FedScoop

The FedScoop Federal Forum, in partnership with Workday, convened top government and industry leaders to discuss AI, IT modernization, HR transformation, and shared services shaping the federal landscape. Sessions explored the shift to a skills-based workforce, modernizing HR IT systems, and leveraging AI to enhance mission outcomes. Speakers shared insights on optimizing shared services, balancing IT modernization with AI adoption, and using data-driven strategies to align workforce capabilities with agency goals. Discussions also addressed barriers to modernization, recruiting and upskilling federal talent, and the evolving role of AI in streamlining processes. A special thank you to Workday for Public Sector, our event partner, as well as our attendees, speakers: Sen. John Curtis, Chandler Morse, Carl Eschenbach, Lynn Martin, Mark Gorak, Billy Mitchell, Justin Fanelli, Josh Lannin, Aashna Kircher, Dawn Zimmer, Patrick Blair, Allison Horn, Allen Hill, Annamary Holbrook, Suzette Kent, Kristine Korva, Matthew T. Cornelius, Carrie Waltz, and sponsors: Deloitte Government & Public Services, AWS Partners, Accenture Federal Services, CrossVue, Groundswell, Guidehouse CE&I | Guidehouse, KPMG, IBM, IronBrick, Macro Solutions, Oakland Consulting Group, Inc., Volitiion IIT - Putting Intelligence in IT - for making this event a success and advancing critical conversations on federal workforce and IT transformation. ?? Join the conversation! Share your key takeaways using #FedScoopFedForum and continue shaping the future of federal workforce modernization. ?? What’s next? Stay connected for future discussions driving government innovation: https://lnkd.in/ep6-C-_v

House Ways and Means Republicans struck down a pair of resolutions from their Democratic counterparts Wednesday that sought documents and information related to DOGE access to Treasury Department and Social Security Administration IT systems. During a frequently contentious more than three-and-a-half hour markup, Democrats made the case that it was the committee’s duty to find out what sensitive information has been handled by DOGE representatives through their forays into Treasury and SSA networks. https://lnkd.in/evsBNiyY

The top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is warning agencies against using artificial intelligence without adhering to privacy laws and software regulations, a request that comes amid reports that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is employing unauthorized AI tools in its work. In letters sent to the heads of the departments of Commerce, Homeland Security, Education, Energy and others, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., wrote that if agencies are failing to ensure that AI vendors have adequate approval through programs like FedRAMP, then they risk violating the law. Connolly specifically pointed to the Privacy Act of 1974, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and the E-Government Act of 2002. He also referenced the Advancing American AI Act, noting that agencies must keep a public inventory of current or planned uses. https://lnkd.in/en9QpMvn

The General Services Administration is launching an internal demonstration program for agency offices to show how they are using software and technology, including projects that use a new GSA artificial intelligence chatbot and workflow automation, according to an email obtained by FedScoop. Stephen Ehikian, the agency’s acting administrator and a former Salesforce VP, said in an email to staff that they are encouraged — but not required — to sign up through a form to present a five-minute virtual demonstration for a project at any stage in the development cycle. Staff are asked not to prepare a formal presentation, but to show Ehikian and fellow employees the coding work, design files, infrastructure overviews and more in GSA’s integrated development environment. https://lnkd.in/eKam8YiT

Imagine for a moment that all two million of our federal employees came to work each day and tried to tackle their jobs using an IBM Selectric typewriter instead of a computer. They’d send messages by snail mail, there would be no document backup, and access to the breadth of information online would be nonexistent. Bottom line: extremely inefficient. Now take a moment to think about how many of those two million employees the federal government would have to fire to make their work more efficient. It’s an exercise with no right answer — there is no number of layoffs that can fix the inefficiencies of a typewriter. And while it’s a fictional scenario, there are similar lessons we can take away as Elon Musk and the Trump administration look to increase efficiency in the federal government. https://lnkd.in/enx8ixMM

A federal district court judge ordered the reinstatement of probationary workers fired from several agencies Thursday in a move that broadens relief he granted in a previous order, according to unions and organizations who brought the case. During a hearing, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted and further extended a temporary restraining order against the Office of Personnel Management and acting Director Charles Ezell, per a statement from the American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and other plaintiffs. https://lnkd.in/eJGuTh4T

The Senate faces a Friday night deadline to vote to fund the federal agencies — a scenario that’s become all too common in Washington with the regular looming threat of a government shutdown. But it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s the belief of Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis, who said Thursday that the existing federal budget process is “broken,” antiquated and needs to be innovated. https://lnkd.in/ekKJhYEz

When Suzette Kent joined the first Trump White House in 2018 as its federal chief information officer, the former Ernst & Young, JPMorgan and Accenture executive was immediately hit with a cold dose of public-sector technological reality. “One of the first things that happened was 300 pages of paper got plopped on my desk and someone said, ‘fill this out.’ What the hell is that? It made no sense,” Kent recalled Thursday during the Workday-sponsored FedScoop Federal Forum in Washington, D.C. https://lnkd.in/er8rr6KP

It takes the federal government an average of 101 days to hire someone for a job. Accounting for the initial application process for a federal role on USAJobs.gov, that timeline often stretches well beyond six months. Workday — the California-based HR and financial services software company that claims to host one in every three job applications in the U.S. — believes that timeline is unacceptable and that, after two decades in business, it has the bona fides to reduce it by bringing a more modern workforce management ecosystem to the federal government. https://lnkd.in/e_gBfxZw

The Department of Homeland Security has selected Antoine McCord as its new chief information officer, a spokesperson with the agency’s Management Directorate confirmed Friday. As CIO, McCord will be tasked with overseeing DHS’s roughly $11 billion IT budget, the largest of any federal agency in fiscal 2025. A bio for McCord on the DHS website said he “emphasizes mission-driven leadership, focusing on operations to neutralize threats against the Department.” Details about McCord’s background are scarce, beyond what’s contained in that DHS bio page. According to the agency, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, specializing in cyber and intelligence operations and “gaining hands-on experience in threat detection and technology integration.” https://lnkd.in/eqngMW8S