FederalDaily - December 6, 2007

OPM Presents 2007 Awards for Management Excellence

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on Dec. 4 announced that five federal agencies have received the 2007 Presidential Award for Management Excellence, which recognizes agencies that strive for managerial achievement. The award is administered by OPM through the President's Quality Award program. Recipients include the Environmental Protection Agency (Overall Management); the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture and the General Services Administration (Agency-wide Performance in the Government-wide Management Initiative); and HHS and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Innovative and Exemplary Practices). To see more, go to: www.opm.gov/news/opm-presents-the-2007-presidential-award-for-management-excellence,1345.aspx.

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Army Names Head of New Diversity Task Force

The Army announced Dec. 3 that Brig. Gen. Belinda Pinckney has been appointed to head the Army’s new Diversity Task Force, which is charged with examining the Army’s diversity policies and practices. She currently is head of the Army’s Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation Command, the Army said in a statement. “The purpose of the task force is to increase awareness and to inform ourselves about how we need to adapt what we’re doing so we can sustain awareness and focus on diversity,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. told Army News. Pinckney, a native of Dublin, Ga., entered the Army in September 1976 as a finance specialist, and attended Officer Candidate School in 1978. To see more, go to: www.army.mil/-news/2007/12/03/6411-brig-gen-pinckney-to-head-new-diversity-task-force  

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PEER: Forest Service Should Spend on Staff, Not Tasers

The short-staffed U.S. Forest Service spent $600,000 for 700 Taser stun guns that now are consigned to storage and cannot be issued because the agency has yet to develop a training course, said Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). According to agency records posted Dec. 4 by PEER, the Forest Service purchased the Electronic Control Devices (also known as Tasers) in September without any training program, rules for use or a written explanation as to why the devices were needed. At the same time, PEER said, the intense fire season has left the agency with a huge financial deficit, and the agency’s law enforcement program is hobbled by more than 200 vacant positions—leaving only one officer to cover each 300,000 acres of National Forest. “There must have been a fire sale on Tasers, otherwise why would an agency buy 700 of them without a program, protocol or need?” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “The Forest Service has many more pressing law enforcement priorities that should have received any end-of-fiscal-year surplus.” To seem more, go to: www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=952   

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