from having my chronic illness completely managed to it having gone totally out of control,” they said. “There's no proof that the stress of all this caused the new diagnosis, but that is very likely a contributor to how it got so bad.”

A second CDC employee told Government Executive that staff seeking reasonable accommodations are frustrated “because it’s taken over a year, in many cases, or longer, and suddenly we have a strict deadline or lose our accommodations.”

After months of delays and related issues that have contributed to declining morale, the CDC employee said they’re planning to leave the agency for work outside the federal government.

“I feel guilty because I have very specialized expertise in my subject and this will leave a critical gap in my team’s ability to function, but I ultimately need to care for myself and my family,” the CDC employee said.

Hershey said “it's possible the department is sincerely trying to clean up files that got disorganized,” but said a “cleanup shouldn't punish the people already stuck in this quagmire.”

“If the agency lost track of documentation it was given, the burden of fixing that belongs with the agency, not with the employee, and certainly not under threat of case closure and the loss of an accommodation they're relying on right now,” she said.

A former CDC employee said the agency is spending months, if not a year or longer, to process reasonable accommodation requests because HHS-wide layoffs and separation incentives targeted the department’s human resources and equal employment opportunity offices.

The former CDC employee said the agency’s restrictions on reasonable accommodations are “decimating the most vulnerable employees not only at CDC, or HHS, but in the federal government.”

AFGE Local 2883 President Yolanda Jacobs said in a statement “HHS’s new blanket changes to its Reasonable Accommodations Program once again leaves workers in the dark.”

“This is yet another tactic by HHS leadership to deny reasonable accommodations to its workers, all while trying to give the appearance that they’re properly working through and responding to the backlog of thousands of unresolved accommodation requests,” Jacobs said, adding that some CDC employees may not be able to get updated documentation from a medical provider within the 20-day timeline.

Jacobs wrote in a letter to CDC leadership in March that employees are waiting months for the agency to approve their reasonable accommodation requests, and that the estimated cost of resolving hundreds of disability discrimination complaints exceeds $200 million.

Hershey said the 20-day deadline in the HHS reasonable accommodation policy allows component agencies to close out requests for employees who never submitted documentation, or who stopped responding altogether.

“Aiming that closure clock at employees who already provided what was asked repurposes a mechanism meant for abandoned or unsupported cases. The practical effect is that cases can be closed, and quietly dropped from the backlog count, over a records problem the agency created,” she said.

The upcoming closeout of interim accommodations, Hershey added, “carries the most immediate human cost.”

“An interim accommodation exists for one purpose: to protect an employee while the request is pending. Taking it away because the agency is reconciling its own records strips that protection from someone who did nothing wrong,” she said.

Sean Michael Newhouse contributed to this report.

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NSA looks to AI to help analysts sift through vast data troves

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:09:14 -0400

The National Security Agency is leaning into artificial intelligence tools to process mass volumes of data it collects, allowing analysts to sort through tasks and find anomalies faster, a top official said Tuesday.

“I think right now we’re looking at how to use an AI where we could triage so much more,” David Imbordino, the head of the agency’s cybersecurity directorate, said on a panel with officials from the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit in Washington, D.C.

The agency ingests vast amounts of data every day, including intercepted foreign communications and electronic signals from radar and weapons systems. Imbordino’s directorate, in particular, focuses on both intelligence collection and cyberdefense.

“Volume has always been a problem,” he added, but AI has raised the prospect of getting “to the nuggets” faster than before. In the near future, analysts will likely increasingly use AI tools to look at disparate pieces of information and evaluate them “much more quickly” than current methods that can take days or weeks, Imbordino added.

His remarks highlight one of many ways the nation’s cyber and intelligence agencies are putting AI to work and show the omnipresent role such systems will play in day-to-day work in spy offices.

NSA has also taken a leading role in the Trump administration’s AI policy efforts as increasingly powerful tools promise to help defenders find and fix software flaws while giving hackers new ways to break into networks. Late last month, NSA deputy director Tim Kosiba said that the agency wants access to a wide range of models and is engaging heavily with frontier AI companies.

The agency is helping to implement a sweeping June executive order directing national security agencies to create classified tests for determining when AI systems have developed sufficiently advanced hacking capabilities to warrant additional scrutiny. The order calls, in part, for a voluntary arrangement through which developers can give the federal government access to qualifying models for as many as 30 days before releasing them to other trusted partners.

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Musk should testify about overstated savings from DHS contract cancellations, Democrats argue

Sean Michael Newhouse — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:07:50 -0400

Two House Democrats last week requested that Elon Musk and other Department of Government Efficiency officials testify under oath after a new watchdog report found that the cost-cutting initiative overstated its savings from Homeland Security Department contract cancellations.

“Elon Musk and DOGE tried to sell the American people a lie: that firing federal workers and gutting public services would make government more efficient and save taxpayers billions,” said Reps. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, and James Walkinshaw, D-Va., in a statement. “Instead, they inflicted lasting damage, indiscriminately cancelled contracts and fired essential personnel.”

The Government Accountability Office reported that DHS fully or partially terminated 438 contracts between Jan. 20 and Sept. 30, 2025, as a result of DOGE’s mandate to reduce agency spending, including on contracts. Auditors found that, as a result, the department deobligated more than $249 million but also obligated $157 million in new costs to settle the canceled agreements with contractors and for continued work under partially terminated contracts.

While that results in a net of about $92 million in savings, DHS reported that the 2025 contract terminations could generate more than $10.5 billion in reduced spending. Unlike GAO’s analysis, which looked at how much money was deobligated, the department’s methodology relied on the maximum amount that could’ve been spent under the canceled contracts.

In addition to criticizing DHS’ analysis, the auditors found that 95% of the $10.5 billion in potential cost savings is attributable to 30 terminated IT contracts. But the department, in some cases, is using other contracts to obtain those services.

“According to the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer, in fiscal year 2025, DHS obligated over $1.7 billion through existing government-wide contracts to meet these [IT] requirements,” they wrote. “Thus, $1.7 billion of potential costs under these contracts were not avoided but incurred through other contracts.”

Thompson and Walkinshaw argued that Musk and other DOGE officials should testify in a hearing about the contract terminations, including who approved the DHS estimates and how the cancellations may have impacted department functions.

A DHS spokesperson said in a statement to Government Executive that officials have "reviewed thousands of contracts, ended hundreds that were no longer mission-critical and redirected resources to higher-priority operational needs. That is responsible stewardship: identifying wasteful or lower-priority spending, ending unnecessary contracts and ensuring taxpayer dollars support DHS’s most critical operations."

Last month, GAO issued a report that found multiple errors with how DOGE calculated its savings. For example, about $34.6 billion of the $61 billion estimated to have been generated from terminated contracts either came from contracts that were never canceled or there wasn’t evidence that the contracts were terminated.

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FEMA’s future looks clearer. Disaster aid is still uncertain

Alex Brown, Stateline — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 07:00:00 -0400

State leaders are breathing a sigh of relief that the Trump administration’s threats to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency have subsided.

But experts say there’s still confusion about President Donald Trump’s decisions to approve or deny disaster declarations, leaving states with uncertainty about whether they can expect federal recovery funds.

“The foundation (at FEMA) seems stronger than it did six months ago, but this is an unreliable administration when it comes to the fair and equitable distribution of disaster funds,” said Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the Homeland Security Project at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a former Obama administration official.

Trump has long called on states to take on a larger role in responding to disasters, and suggested early in his second term that FEMA might “go away” entirely. Kristi Noem, who served as Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security until she was fired in March, pledged at one point to “eliminate” FEMA, and slashed the agency’s spending and staffing during her tenure.

Last month, the Senate confirmed Cameron Hamilton to serve as FEMA’s administrator, making him the first permanent agency leader during Trump’s second term. Hamilton, once a FEMA critic, had previously served as acting administrator, but was fired in May 2025 after saying he had become convinced the agency should not be eliminated.

Experts say Hamilton’s return and Noem’s departure are signs of stability for FEMA.

“It’s basically a return to regular order,” said Craig Fugate, who served as FEMA’s administrator under President Barack Obama. “They’re filling positions and reestablishing programs that got cut during the purge.”

State emergency managers say the leadership changes are welcome developments.

“(Hamilton) he has the right attitude as far as supporting his employees and supporting the states,” said Lynn Budd, director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security. “I have a positive feel for that.”

Budd also serves as president of the National Emergency Management Association, a nonprofit comprising state and territorial emergency officials.

The foundation (at FEMA) seems stronger than it did six months ago, but this is an unreliable administration when it comes to the fair and equitable distribution of disaster funds.

– Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the Homeland Security Project at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government

While FEMA appears to be safe from the most drastic threats, states still face uncertainty over some agency programs they have long relied on. The agency has said that states must comply with Trump’s voting and immigration policies in order to qualify for Homeland Security Grant Program funding. A coalition of states and municipalities have sued, saying they stand to lose out on millions of dollars they need to prepare for terrorist and other security threats.

The White House press office did not respond to a Stateline interview request.

Trump decisions

Experts say the biggest challenge for emergency managers is the lack of clarity around Trump’s disaster approvals. While FEMA has clear thresholds that determine which disasters qualify for federal aid, the president has full discretion to approve or deny those requests for help.

Trump has been far more willing to grant disaster declarations for Republican-led states, at 89%, while Democratic-led states have seen only 23% of their requests approved, a Politico analysis found in March.

Trump overruled the recommendations of his own agencies when he rejected federal aid for four Democratic-led states in July, Politico reported.

“The bad news is you have a very unreliable administration and a very political president,” said Kayyem, of Harvard. “When it comes to states’ expectations, we can’t know what this White House will do.”

But some emergency management veterans said the denials aren’t a clear-cut case of political retribution. Fugate, the former FEMA administrator under Obama, noted that many of the disaster requests Trump rejected were snow-related. Trump’s administration has pushed to eliminate snow assistance from FEMA disaster aid, arguing that states should not receive federal reimbursement for plowing their own roads. Many of the northern states that have experienced snow disasters are represented by Democrats.

For other disasters, Fugate said, Trump has a higher bar for granting federal recovery funds.

“The administration’s been very clear they’re wanting to raise thresholds, even if they haven’t formally changed the numbers,” he said. “I’ve not seen them deny catastrophic disasters, major disasters. It’s the smaller marginal disasters that are really judgment calls.”

While saying he “ain’t a big fan” of the Trump administration, Fugate said shifting the financial burden for disaster relief from the feds back to the states has been a longtime discussion among both parties.

Still, emergency managers said the White House should provide more clarity about what the new thresholds are and give states time to prepare for a bigger role.

“There’s really never been feedback about why a disaster was denied,” said Budd, the Wyoming official. “That’s something I would hope to see in the future, creating more clarity in what exactly are we looking at when we go through the process of trying to request a major disaster declaration.”

State money

Some states have begun preparing for a drawback of FEMA support. Tennessee lawmakers established a statewide recovery fund intended to help communities hit by disasters that don’t qualify for federal aid. While Republican Gov. Bill Lee requested $100 million to create the fund, lawmakers ultimately approved $44.2 million earlier this year. Some legislators fear that won’t go very far.

“Cutting it by more than half shows the State can’t afford for FEMA to cut back its support, much less to stop supporting states altogether,” state Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Democrat, told the Tennessee Lookout in a statement. “Funded at its current level, this fund can only really fill a few gaps where FEMA is too slow or too rigid.”

Budd, the president of the emergency managers’ group, said other states are considering similar funds.

“These are the types of programs that we as states need to look at, and something that I will have conversations about with our legislators in the future,” she said.

But as states look at making those investments, Budd called on the White House to give them more time.

“The very hard part about saying states need to do more is that it cannot happen overnight,” she said. “It will take time for states and lawmakers to build that.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

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USDA employees dispute ‘inflated’ claim that most staff asked to relocate will do so

Jory Heckman — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 18:20:51 -0400

Updated at 12:00 p.m. ET on Sept. 4

The Agriculture Department is telling a federal court that a majority of employees who received relocation notices so far have agreed to relocate – a higher acceptance rate than what the department experienced with a smaller-scale relocation under the first Trump administration.

In an Aug. 28 court filing, Mary Pletcher Rice, USDA’s acting principal deputy assistant secretary for administration, told a federal judge in San Francisco that 725 USDA employees have received management directed reassignment (MDR) letters so far, and that 64% of them have accepted reassignment.

USDA agencies saw major staffing losses when it relocated hundreds of D.C.-based employees to Kansas City, Mo., under the first Trump administration — a much smaller-scale plan than what USDA is proposing under the second Trump term. The Government Accountability Office found the vast majority of employees at the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture quit rather than relocate to Kansas City in 2019.

USDA employees who currently face relocation and the unions representing them say the department’s figures don’t reflect the number of employees who will actually move across the country to keep their jobs. The department has sent relocation notices to less than a third of the approximately 2,500 employees expected to receive them. The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

USDA so far has sent relocation notices to employees at ERS, NIFA, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the Foreign Agricultural Service and the Office of General Counsel. Employees at other components facing relocation have yet to receive notices.

USDA expects no more than 2,000 of the 4,600 employees currently working in the national capital region will remain there after moving staff to five regional hubs being stood up across the country.

Some employees say they’ve accepted relocation notices because that is the only way they can proceed with a request for a hardship or medical exemption. Others say they have nominally agreed to relocate, but are still applying for other jobs. If that plan doesn’t work out, they may quit rather than move.

A Natural Resources Conservation Service employee told Government Executive that he accepted relocation, but only so that he has more time to look for another USDA job within the D.C. metro area.

“My intention is to stay in the D.C., Maryland, Delaware, Virginia area. That's my intention. And whatever I need to do to do that is what I want to do. I'm just trying to buy myself some time where I can make that happen,” the NRCS employee said.

NRCS is USDA’s second-largest component, and helps farmers and other agricultural producers protect and conserve private lands. The agency has shed more than 20% of its workforce so far under the Trump administration. Government Executive reported last summer that NRCS is looking to backfill critical vacancies through lateral transfers.

“If I see a position that suits me and that I’m interested in, I can apply for that. However, it’s either going to be at an equal grade or lesser,” the NRCS employee said. “That’s one way of forcing people to take a voluntary downgrade.”

More than 28,000 employees have separated from USDA, largely through voluntary separation incentives, since the start of the second Trump administration. Factoring in hiring, the department has seen a net decrease of nearly 16,000 employees. USDA officials told the court on July 24 that the department is planning to hire nearly 16,000 employees this year to “offset expected attrition.”

A NIFA employee who opted to relocate said USDA’s claim that 64% of employees have opted to relocate is “highly inflated,” because colleagues are applying for exemptions or applying for local jobs.

“I know people who have accepted the MDR, but only accepted so they could try to stay employed, apply for other jobs in their area, and keep their jobs in case of an injunction,” the NIFA employee said. “I know a number of people who accepted because they needed to apply for hardships or reasonable accommodations, and the agency required you hit ‘accept’ in order to apply for those. These people will not move if they don't get their hardship or RAs.”

The NRCS employee said staff have nothing to lose by telling USDA they plan to relocate, even if they have no intention of moving, or are only considering it as a last resort.

“If I had said ‘no’ to the letter, the position that I'm assigned to, it goes away. There's no benefit to me to say ‘no.’ You’re almost pushed in a position of saying ‘yes’ to the letter," the NRCS employee said. “If you say no to the reassignment, ultimately you’re going to get removal. If your answer is anything other than, ‘Yes, I’m going to move, and yes, I”m going to show up on this date,’ the ultimate path is that you’re going to be removed."

Keywan Johnson, a labor relations specialist with the American Federation of Government Employees, told the court that USDA’s figures are “inflated,” because they must accept relocation in order to request hardship exemptions or reasonable accommodations.

"Due to their personal circumstances, many of those employees will not be able to relocate if their requests are denied,” Johnson wrote.

In some cases, USDA employees said they cannot relocate because their spouse’s job requires them to remain in the area, or because they are the sole caregivers for elderly parents. Union leaders told reporters in July that internal polling indicates that women, people of color, older workers and workers with disabilities are disproportionately being asked to relocate.

“They’re overwhelmingly the group of individuals that are being moved and relocated and put in positions of lesser responsibility than what they were before,” the NRCS employee said. “By targeting these individuals, you’re looking at reducing your overhead through salaries and benefits because you’re getting these higher-cost employees off the books, and by having such a secretive process, then you’re able to do this, and cherry-pick individuals to stay in place that you have more of an affinity to.”

A coalition of federal employee labor unions, nonprofits and local governments is asking a federal judge in San Francisco to stop USDA’s relocation plans arguing that the move is an attempt to downsize its workforce without congressional approval.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston, in a ruling Wednesday, allowed USDA to proceed with its relocation plans for now. Illston told plaintiffs challenging the USDA reorganization, via a lawsuit filed in April 2025 to challenge the Trump administration’s widespread federal workforce layoffs, that their latest claims “do not belong in this case,” and should be brought up in a separate lawsuit.

Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images“The Court concludes that the claims plaintiffs seek to bring regarding the USDA reorganization involve new and distinct causes of action that should be the subject of a separate lawsuit,” she wrote.

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Former pardon atty calls MSPB ‘a dead end,’ sues for reinstatement

Erich Wagner — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:31:21 -0400

Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer sued the Trump administration Thursday, asserting that her 2025 firing on “Article II” grounds violated her First and Fifth amendment rights, as well as the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act.

Oyer, who served as a federal public defender for a decade prior to her appointment to pardon attorney in 2022, was removed from her career post in March 2025, shortly after refusing to issue a nonbinding recommendation that actor Mel Gibson’s right to own a firearm be restored despite his 2011 domestic violence conviction.

Her removal was one of the first in a string of so-called Article II firings at the Justice Department that eventually encompassed attorneys, prosecutors and immigration judges. In these cases, the department has elided the firing procedures and rules set forth by the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, instead arguing that the president has constitutional authority to remove these employees at will.

Though Oyer filed an appeal with the Merit Systems Protection Board shortly after her firing last year, she has yet to receive meaningful movement toward a decision before the quasi-adjudicative agency. Last March, the MSPB relinquished jurisdiction of such cases, and in June, an MSPB administrative judge dismissed Oyer’s case without prejudice, a decision that means she must wait at least another six months before she may refile and longer to receive a decision.

“The MSPB has proved, however, to be a dead end,” the lawsuit states. “Despite filing her MSPB appeal more than 16 months ago, she has yet to receive any substantive review of her termination. Most recently, on June 2, 2026, the MSPB dismissed Ms. Oyer’s appeal without prejudice for a minimum of an additional six months (and likely far longer), sending her case to a further prolonged limbo.”

Although federal workers typically must exhaust their administrative avenue to appeal a personnel action before heading to federal circuit courts for judicial review, Oyer argued that the morass of seeking MSPB review, combined with her firing purportedly on constitutional grounds, rather than via the Civil Service Reform Act’s procedures, allow her to pursue her case before the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C.

Oyer and her attorneys also argued that even if administration officials can bypass statutory removal protections when they fire inferior officers under Article II of the Constitution, the Justice Department failed to follow its own policy governing such removals, as her firing was signed by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“With respect to its purported removal of Ms. Oyer, moreover, DOJ did not even use the procedures that DOJ itself maintains are necessary to effectuate a removal under Article II,” the lawsuit states. “That is because Ms. Oyer’s removal was signed only by the deputy attorney general. This distinction is significant because—on DOJ’s own telling—only the attorney general can wield the president’s Article II removal authority.”

Another case challenging the Justice Department’s Article II filings, Jackler v. MSPB, is set to go before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for oral arguments in December.

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Reliable rules for your retirement recordkeeping

Tammy Flanagan — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:00:00 -0400

This is an update to an article I wrote last year (and the year before) that provides tips and resources to transition from employee to annuitant and to catch up on some of the retirement planning that should have, but maybe didn’t, begin when you started your career.

Here are some crucial tips for every stage of your federal career:

Understand the parts of the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS)

FERS An Overview of Your Benefits

FERS Information

Learn about your Minimum Retirement Age (MRA)

Service Credit

You know how long you’ve been a federal employee, but is there sufficient evidence of your career so that service may be credited towards your retirement eligibility and calculation? Be sure that there is documentation of your prior federal civilian and military service in your electronic Official Personnel Folder (eOPF) or paper OPF. If documentation is missing, let your retirement specialist know so that it can be retrieved and included in your service history for leave accrual and future retirement eligibility and computation.

In today’s climate where every federal employee is on alert for early retirement offers and, in some cases, the “pink slip” of an involuntary separation, it is important to take responsibility for gathering copies of the records that prove your beginning and ending dates of federal and military service, your retirement coverage, and work schedule.

If your agency isn’t as responsive as you would like, try to learn more about service credit by reading and attending available training. Here are some places to begin:

Office of Personnel Management YouTube: Retirement Counseling Tips

Office of Personnel Management YouTube: Quick Guide to Retirement Processing

Office of Personnel Management YouTube: Navigating Federal Retirement: How to Register for a Login.gov Account through Services Online

Consider paying a deposit into FERS for military service, non-covered civilian federal employment performed before 1989 (civilian service not covered by FERS deductions after 1988 is not currently creditable), and any refunded FERS contributions that you may have if there was a break in your federal career allowing you a return of your retirement contributions.

Understand the value of your sick leave and annual leave

Sick leave is your “short-term disability” protection. Treat it like “gold!” You earn four hours per pay period which translates to six months of paid time off after 10 years and a full year of paid time off after 20 years of federal employment.

Unfortunately, sick leave does not add much value to your retirement benefit – only 1/12 of 1% (or 1.1%) of your high-three average salary per year. For example, if you have a high-three of $100,000, 1 month of sick leave would add 1/12 of $100,000 x 1% or $83/year or about $7/month… where using that 1 month of accrued leave would be worth around $48 x 22 workdays x 8 hour/day = $8,448. Plus you would earn a little more annual and sick leave at the same time! If you need to use your sick leave and you have retirement coming up in your near future, then it is OK to use it if you have a valid reason to use it. Otherwise, be thankful you were healthy! It hasn’t been that long that FERS retirement received any credit for unused sicvk leave towards retirement calculation credit… so there’s that! It has only been for about the last 13 years: 50% Credit was applied to retirements with an annuity starting date from Oct. 28, 2009, through Dec. 31, 2013 and 100% Credit was implemented for all retirements starting on or after Jan. 1, 2014.

Know the rules for using your leave:

Fact Sheet: Annual Leave (General Information): An employee may use annual leave to establish initial eligibility for retirement in reduction-in-force (RIF) and other restructuring situations. An employee who has received a specific notice of termination in a RIF situation may use annual leave past the date the employee would otherwise have been separated to establish initial eligibility for immediate retirement, including discontinued service or voluntary early retirement.

Fact Sheet: Sick Leave (General Information): Unused sick leave will be used in the calculation of an employee's or survivor's CSRS or FERS annuity based on retirement with an immediate annuity or on a death in service.

Update your designation of beneficiary

Unpaid Compensation SF 1152: (Last paycheck, allowances and reimbursement for things such as unused annual leave, and anything else that is owed to an employee from the agency upon the death of a federal employee)

Federal Employees Group Life Insurance SF 2823

Reporting a death/FEGLI Death Claims

Federal Employees Retirement System or Civil Service Retirement System SF 3102 This does not determine any recurring benefits such as a survivor annuity for a spouse or a child. This benefit consists of the deceased's retirement contributions, plus any applicable interest, in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund.

Chapter 75, CSRS and FERS Handbook, Lump Sum Benefits

Office of Personnel Management Survivor Benefits

Thrift Savings Plan: To designate a beneficiary or beneficiaries, log in to My Account on tsp.gov or use one of the Thrift Line Service Center options listed in the Death Benefits booklet. Remember that once you select a beneficiary(ies), you cannot cancel and return to the order of precedence. You will only be able to designate a new beneficiary. If your spouse inherits your TSP account, they will have a TSP Beneficiary Account set up for their inherited funds.

Understand how the TSP works

Online Learning Opportunities: The TSP offers free recorded webinars, live webinars, and other scheduled training which cover many topics for TSP participants and their beneficiaries. These learning opportunities are hosted by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB).

How Does Compound Interest Work? By Mark Catanzaro, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank: Learn about the Rule of 72 and learn about how inflation affects purchasing power of money. This should always be considered when reviewing long-term projections. For instance, the purchasing power of $787,180 today would be approximately $434,580 in 30 years, assuming a 2% average inflation rate.

Core Funds vs. L Funds vs. Mutual Fund Window

Set up your “My Social Security” account with LOGIN.GOV: This account will let you access your earnings record, age-appropriate information about Social Security benefits and estimates of the benefits you are earning.

Leaving federal service early:

Leaving early might mean giving up lifetime FEHB coverage, life insurance, and credit for unused sick leave toward your retirement computation.

A deferred retirement is paid later when a federal employee is not entitled to an immediate retirement benefit, however, you must have a minimum of five years of creditable civilian federal service to qualify for any retirement benefit. A deferred annuitant is not entitled to the FERS Special Retirement Supplement to hold you over until you qualify for Social Security at age 62. When contemplating a move to the private sector, consider and compare workplace flexibility; leave policies and accrual; retirement benefits, insurance options; and of course, salary.

If you make the decision to leave:

Consider keeping your FERS retirement contributions on deposit to allow a deferred retirement benefit that is payable later if you have at least five years of creditable civilian federal employment.

Consider keeping your retirement savings in your TSP account if you leave federal service when you are at least 55 in the year of your separation from federal employment to avoid early withdrawal penalties that may apply from an IRA when you make withdrawals before age 59 ½. If you separate before the year that you reach age 55, be aware of the potential tax penalties for early withdrawal unless you meet one of the other exceptions as described in the TSP Tax Rules About TSP Payments publication.

You may continue your FEHB coverage for up to 18 months following your separation (this is called Temporary Continuation of Coverage comparable to COBRA in the private sector). Under TCC, you will pay the employer and the employee share of the premium.

Be sure to use up your flexible spending account dollars before you leave. The balances in your Health Care FSA (HCFSA), Limited Expense Health Care FSA (LEX HCFSA) and Dependent Care FSA (DCFSA) are treated differently if you separate before the end of the calendar year.
- Your HCFSA or LEX HCFSA will terminate as of the date of your separation or retirement. There are no extensions. Any eligible health care expenses incurred prior to the date of separation will still be reimbursed but those incurred after the separation date are not reimbursable, even if you accelerated your allotments. If you used your entire elected amount before FSAFEDS has deducted it from your pay, you will not be responsible for the remaining allotments.
- Your DCFSA remaining balance can continue to be used to pay for eligible dependent care expenses until your account balance is depleted or the end of the calendar year, whichever comes first.

Retirement Sooner than Later:

Make sure you are on track with your savings (review the TSP tips for new hires)

Learn the pros and cons of a TSP Loan before you apply for one.

Try saving for big items such as a car, vacations, and other major outlays rather than using credit or loans.

Update your designation of beneficiary forms

The TSP allocation you have could be too conservative

The TSP allocation you have could be too aggressive (or not aggressive enough)

Begin to project your retirement benefits payable at your MRA, age 60, and at age 62.

At your MRA, you may find that you are eligible for either a reduced MRA + 10 benefit or an unreduced immediate retirement benefit with a supplemental payment to help you retire earlier than age 62. Although you may be eligible to retire, can you afford to retire?

At age 60, you will only need 20 years of creditable service to retire with an unreduced, immediate retirement benefit, and be entitled to a FERS Special Retirement Supplement to age 62.

Age 62 is worth considering for a variety of reasons:

To be eligible for an immediate retirement at age 62, you only need five years of creditable civilian service covered by FERS.
If you have 20 years of creditable service (including credit for unused sick leave), you will qualify for a higher computation factor for your benefit resulting in a ten percent increase just for have 20 or more years of service (and being 62 or older),
Cost of living adjustments for most FERS retirees begin at age 62. Remember that if you retire before 62, your retirement under FERS (and the FERS Supplement) will not increase until you turn 62 years old. Exceptions for special groups such as law enforcement officers and firefighters retiring under FERS along with disability annuitants and survivor annuitants.
At age 62, you are now eligible for Social Security retirement benefits which will be more than the FERS Supplement because they will be based on your lifetime of Social Security covered employment rather than only your civilian service covered by FERS. Social Security benefits are adjusted annually for inflation.

To Do List:

Run the numbers
- Compute your FERS Basic Retirement Benefit (or have your HR office do it for you). Consider reductions for survivor elections, former spouse apportionments and survivor benefits, age reduction for MRA + 10 option, and proration of the benefit if you ever worked part-time. Be sure to review your service history and be sure that all the time is creditable for the calculation of your retirement.
- Your retirement benefit will also be subject to monthly withholdings for federal and state income tax (not all states tax federal retirement benefits, however), and insurance (FEHB, FEGLI, FLTCIP, and FEDVIP).
- If you are going to file for Social Security retirement, get an updated estimate at www.ssa.gov. Your benefit will be partially taxable on the federal level and there are about six states that also tax SSA benefits.
You can prepare the Application for Immediate Retirement, SF 3107, https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf3107.pdf before you begin the Online Retirement Application. This will help you understand the decisions you will need to make and the documents you may need to upload into the ORA System. If available, set up pre-retirement counseling to ask questions, review your estimated benefits, and learn how your agency processes your retirement.
- Become familiar with the new Online Retirement Application: https://retire.opm.gov/portal
- SF 2818 Continuation of Life Insurance (FEGLI)
- Fact Sheet: Lump Sum Payment for Annual Leave
- Retirement Facts 8: Credit for Unused Sick Leave Under the Civil Service Retirement System (also applies to FERS)
The health plan you are in may not be the best health plan for retirement. This is especially true if you enroll in Medicare Part B once you have retired. FEHB plans wrap around Medicare nicely so you can avoid most out-of-pocket expenses (deductible, copays, and coinsurance). It pays to compare your current coverage with plans that offer incentives to enroll in Medicare. Members of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association have access to a series of webinars that can help you understand and choose the best plan for you. In addition, the Checkbook Guide to Federal Health Plans can provide comprehensive information for employees and retirees during open season.
- Retirement is not a Qualifying Life Event, however if you move outside of your FEHB plan’s service area or if you are 65 or older, you can use a QLE to change plans outside of open season. See a list of all QLEs on form SF 2809 or OPM Form 2809.
Make copies of everything that you fill out before you turn in your applications.
Brush up on tax information
- W-4P Withholding Certificate for Periodic Pension or Annuity Payments
- IRS Publication 721 Tax Guide to U.S. Civil Service Retirement Benefits
- Tax Rules About TSP Payments, TSP Publication 26
- Request to withhold taxes from your Social Security benefit

Be sure to have six months of living expenses in the bank before you retire to allow for delays in processing your benefits.
Update your designation of beneficiary forms (see above) Information for FERS Annuitants
When you receive your CSA (Civil Service Active) number from the Office of Personnel Management, it is time to set up your Services Online account. This will allow you to make changes such as updating your address, electing federal and state tax withholding, view your annuity statement and more.
Learn how to manage your TSP account in retirement
The TSP allocation you have could be too conservative
The TSP allocation you have could be too aggressive
Consider the options for distribution of your TSP account
TSP Distribution Booklet
Withdrawing Your TSP Account after Retirement
- One option for a TSP distribution is to purchase a TSP life annuity through the TSP vendor. To compute an estimate of this, use the TSP annuity calculator. The current TSP Annuity interest rate index factor is 5.075% up from 4.95% in August. The historical rates can be found here: https://www.tsp.gov/withdrawals-in-retirement/historical-annuity-rates/ Learn about this option in the TSP Annuity Fact Sheet.
- Other, more flexible options include requesting monthly, quarterly, or annual installment payments directly from your account; partial payments, as needed; and you may also transfer some or all your TSP to an IRA.
- Make sure that your address is current with the TSP and be sure to enter your bank information by accessing your account at www.tsp.gov. This will make your withdrawals go smoother and take less time to process.
- For your protection, the destination you wish to send your TSP payment to must be on file for at least seven days before it can receive funds. This includes any postal address or any direct deposit information you’ve entered. Make sure this information is on file for at least seven days before you start your request. Lost, stolen, damaged, or misdirected checks can take six weeks or longer to replace.

All the best to those of you who are getting ready to complete your career of dedicated federal service and move into the next chapter of your career or your retirement life!

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Former CISA employee pleads guilty to defrauding government with secret contractor jobs

David DiMolfetta — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 14:05:03 -0400

A former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency employee pleaded guilty Wednesday to defrauding the government of nearly $250,000 by secretly holding multiple federal contracting jobs and submitting timesheets that sometimes claimed she worked 33 hours in a single day.

Richeline Anisso Fung pleaded guilty to a federal false claims charge, the Justice Department announced.

She worked full time at CISA from September 2016 until October 2025. Between January 2021 and August 2024, she simultaneously held contracting positions supporting the Drug Enforcement Administration and the departments of Energy, Justice, Transportation and Agriculture, as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Some of that work was performed through RAF Pro-Consulting, a Florida company Fung established in 2020. She concealed the overlapping jobs from CISA and the contractors, according to prosecutors.

The arrangement resulted in extraordinary claims on her timesheets. In February 2022, Fung was working for CISA and three contractors supporting the DOJ, Agriculture Department and Federal Highway Administration. Her reported working time exceeded 24 hours a day on 15 occasions that month.

She claimed to have worked 33 hours on four consecutive days and 32 hours on a fifth, prosecutors said.

Fung admitted that she was able to conceal the overlapping employment because the positions were carried out remotely. Justice did not disclose her role at CISA or describe the work she performed for the other agencies.

Nextgov/FCW could not immediately reach Fung for comment. As part of a plea agreement, she must repay nearly $250,000 to the government, with sentencing scheduled for Jan. 20.

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Inspectors general are facing an identity crisis. Here’s how some former IGs would preserve the watchdogs’ independence

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:26:32 -0400

As President Donald Trump installs individuals with political histories into inspector general positions, which historically have been nonpartisan agency watchdog roles, a panel of current and former oversight officials on Wednesday discussed what actions lawmakers could take to protect IG independence moving forward. But the speakers acknowledged that many of their recommendations have tradeoffs and weaknesses.

“I don't know what the answer is,” said Mark Lee Greenblatt, the former IG at the Interior Department who was removed in a mass firing of the watchdogs at the start of the president’s second term. “It is a very, very hard call. I think you can adopt some measures; the question is whether Congress is interested in them.”

Greenblatt said at the Government Oversight and Accountability Symposium, which was hosted by George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, that a recent Supreme Court decision that expanded the president’s ability to fire officials who previously had removal protections complicates any attempt to set up new guardrails. He mused that sequestration, or automatic funding cuts, if a president improperly fires an IG could align with the justices’ ruling. But he noted that may create a perverse incentive for removing a watchdog.

“The problem is that maybe the president wants to cut the budget of that agency, and this is a great backdoor way to do it,” he said.

Greenblatt also pointed to a blog by Fernando Laguarda, an American University law professor, that argued IGs still could be protected from removal under a different recent Supreme Court decision that temporarily blocked Trump’s attempted firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

Allison Lerner, the former IG at the National Science Foundation, recommended on Wednesday that Congress set up a dedicated appropriation for the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. Currently, the central watchdog group receives its funding through contributions from participating IG offices.

The Office of Management and Budget blocked CIGIE from receiving funding for about a month-and-a-half in 2025, arguing that IGs “have become corrupt, partisan and in some cases, have lied to the public.” The White House backtracked, however, after pushback from Senate Republicans.

But Lerner, who previously led CIGIE, said that her recommendation pre-dates the latest conflict with the administration.

“By taking a tiny percentage of every OIG's budget and having that shifted over to CIGIE to fund its operations, in practice that's been truly challenging to manage,” she said. “I'm concerned that it may become even more challenging if people decide that they simply don't want to transfer that money over to CIGIE.”

Greenblatt also recommended that Congress should codify CIGIE’s practice of reviewing possible IG nominees. Tammy Hull, the IG for the U.S. Postal Service and acting CIGIE chair from January 2025 through April 2026, told the audience that the review panel no longer provides input on presidentially appointed IGs but does for those selected by agencies.

There are more than 70 federal IGs; about half are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate while the other half are appointed by an agency head.

CIGIE also runs the Integrity Committee, which oversees investigations into allegations of wrongdoing against an IG or other senior OIG staffers. Lerner contended that the current process “looks like IGs pitted against IGs” and recommended transferring that responsibility to the Office of Special Counsel, which supervises investigations that are prompted by whistleblower complaints.

“Since I've retired, I have time when I'm walking the dog to think about things like the Integrity Committee. My most recent thought was that it might make sense to put the Integrity Committee into the Office of Special Counsel,” she said. “The OSC conducts administrative investigations that are very similar to the investigations that the Integrity Committee does.”

Greenblatt agreed with removing the Integrity Committee from CIGIE but also cautioned that the OSC could be led by a partisan-minded individual. The current special counsel is Charles Baldis, a former GOP Senate staffer. In 2025, Trump removed the incumbent special counsel — Hampton Dellinger, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden — before the end of his five-year term.

House Republicans in July advanced out of committee the Restoring Integrity and Efficiency to Inspector General Oversight Act (H.R. 9725) that would abolish CIGIE. Supporters of the bill pointed to a June report from the Government Accountability Office that found the Integrity Committee frequently fell short of its own process requirements during investigations.

Speakers also stressed the importance of improving IG engagement with the public, particularly with respect to pushing agencies to implement their recommendations.

“We have a comms problem,” Hull said. “I think we have relied on our 20th century brains that say ‘We issue these 25 to 30 page reports. [People] will read them. They will do the right thing.’ The world we live in is not that world.”

Greenblatt touted Lucy Lang, the New York state IG, who frequently promotes her office’s work on social media and even wrote a comic book that uses dog characters to explain what an IG does.

Oversight is the name of the game, and OIG knows how to play it.

We published our 2025 Annual Report on Gaming Commission Oversight, detailing our work to strengthen integrity in the gaming sector.

Read the full report at https://t.co/A18E0DrgaH pic.twitter.com/LbfNCh0Bmi
— NYS Inspector General (@NewYorkStateIG) August 21, 2026

“We need to get in the modern era. We're not issuing 50-page reports and just throwing that out to the world. Zero people will read that,” Greenblatt said. “You have to make it consumable for the average American. You have to make them understand why this matters to them. We're not speaking just to the agency. We're not speaking just to Congress. We have to speak to the American people and have them understand why we are doing this.”

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OPM taps new healthcare and insurance chief ahead of Open Season

Jory Heckman — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 17:06:38 -0400

The Office of Personnel Management’s healthcare and insurance division, following recent staffing reductions, is getting new leadership ahead of its busy Open Season.

Matthew Kiley, a former Department of Health and Human Services official under the first Trump administration, will serve as the associate director of OPM’s healthcare and insurance division, starting Sept. 8, according to an internal memo obtained by Government Executive.

A copy of Kiley’s resume shared with OPM employees and partially viewed by GovExec shows Kiley is the founder and former president of the Weyhill Group, a boutique management consulting firm in the greater Philadelphia area that serves clients in financial services, insurance and healthcare.

According to Kiley’s LinkedIn page, he also led the Office of Health Policy within HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) between November 2019 and and January 2021.

Kiley wrote that during his tenure at HHS, he “helped the department make significant progress in improving the health of all Americans and moving toward a more patient-centered and sustainable system.” Projects he worked on include eliminating surprise billing for patients, lowering “excessive drug prices" and addressing rural health issues.

Kiley was also involved in the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, providing information used to allocate ventilators and relief funds. Earlier in his career, Kiley was a senior executive with Aramark, a consultant for McKinsey and an underwriter for Berkshire Hathaway's Insurance Group.

Kiley will take over for Shane Stevens, who announced in May that he was voluntarily stepping down. Kiley and OPM did not respond to requests for comment.

OPM shrank its total headcount by 35% between December 2024 and March 2026, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. GAO found that more than half of OPM employees who left during this period had 11 or more years of service.

Nearly 60% of OPM employees who have left under the second Trump administration did so through the deferred resignation program. GAO wrote staffing reductions “have reduced institutional knowledge and operational capacity at the agency.”

OPM recently carried out further workforce cuts. The agency announced in June that it would give employees in its healthcare and insurance division another shot at opting into the deferred resignation program, before rolling out an “organizational change.”

OPM H&I employees accepted into this round of the DRP went on paid administrative leave at the end of August, and will officially separate from the agency in March 2027. The agency is shrinking its healthcare and insurance workforce a few months before OPM’s busy Open Season, a one-month period in which federal and Postal Service employees can make changes to their healthcare plans.

Open Season starts in November and ends in December. Health plan changes made during this period go into effect in January. An OPM spokesperson told Government Executive in July that “we feel very confident in our staffing levels and OPM’s ability to deliver on a successful open season.”

Earlier this year, OPM called on federal health carriers to reduce costs while promoting a “well care” model in the federal insurance marketplace. In its March 31 call letter, OPM emphasized that members of Federal Employees Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits plans should take a more active role in their health.

Health plan participants have faced significant premium hikes in recent years. For 2026, enrollees in FEHB and PSHB paid an average of 12.3% and 11.3% more, respectively, toward their health insurance premiums.

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The National Science Foundation is building out the government’s AI research infrastructure

Alexandra Kelley — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:58:00 -0400

The National Science Foundation unveiled a new “backbone” for its artificial intelligence research resource on Tuesday, called the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Operations Center.

The NAIRR Operations Center will support the broader program offering researchers access to data and other computational resources for their advanced AI research. The operations center will coordinate efforts between research resource partners and offer support and training to users working with the NAIRR.

The NAIRR itself was initially launched in January 2024, linking private sector partners like NVIDIA, OpenAI and Microsoft with NAIRR researchers. It was set to expire in January 2026, and is now transitioning to a permanent part of NSF’s AI research infrastructure, in part with the help of the new operations center.

“The NAIRR pilot has demonstrated both the demand for and the impact of a national approach to AI infrastructure,” the NSF press release reads. “NAIRR-OC will build on this progress by transforming successful elements of the pilot into a sustained national capability.”

Two academic institutions, the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego and the Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin, will lead the operations center.

The Trump administration has prioritized fortifying the U.S. scientific research apparatus with AI technologies. President Donald Trump’s AI Action Plan, debuted in July 2026, called for investments in AI-enabled scientific discovery, charging NAIRR with continuing to build inroads for public-private sector partnerships.

In May of this year, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ethan Klein underscored the administration’s focus on leveraging new AI systems for scientific advancement.

“Across a broad swath of applications, but specifically for scientific discovery, I think agentic AI will be transformational,” Klein said at the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo.

NSF has also been at the center of the Trump administration’s massive government overhaul by conducting a mass termination of select grants beginning in April 2025 as a result of investigations conducted by the Department of Government Efficiency that deemed them too heavily focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. Among the terminated grants were topics that focused on deepfake detection and aspects of AI advancement.

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Scammers are making the government harder to trust

Caroline Melear — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 07:00:00 -0400

“Your vehicle has an unpaid toll. Pay now to avoid late fees and legal action.” Countless Americans have received some form of this text in recent years. Unfortunately, it is part of a pattern.

In 2025, there was an 87% increase in government impersonation scams reported to the FBI. Americans lost about $920 million that year to criminals posing as government agencies, up from $789 million in 2024, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

And now, scammers are impersonating FBI employees to target former scam victims. In the long run, without firm enforcement, these scams will further erode trust in government, making it harder for agencies to do their jobs.

Scams targeting Americans have exploded since 2020, but imposter scams are among the most worrying. Scammers exploiting the authority of the government are eroding the trust necessary for legitimate government communication.

A call or text claiming to be the IRS or a state toll authority can cause a victim to act impulsively, fearing penalties or legal action. But after repeated communication attempts from multiple scammers, Americans may no longer trust legitimate government communication.

The FBI has also warned about scammers using AI-generated voice messages to impersonate senior U.S. officials, a capability that will only become cheaper and more convincing over time.

Meanwhile, a new survey confirms that federal complaint data captures only a fraction of the problem. Gallup estimates 15 million Americans, or roughly 6% of adults, were personally scammed in 2025, for a total toll of about $68 billion, across all types of scams.

That is more than four times the amount reported to the FTC for the same year. Only around 13% of victims reported their scam to a federal authority, and nearly two-thirds said they would not know where to report a scam.

Many who stayed silent did not think reporting would help them get their money back, reflecting a lack of confidence in the reporting process. After all, 82% of Americans surveyed said the government is doing too little to prevent scams.

Yet despite public sentiment, it would be unfair to claim the government has been only a bystander in solving scams. The FTC’s Government and Business Impersonation Rule gives the agency authority to sue impersonators and seek civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation.

In the two years since the rule was finalized, the FTC has brought a dozen enforcement actions and recovered more than $70 million for consumers, including cases against fake tax-debt-relief operations posing as the IRS.

This is just one of many government-led initiatives to stem the tide of scams, like those from the Treasury Department, Justice Department and the White House.

Beyond enforcement, Health and Human Services started a public-private partnership aimed at America’s seniors.

The “Never Ever” campaign informs them that the government will never demand payment via a payment app, cryptocurrency, wire transfer or gift card, and it will never threaten to suspend benefits unless someone pays immediately. This solution at least attempts to head off scammers instead of relying on retroactive enforcement.

But whack-a-mole and after-the-fact solutions are poorly suited to reducing the threat or rebuilding Americans’ trust.

A more durable solution starts with the federal government bringing its full weight to bear on scam operations themselves and allowing agencies to leverage the same AI tools that are used against victims. It also means holding accountable the communication channels where scams most frequently reach Americans, including phone calls, text messages and social media, and incentivizing them to block scam communications from ever occurring in the first place.

This may include introducing stronger digital ad verification standards at the platform level and greater legal responsibility for the telecom middlemen who allow scam callers to connect to consumer-facing carriers.

Finally, Americans are clearly lost when it comes to reporting. This is why a single, consumer-friendly system is vital for reporting, tracking and possible restitution, both for Americans and policymakers who need accurate data to properly address the problem.

None of these fixes work in isolation, nor are the solutions an exhaustive fix. Each chips away at the problem while scammers find whatever gap is left open.

What’s needed is a comprehensive response that connects enforcement, communications accountability and consumer protections into a single coordinated strategy, rather than a patchwork of agencies each managing their own slice of it.

Every unanswered official text and ignored call is a sign that Americans are starting to tune out the government itself, including the notices that are real. If people can no longer tell a legitimate IRS message from a scam, many will stop responding, period, and no FTC fine will be able to buy that trust back.

Caroline Melear is a Resident Fellow for Finance, Insurance and Trade with the R Street Institute.

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Inspector general fired by Trump talks leadership, OIG independence and his new memoir

Sean Michael Newhouse — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 17:55:51 -0400

Across his decades-long career in government, Larry Turner served in the Army, in senior positions at the Defense Department’s inspector general office and, ultimately, as the IG for the Labor Department. He was fired by the president, along with 16 other federal agency watchdogs, in January 2025.

Since his departure from government, Turner wrote a book recounting his abrupt firing as well as lessons in leadership that he’s learned throughout his life — tracing his path from being an introverted kid to heading a government oversight office.

In an interview with Government Executive, Turner discusses how IG staffers serve as a check on their boss, how he would strengthen the Trump administration’s anti-fraud initiatives and what he’d say to the president in order to change his mind about diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Editor’s note: The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Q. It's clear from reading the book that you really loved being an IG and being in the IG community — so much so that you coined the phrase, "It's a great day to be in the OIG.” So my first question for you is, what do you miss most about being an IG?

A. I actually miss the staff. Going through the military and going through the government and a couple years as a contractor, one of the things that I realized was my strength was leadership. When I say that, that sounds like a nice, corny thing to say. But after working for several different managers over my career, I know the importance of getting the best out of your staff and how you can get the best out of your staff.

When I would hire people or interview people for our jobs, I was really wanting to measure their passion about their work. We were a small OIG. We were about 350 employees. I would bring executives in and I would let them know that “Hey, unlike some places where you may be in this ivory tower, here you got to roll your sleeves up and actually go to work and manage people.”

I want people that are gonna get outside their office and go talk to the staff. That was how it was for me. That's why I love managing staff so much. When I left the government, all of a sudden, I found myself at home every day. I see my wife and talk to a few friends and colleagues on the phone, but I don’t have the daily interaction that I had with staff, which I just loved.

Q. In your book, you talk about the importance of IG independence. While IGs are supposed to be appointed “without regard to political affiliation,” most of the IGs who have been confirmed since the start of Trump's second term worked in the president's first or second administration. Your successor, Anthony D’Esposito, is a former GOP lawmaker who recently spoke at a Trump political rally. Considering all of this, do you feel you will be able to trust the findings of DOL OIG audits and investigations moving forward?

A. I would say with any OIG there's a possible perception that you may favor the administration or the secretary. People may question your findings. Was it independent? Was it nonpartisan? So that's the problem you run into, even if you were not trying to. Some of the criticism I see of some of the newer IGs, including my replacement, is because they, in some cases, have not stayed away from that. One of the things that you learn as an inspector general is that you have got to give the appearance of being independent and not influenced by the administration.

The other part about that is you don't know your staff’s political affiliation. I think our staff are just a slice of the American public, and so they are the ones that help you hold your feet to the fire. If they feel that you are siding with the administration, your employees could write a whistleblower complaint, somebody could go to the media or they could even turn you into the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

(Editor’s note: CIGIE oversees investigations into senior watchdog officials. Last year, the Trump administration prevented the group from receiving funding for about a month-and-a-half, but backtracked following objections from some Senate Republicans.)

That's one of those things where we police ourselves up. That's why I think it's so important to provide that independence. IGs are intentional about that because you make sure that you avoid meetings with the secretary that may have a certain slant in terms of what the administration is doing. IGs try to stay away from that, and the secretaries know that because sometimes they won't invite us to certain meetings, or we will opt out and they understand and agree with that.

Q. Could you provide an example of a meeting that you purposefully skipped while you were an IG at Labor?

A. Once a week there were certain internal-level meetings that the secretary or the deputy secretary would have. When you get a new secretary, a time or two, you may attend those until you realize that this was really based on administrative guidance. So those were meetings where you felt like, “OK, I don't need to be at this meeting.” You would let the secretary or the deputy know that, and they would say, “Oh, not a problem Mr. IG. I understand that, and we don't want to compromise your position.”

Q. You write in your book about growing up in a segregated town, attending a segregated school and being one of the only Black officers at your first assignment in the Army. You write openly about racism you experienced in your personal and professional life. Something that stood out to me was when you had a new colonel, and he would only say good morning to white staff members and not Black ones. You also describe yourself as a supporter of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. In contrast, the Trump administration has sought to remove DEI from the federal government. If you had an opportunity to meet with the president, what would you say to him to try and convince him to change his anti-DEI stance?

A. I would say that if your goal is to hire the best people, then you have to open up the hiring process. If you only look at people that know you or that look like you, then you limit yourself. I am greedy. I want the best people working for me. Why would I want anything else than that?

If I were talking to the president, that's what I would tell him. If you really are serious about hiring the best people, then you have to open up the gates for everybody to apply. And from that application process, it'll give you a chance to look at more people. One of the reasons I pushed DEI was because I understood that there were a lot of qualified people that have been working all their lives to qualify for certain jobs. If you shut that down, then you don't give them a chance to compete.

I would like to be interviewing the top three or four people that are really good. You want your best choices. You don't want to have one person that stands out and two or three that are just really bad. That was the thing that I always impressed upon my managers and senior execs. At the end of the day, I considered success as getting the best employee available.

There were times that I had to have like a teach-and-train moment with my execs because they had a candidate or two that was African American, and they were afraid to hire somebody white because “I'm worried about stepping on the boss’ toes.” But they misunderstood what I was saying that, at the end of the day, it's about hiring the best people.

Sometimes that can mean you may have more white staff members. Sometimes you may have more Asians. Sometimes you may have more African Americans. But when you go through that process, and the top person that rises to the level is whatever race, it just happens that way. But I think it's unfair to anybody, and takes away from your credibility, when you just hire somebody that you know, or some friend, or somebody else’s friend or family member, or something like that.

Q. You were one of the first officials to warn about the prevalence of fraud in pandemic financial assistance programs, and the issue became personal for you when someone stole your identity to file a false unemployment claim. The Trump administration has prioritized combating fraud in federal programs. Given your experience, what suggestions would you give to the Trump administration to improve their anti-fraud initiatives?

A. Let your staff go after the top fraudsters. When you're going and looking for fraud, you want to be able to open up all gates. You can't pick a certain group to look at. If you're seriously interested in fraud, you want to go to those places where you can identify the fraudsters and prosecute them.

The other part about that, and this is why I feel the current administration has missed out a little bit, is that you gotta have the staff and resources to do that. My last two years as the IG, we were in a hiring freeze because we didn't have the budget. Under the Biden administration, they were trying to get us another $100 million. And even under the Trump administration, I was scheduled to testify like a week before I got fired because they were trying to get us additional resources.

I think it starts with resources, and you can't really be serious about fraud if you are continuing to reduce the staff or your auditors or investigators — the people that do the job. It's like you're talking out both sides of your mouth. On one hand, you're saying we want to really go after the fraud. But on the other hand, you're saying we're going to cut your staff by 50%. So which is it? You can't have it both ways.

(Editor’s note: The Partnership for Public Service nonprofit reported that, as of May 31, the average Cabinet OIG workforce is 19% smaller than it was in December 2024. Federal workforce data shows that Labor OIG has gone from 315 employees in 2024 to nearly 250 currently.)

The other part about it is you’ve got to want IGs who are aggressive in going after fraud. I think there's a feeling right now that that is not really the mandate that has been given to IGs and their staff. I think there is a sense right now that some staffers are concerned about their jobs being at risk by going after certain fraudulent groups. I think that's the biggest challenge.

Q. Can you be more specific about staffers feeling that their jobs are at risk if they go after certain groups or individuals?

A. When 17 IGs were illegally fired, including myself, that was a terrible message to send to the IG community. If you were getting rid of IGs that were ineffective or were not doing their job, you could justify that and say, “Hey, this is why we're getting rid of them.” I think that would have went a long way with people accepting that. But when you didn't do that, then it got people saying, “Okay. They did their jobs and they got released.” So now, if you work for the people who were fired, you're concerned about “Am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to lose my job because I'm going after someone that may be in a certain party or may be a part of the current administration? If I go after a friend of somebody's or somebody in a red state, am I going to put myself at risk?”

One of the hardest jobs for all IGs to deal with is that sometimes you will get a request from a congressional member. And that congressional member may want you to investigate the secretary or somebody on their staff. Most IGs, when they get that request, they know that the price of poker just went up because they also know that “If I don't find what that congressional member wants me to find, are they going to hold that against me? If I do find that the secretary did commit a violation, I'm going to have the secretary mad at me.”

At the end of the day, most IGs don't care about that. They just care about getting it right. IGs follow the facts wherever the facts may lead us. We're like referees. We're independent, we're impartial and we don't even get distracted by political affiliation or what a senator or a Congress member wrote. You don't even worry about that. You’re just worried about “We got tasked with going out here and investigating something. Let's make sure we do a thorough job, and make sure we check and double check to make sure that it’s correct.”

Q. While in your book you praise many of your previous supervisors, you also discuss a “toxic” boss you had while at the Defense Department inspector general office. This individual was ultimately fired, in part, for making false claims against you. What advice would you give to a federal employee or any worker who has a boss that is creating a hostile work environment?

A. One thing I always told my staff is one of the keys to being successful is learning how to work under anybody. The first time that you have a boss that's difficult, don't just throw your hands up and say “I'm out of here.” It's almost like a math problem. You try to figure it out, and this route doesn't work. You try several things, and at some point, you may get to where you’ve exhausted all methods and all means. At that point in time, then I would advise someone to start looking outside for a different opportunity.

When you're younger and you're going through a difficult boss, sometimes you get frustrated and you want to let it get personal. What I've always advised my staff is to, first of all, always remain professional and always stay positive. At the end of the day, if it gets negative, a lot of times you're at a disadvantage because you're dealing with somebody that writes your appraisal. You always really just got to stay professional, and I think that's the hardest thing for a lot of junior employees to do because they take it personally.

But at some point in time, you may get to a point where you need to say, “You know what? I've tried all these different methods and ways to make this work. I've met with my boss, tried to find out what I can do to improve or change their opinion of me.” And sometimes you may work for somebody that just don't like you. And when it happens, the best thing I think an employee can do is start looking elsewhere. Some people get so frustrated they quit and walk away before they have something else. I would never advise anybody to do that. I would always say stay the course until you can find something better.

Q. This is my final question. Is there a question I didn't ask you that you wished I had?

A. I decided to write the book because throughout my time in the government, as well as in the Army, my leadership style has been somewhat unconventional. What I mean by that is that work does not have to be drudgery. I actually believe that work can be fun, and one thing I like about the OIG community is that a lot of our folks really love what they do. It's about creating an environment where they can continue being productive, and they want to come to work and their passion comes through.

I've had several managers who were toxic, and so it was for that reason that I wanted to be a leader. Too often, I hear GS-15s and -14s say “I want a non-managerial job.” I've never felt that way. I want a job where I can control something more than having somebody control me. If I'm the IG or the deputy IG, I can ensure that we have a positive environment where people can be productive.

I wrote the book because I'm a people's person. Oftentimes, when I was the IG and deputy IG — and throughout my career, and even now since I've left the government — I'm always giving advice or mentoring or coaching. But what happened was, I'm only giving that advice to a handful of people now as opposed to when I was giving it to a whole agency. I thought one way to share some of that knowledge and the success that I've had in my government career and military career was to write a book and just share some of those things with folks who are trying to learn, who are trying to be more effective as leaders and trying to get into the government.

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TSP funds were back in the black in August

Erich Wagner — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:47:30 -0400

Each portfolio within the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program gained value last month, snapping a two-month streak of lackluster market performance.

The international stocks of the Thrift Savings Plan’s I Fund sported the best performance, gaining 3.32% last month. So far this year, the I Fund has grown 19.18%.

The C Fund, which is made up of large- and mid-size businesses, increased 2.72% in August, good for 13.12% growth since the start of 2026. And the small- and mid-size companies in the S Fund finished August 2.27% in the black, bringing its 2026 gains to 16.10%.

The fixed income (F) fund grew 0.40% last month, reducing its 2027 losses to 0.16%. And the G Fund, which grows at a statutorily mandated rate, gained 0.41% in August. So far this year, the G Fund has grown 3.00%.

Likewise, each of the TSP’s lifecycle (L) funds, which move toward more conservative investments as participants get closer to retirement, gained value in August. The L Income Fund, designed for those already making withdrawals, grew 1.11%; L 2030, 1.75%; L 2035, 2.04%; L 2040, 2.31%; L 2045, 2.31%; L 2050, 2.43%; L 2055, 2.85%: L 2060, 2.86%; L 2065, 2.86%; L 2070, 2.85%; and L 2075, 2.86%.

Since January, the L Income Fund has increased 6.34%; L 2030, 9.78%; L 2035, 11.15%; L 2040, 11.87%; L 2045, 12.50%; L 2050, 13.14%; L 2055, 15.57%; L 2060, 15.57%; L 2065, 15.57%; L 2070, 15.56%; and L 2075, 15.56%.

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Shutdown threat possibly lifted as House passes stopgap spending bill

Jory Heckman — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 14:22:02 -0400

The House approved a stopgap spending bill on Tuesday that will keep the federal government funded through early December, taking a government shutdown off the table ahead of midterm elections this fall.

The House voted 370-48 to pass a continuing resolution that will keep the federal government funded through Dec. 11.

The continuing resolution includes a provision that temporarily blocks the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed rule that would put federal grant funding under review by political appointees. It also includes language that would prevent the Trump administration from transferring funds from other programs to Border Patrol.

The Senate passed the stopgap spending bill in a 90-6 vote in July before leaving for its summer recess.

Federal employees dealt with the longest government shutdown in history last year, followed by the longest partial shutdown, which impacted the Homeland Security Department. Both shutdowns led to federal workers missing paychecks.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Tuesday morning ahead of votes that Congress is “going to avoid the threat” of another government shutdown.

“On this CR we'll take up, it simply holds funding steady at current levels through Dec. 11th, as Republicans work to complete the full year appropriations process,” Johnson said.

The stopgap spending bill gives Congress more time to reach a deal on a comprehensive spending package for fiscal 2027. So far, the House has passed three of 12 spending bills that make up a comprehensive spending plan. The Senate hasn’t passed any of its FY 2027 bills yet.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla. said “the fiscal year deadline is outpacing the work that remains,” and that the continuing resolution will ensure constituents “will continue to get the services they need.”

“This will allow Congress time to get past the November elections, and allow us time to assess and move forward with further appropriations measures in November and December,” Cole said.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. said the CR is a “marked improvement” from an earlier version that would have kept the government funded through Dec. 4 – and did not contain provisions blocking OMB’s proposed rule.

“The continuing resolution we are considering today is in no way a substitute for the full-year funding process. It is merely a means to complete this important work while averting a lapse in government funding,” DeLauro said.

The House passed the previous Dec. 4 CR largely along party lines, with Republicans overwhelmingly voting in favor of the bill. House Democratic leaders rejected the earlier stopgap spending bill, but House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said this latest version would receive “broad bipartisan support."

Vice Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus Ted Liu, D-Calif., said he would vote for the CR, “even though doing CRs is a stupid way to run government.”

“It is not a good way to run our federal government. But it's the only alternative that's gonna be put before us,” Lieu said.

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Nearly 3,150 Labor employees seeking disability accommodations impacted by data leak, internal memo says

Jory Heckman — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:35:19 -0400

Updated at 10:03 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 1

Thousands of Labor Department employees’ sensitive personal and medical information was improperly shared to someone’s personal email account, according to an internal memo about the incident.

The Labor Department recently notified employees about an “internal incident” on July 22, in which an email containing a spreadsheet of personally identifiable information related to employees' reasonable accommodations requests was sent to an “individual's personal email address outside of the DOL domain.”

Following an initial investigation, the department “discovered that more than one email" containing PII or protected health information (PHI) was sent to the same personal email address outside of the DOL domain.

According to the Labor Department, the individual “had authorized access to the information in the performance of their DOL duties,” but did not have the authority to send the information to a personal email address.

According to a “talking points” memo obtained by Government Executive, the department’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management says the data leak discovered this summer impacted nearly 3,150 employees, all of whom submitted a reasonable accommodation request sometime over the past two-and-a-half years.

The talking-points memo states that the spreadsheet contained the personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) of employees who submitted reasonable accommodation requests between October 2023 and June 1, 2026.

The memo states that DOL “sent notification letters to all impacted individuals by mail," and that the department “is reviewing and considering current and new measures that may be necessary to safeguard the information.”

“The Department is extremely concerned about the recent disclosure of personal information maintained on behalf of DOL employees. DOL will continue to engage in remediation activities to recover and destroy all the information involved in this incident,” the department wrote in its talking-points memo.

A Labor Department spokesperson said in a statement that the department "takes this issue very seriously, and is taking every effort to ensure protection for all personally identifiable information and protected health information in the future."

Data impacted by the leak includes employees’ first and last names, duty location, work email address, job title, supervisor name and email address, pay grade and series. The spreadsheet also included information about each employees' disabilities or medical conditions that were the basis of their reasonable accommodation requests.

Naomi Berry-Perez, director of the department’s Civil Rights Center, previously told employees that “no Social Security Numbers (SSNs), dates of birth (DOBs), more specific medical diagnoses" were included in the spreadsheet.

Union officials said they’re frustrated the department waited about a month after discovering the data leak to notify impacted employees. They say the department has also been unable to answer basic questions about the incident – including the position, title and affiliation of the individual who sent the data to their personal email address, or why the information was sent to a non-agency email more than once.

Brent Barron, president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ National Council of Field Labor Locals (NCFLL), said the Labor Department has been “dragging their feet” processing employees’ reasonable accommodation requests, and was slow to notify employees impacted by the data leak.

“We take pride in protecting the American workforce, and our own agency can’t protect its employees,” Barron said.

Labor Department employees recently told Government Executive that the department is facing a backlog of hundreds of RA requests. Several reported waiting months or, in some cases, a year or longer for the department to process their requests.

Faced with a backlog of reasonable accommodation requests, the department is looking to roll out artificial intelligence tools to triage the workload. Experts warned that processing confidential medical records through AI tools could create privacy issues.

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Trump’s 2027 pay freeze has unions warning of recruitment, retention problems

Erich Wagner — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 17:06:45 -0400

Organizations representing federal employees and their allies in Congress in recent days have decried President Trump’s plan to freeze most federal workers’ pay while directing sizeable raises for federal law enforcement and members of the military.

Last week, Trump issued an alternative pay plan formalizing the call from his fiscal 2027 budget proposal to freeze most federal workers pay at 2026 levels next year. He also announced that he would direct the Office of Personnel Management to authorize a 3.8% increase in basic pay for federal law enforcement officers, to go along with a between 5 and 7% raise for military service members, depending upon their rank.

But unions and professional associations warned denying most feds a raise next year could exacerbate recruitment and retention crises at several agencies. Following the Trump administration’s push to cut down on federal headcounts last year, including through mass firings and encouraging early retirement and buyout programs, the non-postal federal civilian workforce fell below 2 million employees this year for the first time since the 1960s, per June data from the Office of Personnel Management.

“This is a slap in the face to the dedicated civil servants who keep our nation running and will make it harder for federal agencies to recruit and retain essential employees,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “For years, wages for federal employees haven’t kept pace with rising costs for housing, food, utilities and other essentials. Private-sector workers currently earn 27% more on average than federal employees doing the same job. To add insult to injury, the administration is asking for special approval to pay hundreds of employees ‘requiring an extremely high level of expertise’ up to $400,000 a year—equal to the president’s base salary—even as it denies workers a basic cost-of-living raise.”

Kelley referred to recently finalized regulations granting OPM greater authority to OK critical position pay that could allow up to 400 positions to earn more than double the current General Schedule pay cap of $197,200 per year.

William Shackelford, national president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, said that when coupled with inflation and a likely increase to health insurance premiums through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program next year, a pay freeze is effectively a pay cut.

“This ‘more work for less pay’ policy will only drive the most valuable employees out of federal service, costing Americans in degraded services—from care to veterans to law enforcement and support for our military, wasteful spending due to inadequate management of government contracts and grants, less reliable information and more,” he said. “[Pay] decisions do not only affect current employees—they reach into retirement, too. Annuities are based on high-3 average salary, so a freeze affects the value of future retirement pay as well as today’s paychecks.”

And Dave Spero, national president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union representing Federal Aviation Administration workers who install and maintain air traffic control and other aviation safety equipment, said a pay freeze could jeopardize agency efforts to hire hundreds of new technicians.

“The FAA’s workforce plan to hire an additional 750 technicians just became that much more difficult,” he said. “Aviation safety inspectors and other critical employees will begin to retire and the recruitment of these aviation safety professionals will suffer . . . These employees maintain and oversee the largest, safest and most complex air traffic control system in the world. Dismantling it by destroying the morale of the employees is heartbreaking.”

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., accused the administration of trying to “drive hardworking public servants out” of agencies, and vowed to fight for Congress to override the president’s plan.

“Last week’s announcement that civilian federal workers will not be receiving an annual cost-of-living adjustment for 2027—even while military and law enforcement personnel are given as high as a 7% raise—will only further reduce morale and retention at agencies and make it harder to recruit the best and brightest to serve,” he said. “I’m proud to represent more than 75,000 civilian federal employees in Maryland’s Fifth District, and I will continue to fight this administration’s efforts to denigrate them and deny them the pay and benefits they are due.”

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Federal disability employment program faced widespread compliance problems, whistleblower investigation finds

Sean Michael Newhouse — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 15:40:18 -0400

A federal agency that oversees a program intended to increase job opportunities for employees with disabilities may not be doing enough to ensure that its government contracts are supporting such workers, an investigation prompted by a whistleblower complaint found.

Additionally, the Office of Special Counsel, which protects whistleblowers, in a letter to the president last week criticized the agency’s response to the investigation, arguing that officials have neglected to take appropriate actions.

Through the AbilityOne program, federal agencies contract with nonprofits that employ workers with disabilities. The initiative supports jobs for 41,000 individuals and provided more than $4.7 billion in products and services to the federal government in fiscal 2025, according to its website. For example, all disposable gloves for the Transportation Security Agency come from organizations that participate in the program.

Nonprofits are eligible for AbilityOne if at least 75% of their “total direct labor hours” are performed by workers who are blind or have “significant disabilities.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2025 the employment rate for people with a disability was 22.8% compared with 65.2% for those without a disability.

A compliance specialist at the AbilityOne Commission, however, submitted a complaint to the OSC alleging that more than 50 participating nonprofits in a sample of 120 still received millions in contracts even though they failed to meet a program requirement during their last review.

This prompted an investigation by the AbilityOne inspector general that found:

In fiscal 2022, 87% of participating nonprofits were out of compliance with at least one program requirement.
There were 50 nonprofits that failed every compliance review between fiscal 2013 and 2022.
The agency did not act on a 2017 complaint by employees at Arbor Products, Inc., which alleged that the organization during an onsite visit “had deceived compliance inspectors into believing that blind or disabled employees were performing all direct labor,” until 2022. At that time, the entity became delinquent in paying program fees, lost its nonprofit status and was kicked out of the program.

Based on the investigation, however, AbilityOne reported that the whistleblower’s allegations were not substantiated and that no violations of law, rule or regulation occurred — perplexing OSC officials.

“AbilityOne exists to create real jobs for people who are blind or have significant disabilities. When large numbers of contractors fail basic program rules for years and the compliance system cannot show those failures were fixed, that is not a paperwork problem,” said Special Counsel Charles Baldis in a statement. “The Commission documented serious weaknesses and then declined to substantiate the whistleblower’s allegations to that effect. That conclusion is not reasonable.”

OSC officials noted that AbilityOne is overhauling its compliance practices and procedures, but they also cautioned that the agency does not appear to have made progress on two IG recommendations: to establish a training program for Commission employees on performing compliance reviews with annual refreshers and to improve the method for verifying the continued nonprofit status of program participants beyond annual self-certification.

Officials from the AbilityOne Commission in a press release last week disputed OSC’s characterizations.

“The Commission determined that the issues identified reflected systemic challenges and historical inconsistencies in a large, decentralized program — not intentional disregard of statutory mandates,” they wrote. “Many of the compliance concerns cited by OSC occurred during periods of operational disruption, including the pandemic, during which temporary flexibilities were granted in good faith and in consultation with relevant stakeholders. It is important to emphasize that recognizing areas for improvement does not equate to finding gross mismanagement, gross waste or statutory violations.”

Regarding the IG recommendations, the officials pointed to a congressionally mandated oversight panel that previously reported that AbilityOne’s workforce is appropriately trained but that the underlying issue is there aren’t enough staffers. They also contended that the agency “has historically followed standard federal practice in accepting IRS determinations and [self-certifications] from participating nonprofit agencies.”

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