Federal Agency Career Opportunities for People with Disabilities - Disability.gov

Bender Consulting Services has been retained by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to recruit, screen and direct candidates with disabilities to federal agencies for positions in the areas of accounting, budget analysis, contact representative, contracts, finance, human resources, information technology, administrative support and miscellaneous clerical positions.

Successful candidates will be placed on the OPM Shared List of People with Disabilities, a database of resumes currently being accessed by more than 400 agency representatives and available to hiring managers and human resource personnel government-wide.

Opportunities are available for applicants in locations throughout the United States.

Positions are available for applicants with disabilities who are early career through senior career levels. This is a great opportunity for college students with disabilities, including graduate students, and experienced career professionals to work for federal agencies.

In order to qualify, an applicant must be a U.S. Citizen and eligible for the Schedule A hiring authority.

Applicants should submit their resume to resume@benderconsult.com, and reference “Federal Career Opportunities” in the subject line. For more information, visit the Bender Consulting Services website at www.benderconsult.com.

Posted by Stephanie B on Apr 8, 2011 9:42:47 AM in Employment

Federal Agency Career Opportunities for People with Disabilities - Disability.gov

White House Disability Group Monthly Conference Call

In order to help keep you more informed, the White House Disability Group is hosting monthly calls to update you on various disability issues as well as to introduce you to persons who work on disability issues in the federal government.

This call is off the record and not for press purposes.

The next call will be Monday, January 10 at 3:00 PM Eastern.

The conference call information is below.

Dial in: (800) 230-1093

Title: Disability Call (use instead of code)Date of Call: 01/10/2011

Start Time: 3:00 PM Eastern

For live captioning, at time of call, log onto:
http://www.fedrcc.us//Enter.aspx?EventID=1679107&CustomerID=321

U.S. Government's 2010 Financial Reprot Shows Significant Financia Mangement & Fiscal Chanllenges

Image via WikipediaThe U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) cannot render an opinion on the 2010 consolidated financial statements of the federal government, because of widespread material internal control weaknesses, significant uncertainties, and other limitations. 

"Even though significant progress has been made since the enactment of key financial management reforms in the 1990s, our report on the U.S. government's consolidated financial statement illustrates that much work remains to be done to improve federal financial management.  Shortcomings in three areas again prevented us from expressing an opinion on the accrual-based financial statements," said Gene Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General of the United States.

The main obstacles to a GAO opinion were: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD) that made its financial statements unauditable, (2) the federal government's inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies, and (3) the federal government's ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements.

In addition GAO was unable to render an opinion on the 2010 Statement of Social Insurance because of significant uncertainties, primarily related to the achievement of projected reductions in Medicare cost growth. The consolidated financial statements discuss these uncertainties, which relate to reductions in physician payment rates and to productivity improvements, and provide an illustrative alternative projection to illustrate the uncertainties. 

Dodaro also cited material weaknesses involving an estimated $125.4 billion in improper payments, information security across government, and tax collection activities. He noted that three major agencies-DOD, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Labor-did not get clean opinions. Nineteen of 24 major agencies did get clean opinions on all their statements.

"Given the federal government's fiscal challenges, it's imperative that Congress, the administration, and federal managers have reliable, useful, and timely financial and performance information. Improved accuracy and transparency in financial reporting are urgently needed," Dodaro said.

Dodaro commended the commitment and professionalism of the Inspectors General across government who are responsible for auditing the annual financial statements of individual federal entities each year.

The fiscal year 2010 Financial Report of the United States Government, which includes financial information from the 24 major federal departments and agencies along with GAO's audit report, is being released today by the Treasury Department. The report is also available on GAO's web site at http://www.gao.gov/financial.html.

TIME GOES BY | Big Brother is Out to Control All Elders' Money

by Ronni Bennett

Recently, Cowtown Pattie of Texas Trifles blog sent me an eight-page brief [pdf] from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College titled What is the Age of Reason? In Pattie's words, it is a “chilling read” and she is not wrong.

The four authors of this brief are identified as a senior financial economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, a senior economist with the Federal Reserve System, a professor of finance at New York University and another professor at Harvard.

Among them, they acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) which is a federal agency and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a division of the National Institutes of Health that describes itself as “leading the federal effort on aging research.” Bear with me – it's important that you know the genesis of this document.

The authors note that the views expressed in the brief

“do not represent the policies or positions of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, or the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.”

Whether the views of the NSF or NIA are represented is not stated.

Four of those eight pages of the brief are a title page, references and endnotes, so there's not much text.
The majority of the brief, including four graphs, gives a short overview of studies the authors analyzed which, they say, show “The prevalence of both dementia and cognitive impairment without dementia rises rapidly with age” and that older adults make more financial mistakes than mid-age adults.

All right - so far, so good in that this is true for SOME old people, although the information is nothing new. This is what academics do – slice and dice each other's work, sometimes to good effect and sometimes not, and issue thousands of briefs every year most of which sink into oblivion. But then the authors get to their conclusions ominously titled, “Possible Policy Responses”:

“In response to this problem, several policy approaches are possible and government intervention is probably desirable, although the ideal form of intervention remains unclear.” [emphasis added]

The authors immediately dismiss their first and only benign policy suggestion for government intervention - to strengthen financial disclosure requirements to the public – by stating that “we are skeptical that improved disclosure will be effective in improving financial choices.”

Then the brief begins to get scary – remember, this all targets elders. The second suggestion involves “financial driving licenses,” the requirement to pass a test before being allowed to make non-trivial financial decisions. They ask a whole bunch of feasibility questions including the all-important, Who would be required to take the test?

Well, not me; I will resist clear to the barricades. Reading this brief, I'm beginning to have some sympathy for the teabaggers who object to too much government.

In their final suggestion, the authors step all the way across the line into totalitarianism with “mandatory advance directives” in which adults would be required by a certain age to sign a document placing management of their assets with a third party if they become incapacitated.

That's already too much to stomach, but it gets worse.

“...a fiduciary could be appointed to approve all 'significant financial transactions' involving the principal’s funds after the principal reaches a designated age.” [emphasis added]

In regard to that diabological idea, the authors admit that “it might be perceived by some older adults as an unfair restriction targeted against them.”

DUH!

Not content to pull Social Security out from under elders (as too many in Congress are currently attempting to do), now they are thinking up ways to take everything else old people have.

As I noted above, thousands of such studies are written each year and most sink out of sight before the ink is dry. Some of them sometimes work their way through the bureaucracy to become policy or law. I have no confidence that this one, that would give the government or its appointees access to trillions of dollars in elder assets, will disappear.

Remember that two of these researchers work for federal agencies involved with monetary policy of commercial and investment banking, two others with major universities that are paid to supply the federal government with policy research, and the funding for this project comes from two other federal agencies.

Read the brief for yourself here [pdf].


TIME GOES BY | Big Brother is Out to Control All Elders' Money

National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform April 27 Meeting

Time and Date: Tuesday, April 27, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. EDT.

Place: The location of the meeting is Washington, DC. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to the Designated Federal Office (DFO), Bruce Reed at commission@fc.eop.gov. Those who have expressed interest in attending this meeting will be contacted once the location is finalized.

Status: The meeting will be open to the public, but limited by the space available.

Purpose: This will be the first meeting of the recently established National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (Commission). At this meeting the Commission will discuss the Nation's long-term fiscal challenges and define the scope of the Commission's work.

Contact Person for Additional Information: Please contact Bruce Reed for any additional information about the meeting at commission@fc.eop.gov.

Agenda: This meeting will be the inaugural gathering of Commission members. In addition to introducing members to one another, at this meeting the Commission will discuss the Nation's long-term fiscal challenges and define the scope of the Commission's work. Additionally the Commission will discuss its internal operating structure and seek to identify what subcommittees should be formed to support its work. A more complete agenda will be made publicly available prior to the April 27 meeting and can be requested from the DFO at commission@fc.eop.gov.

U.S. GAO - Fiscal Year 2009 Financial Report of the United States Government

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The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) could not render an opinion on the consolidated financial statements of the federal government (other than the Statement of Social Insurance) because of widespread material internal control weaknesses and other limitations.

“While financial management has improved significantly since the government began preparing consolidated financial statements, for the 13th year in a row now shortcomings in three areas again prevented us from expressing an opinion,” said Gene L. Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General of the United States. “I’m referring to serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD), the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between agencies, and the ineffective process the federal government uses to prepare the consolidated financial statements.”

Dodaro also cited material weaknesses involving improper payments estimated to be at least $98 billion, information security across government, and tax collection activities. He noted that four major agencies-DOD, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and NASA-did not get clean opinions.

The material weaknesses discussed in GAO’s audit report hinder the government’s ability to (1) reliably report on many of its assets,liabilities, and costs; (2) accurately measure the full cost as well as the financial and non-financial performance of certain programs and activities; (3) adequately safeguard significant assets and properly record various transactions; and (4) have reliable information to operate efficiently and effectively.

“Long term, the federal government faces huge structural deficits driven by rising health care costs and demographics. Focused attention from Congress and the administration is needed to address these problems and put the government on a more sustainable path,” Dodaro said.

Beginning this year, new financial reporting standards will require a clearer and more comprehensive assessment of the federal government’s financial condition over the long term. “Sound data on federal operations will be essential to the nation’s efforts to return the country to a sustainable fiscal path,” Dodaro said.

He also singled out meaningful financial regulatory reform as especially urgent. “Problems in the nation’s financial sector have exposed major weaknesses in the current U.S. financial regulatory system. If those weaknesses are not adequately addressed, we could see similar or even worse crises in the future,” Dodaro cautioned.

Dodaro commended the commitment and professionalism of the Inspectors General across government who are responsible for auditing the annual financial statements of individual federal entities each year.

Link to Report

Stop citing spending ratios! - The Hill's Pundits Blog

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By Terence Kane

There is a lot to like about David Brooks’s column today in The New York Times. I do want to respond briefly to his point about spending on children and seniors. Brooks cites a recent study by Julia Isaacs at the Brookings Institution that lists the ratio of federal spending between seniors and children at 7:1. Various other columnists have picked up this headline-generating ratio. Notice, pundits rarely use the 2.4:1 ratio for all government spending — most government spending on children is at the local and state level — since it plays less into their selected narrative. More broadly, it does not matter what ratio they cite; they are both deeply flawed.

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Comprehensive Long-Term Fiscal Projections for the U.S. Government

The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) has issued an exposure draft, Reporting Comprehensive Long-Term Fiscal Projections for the U.S. Government. The proposed standard would establish reporting requirements for the consolidated financial report of the United States Government (CFR) to address the question of whether the government's future budgetary resources are likely to be sufficient to sustain public services and meet obligations as they come due. The exposure draft is available on the FASAB home page http://www.fasab.gov/exposure.html. Written comments are requested by January 5, 2009.

Fears of a Federal Government Shutdown

By Mike Soraghan and Manu Raju The Hill-Posted: 07/30/08 07:56 PM [ET] The prospect of a September government shutdown loomed over the Capitol on Wednesday as the two parties fought over rising energy prices. It’s a fight some members of either party are willing to have, but others worry about who will get blamed for a repeat of the 1995 shutdown that President Clinton pinned on a Republican Congress. Lawmakers and staff are starting to talk not just about how to avoid such a repeat, but also about who would gain and lose November election votes if it happened.