Page 8 - Federal Computer Week, March/April 2019

Trending
Trump names
Cabaniss to
lead OPM
President Donald Trump has selected Dale Cabaniss to serve as director of the Office of Personnel Management. If confirmed by the Senate, Cabaniss would replace Acting Director Margaret Weichert, who has been leading OPM since the departure of Jeff Tien Han Pon last October.
Cabaniss served as chairman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority during the George W. Bush administration, having joined as a member in 1997 during the Clinton administration. From 2010 to 2018, she served as Republican staff director of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee.
FLRA governs labor relations for the approximately 2.1 million federal employees. At the top of the agency, a three-person board has judicial authority over cases related to unfair labor practices. The chairperson also serves as the head of the agency.
At the time Cabaniss served, FLRA had a staff of about 215 full-time employees and a budget of $30 million. OPM is a much larger agency, with a $300 million budget and more than 6,200 employees.
— Adam Mazmanian
$5.5B
is the estimated five-year value of the 2GIT blanket purchase agreement that will replace NETCENTS-2
OPM and ODNI debut new framework for security clearances
The new Trusted Workforce 2.0, unveiled in February, seeks to significantly overhaul the process by which the government investigates — and re-investigates — its federal and contractor workforce to handle sensitive or classified information.
“We know we need a mobile, agile workforce, and we can’t do that with the current process,” said Mike Rigas, deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management.
For the first time, OPM and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) have established a top-level doctrine for vetting agency personnel. The plan reduces the number of security tiers from five to three — trusted, secret and top secret — and aligns security, suitability and credentialing requirements with each stage.
It also attempts to address two issues that have plagued the clearance process for years: the time it takes to obtain an initial clearance and the difficulties cleared employees have in moving from agency to agency. The framework calls for a Trusted Information Provider Program that would allow investigators to use certain information about a candidate’s background that has already been collected by approved government and non-government sources, such as
military recruiters, contractors or other third parties.
In line with the Defense Department’s approach, the framework also envisions doing away with the five- and 10-year periodic reinvestigations of current employees in favor of a more automated continuous evaluation system.
William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said the framework seeks to institute more rapid change in a policy area that has traditionally been slow to adapt or modernize. “For the first time ever, I think the executive branch and legislative branch are on the same page,” he added.
Last year, the government took a series of actions to reduce a backlog of 725,000 investigations. It released new guidance that raises the threshold for certain forms of debt to automatically trigger more extensive investigations and makes it easier for investigators to conduct secure video or teleconference interviews in lieu of face-to-face visits, among other things.
As a result, ODNI said the backlog has been reduced to 551,000, and the number of labor hours dedicated to the investigation process has dropped by 52 percent.
— Derek B. Johnson
Hanscom AFB
@Hanscom_AFB
“Agile -- in the Air Force and in government more broadly -- will succeed the old-fashioned way. By delivering results.” We’re proud of rebels who build and update software daily for operators responsible for Air Ops worldwide. @KelmanSteve @FCWnow https://t.co/G89hgQC9a3
9:54 AM - 14 Feb 2019
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March/April 2019 FCW.COM