| View the latest edition as a Web page | Previous editions/search | Subscribe to this newsletter | Advertising information |
 |
NEWS: Dec. 15, 2016
NASA Ranked as Best Place to Work in Federal Government for 5th Year The Trump administration should focus on boosting federal-employee engagement, according to the latest "Best Places to Work in the Federal Government" analysis from the Partnership for Public Service and Deloitte, which for the fifth consecutive year ranked NASA as the No. 1 place to work among large federal agencies. The analysis found that while engagement across government has risen slightly over the past two years, there's still a wide gap between the public and private sectors. >> Government Executive Trump Team: Climate-Changed Questions 'Not Authorized' Donald Trump's transition team said a controversial questionnaire asking for the names of Energy Department staffers who had worked on several climate-change initiatives "was not authorized" and that the staffer who sent it last week has been "properly counseled." >> Washington Post 900 Massachusetts State Workers Take Buyouts Nine hundred Massachusetts state employees--over half of them from human services--have accepted buyout offers to retire early or voluntarily leave their jobs, helping to save the state $82 million over the next two years and avoiding widespread layoffs. >> Boston Globe Higher Education | The Nation Most Colleges Plan to Comply with Blocked Federal Overtime Rule A majority of public and private colleges will proceed with at least some of the changes they'd planned to comply with a new federal rule on overtime pay that was blocked last month by a federal judge, according to a new survey of 495 institutions by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. >> Chronicle of Higher Education
Facing City Investigation, Police Chief Abruptly Retires Police Chief Diane Stuart is abruptly retiring, effective immediately, nearly five months after the city placed her on administrative leave and launched an investigation into her handling of the department, according to a joint statement from the city and Stuart. The statement neither stated why Stuart was retiring nor detailed the outcome of the city's investigation. >> East Bay Times Advocates Slam Boston's Plan to Monitor Social Media A host of civil rights groups and privacy advocates is calling on the city of Boston to drop its planned $1.4 million purchase of powerful software for police to monitor social media, arguing that it will unavoidably chill free speech and ensnare innocent minority youth. >> Boston Herald 44 Port Authority Cops Could Face Discipline As many as 44 police officers with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey could face disciplinary charges after an internal investigation found that they had neglected their duties by avoiding work in break rooms and missing patrols, authorities said. >> New York Times Chicago Mayor Open to Relaxing Police Hiring Rules Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel opened the door to allowing candidates with minor drug and criminal offenses to become police officers to attract minorities at a time of high crime and deep distrust. >> Chicago Sun-Times
GOP Lawmakers Seek to Limit Democratic Governor's Powers Aiming to hobble the incoming Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, before he takes office Jan. 1, Republican lawmakers proposed sweeping changes to state government including making Cooper's Cabinet appointments subject to approval by the Senate and cutting his ability to appoint members to University of North Carolina boards of trustees and the state Board of Education. >> Raleigh News & Observer Spending | Philadelphia Agencies Sloppy with Petty Cash, Controller Says Nearly two dozen city departments have improperly managed $1.5 million in petty cash, according to an audit by City Controller Alan Butkovitz citing widespread accounting issues. Butkovitz called on the city's finance director to implement training for all city departments. >> Philly.com California's State Building Strategy Flawed, Analyst Warns California Gov. Jerry Brown's administration risks embarking on a flawed and potentially costly Sacramento-area state office-building strategy, the legislature's nonpartisan fiscal analyst warned, calling for more legislative scrutiny of the estimated $3 billion effort. >> Sacramento Bee
Probe: Trump's National Security Pick 'Inappropriately Shared' Classified Info A secret military investigation in 2010 determined that Michael T. Flynn, the retired Army general tapped to serve as national security adviser in the Trump White House, had "inappropriately shared" classified information with foreign military officers in Afghanistan. Flynn was not disciplined after the investigation concluded that he did not act "knowingly" and that "there was no actual or potential damage to national security as a result." >> Washington Post FCC's Democratic Chairman Announces Resignation Ending months of speculation, Democratic Federal Communications Chairman Tom Wheeler said he will resign Jan. 20, leaving the Trump administration with a 2-1 Republican majority allowing the GOP to immediately begin dismantling Obama-era regulations. >> Politico Trump Must Give Up His D.C. Hotel, GSA Official Says Trump will violate the terms of a contract with the federal government on Inauguration Day if he doesn't give up his ownership stake of the Washington, D.C., luxury hotel that bears his name, a General Services Administration official has determined. >> Federal News Radio >> Follow GovManagement on Twitter >> Share this edition:
|
“If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite.” California Gov. Jerry Brown, suggesting in a speech to a room of scientists that the state would defy the federal government should President-elect Donald Trump impede California's efforts to fight climate change and warning against proposed budget cuts under the new presidential administration that could effectively eliminate earth-observing satellite programs >> Sacramento Bee | More quotes VIEWPOINT Public Administration | Philip Joyce The Myth that Government Should Be Run Like a Business There were many reasons behind the election of Donald Trump as president, but certainly one argument, heard time and again, contributed to his appeal: that the federal government was such a mess that the solution was to run it "like a business" and that the way to accomplish that was to elect a successful corporate executive. Trump is not the first politician, by any means, to benefit from this claim. In a classic 1887 article, Woodrow Wilson, then a professor at Princeton University, maintained that "the field of administration is a field of business." Later observers and scholars of public administration thoroughly discredited this notion. There are several fundamental ways in which administering a government is different from running a business. >> Governing | More commentaries DATAPOINT 55,006 Number of doctorates that were awarded by American universities in 2015, a record, although the rate of growth, 1.9 percent, continued a several-year decline and the recipients were more likely to be men and to be American citizens or permanent residents than they were the year before, according to the latest version of a federally supported survey >> Inside Higher Ed | More data
UPCOMING EVENTS Brookings Institution Discussion: "Evaluating and Improving the Nursing Home Ratings System" Today, 2-3 p.m. ET, Washington, D.C. GovLoop Online training: "4 Ways GIS Helps Fight Fraud" Today, 2-3 p.m. ET American Enterprise Institute Presentations and discussion: "Can Unorthodox Monetary Policy Make America Great Again?" Today, 3-5 p.m. ET, Washington, D.C. Partnership for Public Service Training session: "Presidential Transition in a Digital Age" Dec. 21, 8 a.m.-noon ET, Washington, D.C. American Society for Public Administration BookTalk webinar: "America, the Owner's Manual: You Can Fight City Hall--and Win" Jan. 4, 1 p.m. ET American Society for Public Administration Annual Conference March 17-21, Atlanta Association for Talent Development International Conference and Exposition May 21-24, Atlanta >> Full events listings |
