FederalDaily - August 31, 2005
Agencies Register Disbarred Contractors
Federal government purchases of contracted goods and services have grown
to more than $300 billion annually, according to the Government Accountability
Office (GAO). To protect the government’s interests, the Federal Acquisition
Regulation (FAR) provides that agencies can suspend or debar contractors for
reasons such as serious failure to perform to the terms of a contract. GAO
examined the implementation of FAR at 24 agencies, and looked especially closely
at six agencies that represent about 67 percent of fiscal year 2003 federal
contract spending. In fiscal year 2004, the six agencies that were reviewed
in depth suspended a total of 262 parties and debarred a total of 590 parties,
a GAO report said. For more on this, see the upcoming Sept. 5, 2005 , issue
of Federal Employees News Digest. To subscribe, click
here.
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New Religious Guidelines at AF
Air Force (AF) officials announced the release of new guidance on free exercise
of religion on Aug. 29. The AF said it based the guidelines on principles including
the following:
- The Constitution protects free exercise of religion and
prohibits governmental establishment of religion.
- The AF will not officially endorse or establish religion—either
one specific religion, or the idea of religion over nonreligion.
- Supervisors, commanders and leaders bear a special responsibility
to ensure their words and actions cannot reasonably be construed
as either official endorsement or disapproval of the decisions
of individuals to hold particular religious beliefs or to hold
no religious beliefs.
- Abuse or disrespect of fellow Air Force people—including
disrespect based on religious beliefs, or the absence of religious
beliefs—is unacceptable.
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Agencies Aren’t Protecting Personal Information
Agencies are not following key procedures to protect personal information
in federal data mining systems according to Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii,
ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on the Oversight of Government Management.
Akaka pointed to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report he requested
that reviewed data mining efforts at the IRS, the FBI, the Small Business Administration,
the Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency and the Department of
State. GAO found that while these agencies took many of the key steps to protect
personal information, none followed all of the key procedures. For example,
some agencies failed to meet information security requirements. "Although
GAO found these lapses at the five agencies it reviewed, this is a troubling
trend given the number of data mining activities in the federal government
that use personal information," said Akaka.
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NIH Offers Loan Repayment of $35,000
Starting Sept. 1, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will begin accepting
applications to its five loan repayment programs. Deadline for applications
is Dec. 1. The five programs offered by the NIH are: clinical research; clinical
research for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds; contraception and
infertility research; health disparities; and pediatric research. Through these
programs, NIH offers to repay up to $35,000 annually of the qualified educational
debt of health professionals pursuing careers in biomedical and behavioral
research. To qualify, applicants must have a doctoral-level degree, devote
50 percent or more of their time to research funded by a domestic non-profit
organization or government entity (federal, state or local), and have educational
loan debt equal to or exceeding 20 percent of their institutional base salary.
Applicants must also be U.S. citizens, permanent residents or U.S. nationals
to be eligible.
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