GovConJudicata Weekly Debrief (11/18–22)
This week's Weekly Debrief is on falls on the last Friday before the start of the holiday season, beginning next week with Thanksgiving. This edition covers a variety of topics including legislation funding the Government until December 20, State Department's new IT acquisitions office, insight on FY 2019 suspension and debarments (who is Helen trying to bring back?), DoD cloud migrations, air traffic control problems, and GSA's promise to figure out why the FBO transition was troublesome.
Legislation
Federal News Network – Trump signs continuing resolution, keeping agencies open through Dec. 20
"President Donald Trump has signed a stop-gap continuing resolution, a senior administration official said Thursday evening. His signature delays the prospects of a government shutdown for four more weeks. The Senate passed the CR early Thursday afternoon with a 74-20 vote. The House easily cleared the measure Tuesday. The president had to take action before 11:59 p.m. on Thursday to avoid a second government shutdown in 2019."
State
FedScoop – State Department to launch IT Acquisitions Office
"The State Department is developing an IT acquisitions organization to improve its use of data when making enterprisewide purchases of goods and services. An Office of the Inspector General (OIG) review of the Bureau of Information Resource Management (IRM), which handles IT for the department, recommended the agency undergo a strategic realignment."
VA
NextGov – VA Prepping for Go-Live of Health Records System in March
​"The "Veterans Affairs Department continues to move forward with its plan to debut a new electronic health records platform, developed by Cerner, in March despite some concerns from lawmakers. VA is in the process of adding full-time equivalent employees to properly staff up for the much-anticipated rollout, scheduled for March 28 at the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington."
Pentagon
Federal Times – Here’s some good news for the Pentagon’s cloud migrations
​"Despite troubles at the Pentagon trying to procure two enterprise-level cloud solutions, the second-ever audit of the Department of Defense found significant gains in cloud migration in the department’s components. The DoD’s fourth estate agencies, the 27 agencies that provide services to the war fighter, led the way on the information technology reform front in fiscal 2019: In all, they moved 244 systems to enterprise-level cloud environments."
Suspension & Debarment
"It is that time of year again. With full fiscal year 2019 suspension and debarment data available in the System for Award Management, or SAM, it is time to dive into those numbers and understand the current state of the federal suspension and debarment system. Curiously, the government committee in charge of coordinating suspension and debarment actions, the Interagency Suspension and Debarment Committee, or ISDC, just released its report of federal suspension and debarment activity from the prior year, FY 2018."
Oversight
"Following a whistleblower complaint, the Office of Special Counsel alerted the White House and Congress on Wednesday of dangerous air traffic control procedures that the Federal Aviation Administration has failed to remedy. The OSC investigated and then substantiated an air traffic control specialist’s complaint that air traffic controllers at the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center in Hilliard, Florida, were not complying with FAA rules on transferring aircrafts from one airspace sector to another. Instead of addressing the noncompliance, managers changed the standard operating procedure in February 2018. This move could result in dangerous conditions, according to OSC."
SAM (Contract Opportunities)
Federal News Network – GSA promises to figure out why transition from FedBizOpps struggled
​"The General Services Administration’s migration of its FedBizOpps.gov website to its beta.sam.gov portal will not be remembered for its smooth transition. The first three or so days were fraught with slow load times, infrastructure problems and a site that wasn’t ready for prime time. Judith Zawatsky, the assistant commissioner in the Office of Systems Management in GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, said her office was not only prepared for the transition problems, but ensured the site rebounded quickly over the last week."
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