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NEWS: May 18, 2012 Military Personnel | The Nation Mental Illness Top Cause for Troops' Hospitalization Despite the expenditure of almost $2 billion to buy drugs to treat mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, mental illness ranks as the leading cause of hospitalization for active-duty troops, according to an Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center report. >> Nextgov More Companies Pledge to Hire Military Spouses Another 34 companies have pledged to hire military spouses through a Defense Department program that has resulted in 22,000 military spouses being hired since the initiative began a year ago. >> Government Executive Public Services | The Nation Postal Service Delays Closings, Aims to Cut 28,000 The U.S. Postal Service reaffirmed that it will close 229 mail-processing plants and eliminate 28,000 jobs, but said the closures will be completed by the end of 2014, a year later than previously planned. USPS' chief operating officer said the agency believes that all of the workforce reductions can be achieved through attrition. >> Federal Times
Mayor Seeks Power to Name Top Fire Department Officials In the aftermath of city audits revealing systematic abuse of sick time and shift trades among firefighters, Mayor Frank Jackson said he will ask voters this fall to empower him to appoint the fire department's highest-ranking officials. >> Cleveland Plain Dealer Florida City Hired Private Eyes to Tail City Workers Hialeah, Fla., paid $9,000 to a private-investigations firm to follow three city employees were fired after it was discovered that they went shopping during working hours and lied when calling in sick. >> Miami Herald Kansas Lawmakers Send Pension Revamp to Governor Kansas lawmakers sent a bill to revamp the state's public-employee pension system to Gov. Sam Brownback. Among other provisions, the measure switches new hires to a "cash balance" pension plan. >> Topeka Capital-Journal Chicago Police Union's Ads Target NATO Summiteers World leaders arriving in Chicago for the NATO Summit are being greeted by expressway billboards, bankrolled by the city's police union, that say, "Keep Chicago Safe. Hire More Police Officers." >> Chicago Sun-Times Human Services | New York City Governor: Stop Fingerprinting Food-Aid Applicants New York City would have to stop requiring the electronic fingerprinting of food-stamp applicants under regulations proposed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has sided with advocates for the hungry who say it discourages people from seeking benefits. >> New York Times Feds: N.Y. State Was Overpaid $700 Million for Medicaid The federal government says New York State was paid $700 million more in Medicaid reimbursements in 2009 than the state needed to care for institutionalized residents with developmental disabilities. >> New York Times
Schools Ordered to Drop Native American Mascots Under a new rule approved by the state Board of Education that may be the toughest in the nation, at least 15 Oregon schools must get rid of their Native American-themed mascots by 2017 or risk losing state funding. The decision, in the works for six years, requires schools to eliminate names such as "Indians," "Chiefs" and "Braves." >> The Oregonian New York City to Offer Buyouts to 830 Idled Teachers New York City is proposing to offer buyouts to a pool of about 830 teachers who draw full salaries despite having no permanent jobs but who cannot be laid off under the teachers’ contract. >> New York Times California Whistleblower Loses Appeal of Her Firing Kathy Carroll, a whistle-blower who was fired while cooperating with a state investigation of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, has lost her appeal before the State Personnel Board. >> Sacramento Bee
Ousted Airport CEO Sues over Pension Turkia Awada Mullin, ousted as CEO of the Detroit airport after being paid a $200,000 severance when she left a Wayne County post, filed a lawsuit seeking lifetime medical benefits and access to an early retirement incentive that could net her a lump-sump payment of $61,538 and a bigger lifetime pension. >> Detroit Free Press OMB Official to Be New Cybersecurity Chief Retiring White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt will be succeeded by Michael Daniel, chief of the Office of Management and Budget’s intelligence branch. Daniel has worked at OMB for 17 years and has handled cybesrecurity for the last 10 years. >> Government Technology V.A. Official Ousted over Contract-Steering Patricia Gheen, a senior U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official in Colorado, was forced to retire after an investigation found she helped steer more than $2 million worth of government business to a company that employed her old boss and then lied about her actions. >> Wall Street Journal Voting | Florida Hunt for Non-Citizen Voters to Use DHS Database State officials soon will begin vetting a list of 180,000 potential non-citizens who are registered to vote against a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database. This could resolve a sticking point with county elections supervisors over the state's demand that the supervisors start removing some of the names from their voter rolls. >> Palm Beach Post >> Follow GovManagement on Twitter >> Share this edition:
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DATAPOINT $240,000 Amount that the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which paid $800,000 last year for hundreds of BlackBerry smartphones, has saved this year after EEOC Chief Information Officer Kimberly Hancher and her contracting staff pressed Verizon to help the agency cut costs or risk losing her agency's BlackBerry business, resulting in the company bundling cellphone minutes, scrapping underutilized phones from the plan and moving employees to voice and data plans that would better accommodate their phone use >> Federal Times | More data QUOTABLE “Leave your gadgets behind and go for a hike or a bike ride. Do something that you normally don't do the other five days of the week.” Dave Decker, director of the Tri-State Tourism Council, which covers southwest Wisconsin and parts of Iowa and Illinois, working to turn a perceived negative--spotty cellphone and broadband services--into a positive by urging businesses to promote technology-free getaways >> Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | More quotes
Public Health The Weightiest Issue Health-policy experts now estimate that 42 percent of American adults will be obese in 2030. That’s a 9-point drop from an earlier projection, but forgive us if we don’t cheer at the prospect of adding 32 million to the 78 million of us who are dozens of pounds too heavy. It’s not easy to transform deeply ingrained habits and attitudes, particularly given humans' biological predisposition to gobble calories and remain at rest. But there are some policies worth trying. >> Washington Post | More commentaries UPCOMING EVENTS American Society for Public Administration Section on Public Administration Education Annual Teaching Public Administration Conference May 21-23, South Padre Island, Texas American Society for Quality World Conference on Quality and Improvement May 21-23, Anaheim, Calif. Air Traffic Control Association Annual ATCA/FAA/NASA Technical Symposium May 22-24, Atlantic City, N.J. Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Webinar: "Best Practices to Combat Human Trafficking: Public/Private Partnerships" May 22, 9 a.m. ET Center for American Progress Discussion: "Obamacare at Work: Innovations to Deliver Better Care at Lower Cost" May 22, 9:30-11 a.m. ET, Washington, D.C. Governing magazine Webinar: "Identity Proofing: Combating Fraud and Improper Payments" May 22, 2 p.m. ET Partnership for Public Service Leadership seminar: "Driving Innovation" May 23-24, Washington, D.C. Partnership for Public Service Interactive workshop: "Creating Pathways to Success: Developing and Guiding Talent at Your Agency" May 23, 8 a.m.-noon, Washington, D.C. Alliance for Innovation Webinar: "Performance Management Tools and Techniques" May 24, 1 p.m. ET Service Employees International Union International Convention May 28-30, Denver GovInfoSecurity.com Webinar: "Legal Considerations About Cloud Computing" May 28, 10 a.m. ET Government Technology magazine Government Technology Conference West May 29-30, Sacramento, Calif. >> Full events listings |
