Articles & News from The Federal Eye, Washington Post

Jennifer Dinoia’s blog, pulled from a State Department blogroll following an intimate posting on her reconstructive surgery after breast cancer, is back in its prominent spot on the agency’s Web site.

“The Dinoia Family,” which has featured the Foreign Service spouse’s journey through a breast cancer diagnosis at 39 as her husband was on a solo tour in Iraq, reappeared Thursday on the State Department-sanctioned site, hours after The Post reported that it had disappeared.

A House subcommittee hearing Thursday examined Department of Homeland Security ethical standards and found them repeatedly violated.

“There have been many reports of federal employees wasting taxpayer dollars, and in some cases committing crimes, which erodes the trust American people have in our government,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the Homeland Security subcommittee on oversight, investigations and management, said in his opening statement.

The U.S. Postal Service, facing mounting losses, said Thursday it is moving ahead with plans to close hundreds of mail sorting hubs and cannot wait for Congress to pass legislation to help it out of its financial hole.

An attempt to bring to a House vote a plan to allow federal employees to phase into retirement has suffered a setback but there is still a chance the proposal will come to a vote, potentially as soon as today, Capitol Hill officials said.

A Senate committee approved legislation Wednesday allowing same-sex partners of federal employees to receive employment benefits.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act with a bipartisan voice vote. It must be approved by the full Senate and the House before enactment.

A Senate committee plans to vote Wednesday on legislation that would give same-sex partners of federal workers some key benefits, a week after President Obama endorsed marriage for same-sex couples.

The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act (S. 1910) is scheduled to go before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for a vote.

Is there tension between the government employees and the federal contract workers in your office?

As Joe Davidson wrote last week in the Federal Diary, some federal contractors got a 10 percent raise in April, while federal workers are in the midst of a pay-freeze.

Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat who is among those pressing for legislation to reform the U.S. Postal Service’s finances, has launched a Web site with an eye-catching ticker aimed at pressuring House Republicans to act: It tracks the agency’s losses to the dollar.

Federal employees who make investments in the Thrift Savings Plan by default would have those investments increased until they reach the level capturing the maximum government contribution unless they chose otherwise, under legislation offered Monday in the Senate.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is marking its 150th anniversary Tuesday morning at 10:30 EST with a live webcast of a celebration marking the date at the department’s South Building in Washington.

President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation establishing the department on May 15, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War. The creation of the department was part of an enormous expansion of the federal government during the war.

All federal government organizations are potentially at risk for workplace violence, not just those in high-crime areas or dealing with potentially violent members of the public, according to an agency studying the issue.

In the wake of the General Services Administration (GSA) scandal over an excessive Las Vegas conference, the Obama administration has placed new restrictions on federal travel and meetings.

In a Friday memo to government officials, Jeffrey D. Zients, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, said, “Each agency shall spend at least 30 percent less on travel expenses covered by this memorandum than in FY 2010.”

The 28th Public Service Recognition Week is almost in the books.

The week is supposed to be filled with events acknowledging these workers, and educating the public on all that they do. It’s exciting stuff, right? Well, according to some federal workers, not so much.

The House on Thursday afternoon supported increasing the percentage of salary that federal employees must pay toward their retirement benefits. But the plan may advance no farther, at least not in its present form.