Page 10 - FCW, Jan/Feb 2018

Trending
Clearance
process deemed
high-risk
The Government Accountability Office has added the security clearance process to its list of programs most in need of reform.
GAO updates its high-risk list every two years, but Comptroller General Gene Dodaro announced he was adding security clearances to the list immediately “to bring attention to policymakers of the need for action sooner rather than later.”
As of September 2017, the backlog of security clearance applications exceeded 700,000. And a GAO audit released in December reported that many agencies have yet to implement years-old recommendations to improve clearance processes.
GAO cited a lack of long-term goals to decrease the size of the backlog, delays in meeting milestones for reform efforts and the lack of milestones to measure the quality of background investigations.
In the wake of the breach of Office of Personnel Management records, the National Background Investigations Bureau was launched at OPM, with resources coming from the Defense Department to establish a secure IT system.
This is not the first time the personnel security clearance process has found itself on the high-risk list. In 2005, GAO added the process but removed it in 2011.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who has described the clearance process as broken, sent a letter to Of ce of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney requesting that the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget include funding to improve the governmentwide clearance process.
— Chase Gunter
$60M was spent by the Coast Guard in a failed effort to move to an electronic health record system
Do ethics still matter in the federal workforce?
A senior government ethics expert is concerned that perceived ethical lapses at the top of the Trump administration are in uencing other federal employees.
“A lot flows from the president’s behavior,” said Walter Shaub, who stepped down as director of the Of ce of Government Ethics after numerous clashes with the Trump White House.
Although the president is not subject to ethical rules in the same way that other federal employees are, the best way to in uence employees in a positive direction is to “get us back to the tradition where presidents voluntarily take as many steps as humanly possible to resolve con icts of interest,” he added.
The difference between past administrations and the current one when it comes to supporting ethical norms is “night and day,” said Shaub, who led the Office of Government Ethics under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations and is now senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center.
OGE’s power has traditionally come from the White House, he added, and the Trump administration has emphasized the of ce’s lack of enforcement power.
“At OGE, my immediate supervisor was the president,” Shaub said. “I do think it would be helpful if the director of OGE, like others in government, like inspectors general and the head of the Of ce of Special Counsel...could only be red for cause and Congress had to be given 30 days’ notice with a written explanation.”
— Chase Gunter
“When a president has a disinterest in government ethics, not only does it undermine the public’s faith in government, it undermines government of cials’ faith in government,” Shaub said at a Jan. 23 event at New York University’s Washington, D.C., facility. “And that tempts them to misbehave because [they might think], ‘If the president can do it, if my boss can do it, why would I be held to a higher- level standard?’”
Fleet Cyber Command
@USFLEETCYBERCOM
We are incredibly proud of our Commander,
Vice Adm. Michael Gilday, for being selected
as one of the @FCWnow’s #Fed100! https://fcw.com/articles/2018/01/31/2018-federal-100-winners
12:23 PM - 31 Jan 2018 Reply Retweet Favorite
Join the conversation
FCW usesTwitter to break news, eld questions and ask our own.
Learn more atTwitter.com/FCWnow.
8 January/February 2018 FCW.COM
JOSEPH SOHM/SHUTTERSTOCK