He takes up the new role at the White House agency after two years at State, during which time he has spearheaded the department’s data modernization strategy with CDO Matt Graviss. 

Berntsen will serve on secondment at the National Security Council until at least the end of the year. Previously, he was a senior manager at Deloitte, and before that was a country director for Afghanistan within the Department of Defense.

The National Security Council is the president’s principal forum for national security and foreign policy decision-making. In addition to technology and cybersecurity, it brings together senior leaders in areas crucial for national security including homeland security, global public health, international economics, climate, migration and others.

At the State Department, the Office of the Chief Data Officer has worked to implement Secretary Antony Blinken’s modernization agenda, which includes the department’s first-ever enterprise data strategy. 

Writing for FedScoop last September, Berntsen and Graviss said their team was focused on completing six-month sprint data campaigns to drive forward the agency’s digital transformation.

Earlier this year, the State Department appointed Laura Williams as deputy chief information officer for foreign operations. Williams took up the post on March 1 after previously serving as director of analytics at the agency’s Center for Analytics. 

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The app no longer exists. The system was taken offline, a spokesperson for OPM told FedScoop, after a redesign of the regular USA JOBS website incorporated a new, mobile-first design. Today, a page that used to focus on mobile apps like the USA JOBS app redirects to the USAJOBS.gov help center, while a link to usa.gov site touting the system now displays a “Page Not Found” notice. The OPM spokesperson did not say how many used the original app before it was shut down. 

But a fake with a similar name eventually appeared in its place. A “USA JOBS” app was downloaded more than 50,000 times on the Google Play Store, where it had a 2-star rating. The app, which was most recently updated in June, attracted a slew of reviews complaining about it being “misleading,” as well as its advertisements, broken links, and “fake jobs.” Many users complained that the app isn’t associated with the actual USA Jobs website and that their credentials for the actual USAJOBS.gov platform didn’t work. 

Google ultimately took down the app after it was flagged by FedScoop. The system, said company spokesperson Dan Jackson, violated the Play Store’s rules about misleading claims, which specifically ban apps that falsely claim affiliation with a government entity. Still, the existence of this and other fake apps also highlights that government agencies aren’t always tracking down platforms and websites impersonating their services. 

“The official government website for Federal job seekers is https://USAJOBS.gov,” the OPM spokesperson told FedScoop. “Job seekers are encouraged to use the USAJOBS site to search for Federal opportunities. They may also create a USAJOBS profile, create or upload a resume, make their resume searchable by Federal recruiters, and apply for positions.”

Researchers at Stairwell, a cybersecurity firm, didn’t find any overt malicious behavior and noted that the app’s primary purpose seemed to be pulling information that’s freely available on the internet and incorporating a “tremendous amount of advertising.” The app didn’t directly claim to be affiliated with the US government, but took intentional advantage of search terms — they called it “scam-ish.” 

“They might make thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars just getting people to go off as keywords,” Eric Foster, a vice president at Stairwell, told FedScoop. “Lot of times we find that the government both isn’t great at branding, and then they aren’t great at protecting their brand the same way a lot of the corporations are.” 

The researchers said that there’s evidence, based on their analysis of the app, that the developer was in Zambia. FedScoop reached out to the email address listed for the developer, but did not hear back by the time of publication.

Ads like the ones on the USA JOBS app could be a potential vector for malicious activity, the Stairwell researchers noted. The app could also collect personal information, both because it requires that users provide personal information to sign up for an account on the app, and because people may use their actual USAJOBS.gov login credentials when trying to log into the app. 

“In reviews, people were saying they uploaded their resumes. So if you’re uploading your resume, that’s going to include contact information and your work history. That’s not something you would want to give away to just anyone,” Chris St. Meyers, Stairwell’s head of threat research, told FedScoop. “They’re not necessarily malicious intentions, but they’re not good. I don’t know what they’re doing with that information they collect.” 

Similar, but more obviously malicious, sites are an ongoing challenge for the government. The Securities and Exchange Commission warned people on government employee retirement plans that they might be targeted by fraudsters back in 2017. Earlier this year, the United States Postal Service flagged to employees that cyber criminals were attempting to steal their information by creating fake sites. This issue has been an ongoing challenge for employees, according to unions representing these workers.

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In a missive sent to government chief human capital officers on Tuesday, the agency said it had created the scheme to offer the training, information and support needed to support early career talent.

As part of the program, interns working at federal agencies will have access to mentoring, executive speakers, self-directed training and new intern hub.

OPM’s launch of the program is intended to support the “strengthening and empowering the federal workforce” priority included in the Biden administration’s President’s Management Agenda.

In a final iteration of the latest President’s Management Agenda, which was published in September, the Biden administration set out three broad questions: How can the federal government strengthen and empower its workforce to best serve the American people? How can the federal government deliver programs and services that build trust? What can federal government do to advance equity and support underserved communities?

Central to the Biden administration’s core priorities of improved service delivery and equity is the need to ensure that each government agency has an appropriately skilled workforce and talent pipeline.

The administration has launched schemes including cybersecurity internships and apprenticeships at differing federal agencies in an attempt to kickstart recruitment. 

In November, the Department of Labor and the Department of Veterans Affairs were among the departments to hire cybersecurity apprentices as a result of an 120-day cybersecurity sprint program led by the White House.

On his first day in office in January 2021, President Biden signed an executive order mandating that the federal government pursue a “comprehensive approach” to advancing equity for all, including for people of color and those who have historically been marginalized.

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The 2023 leave year ending Jan. 13, 2024 will have 27 pay periods, OPM said in a memo sent on Monday to human resource directors of U.S. government agencies. That means most federal employees will receive an additional pay period’s worth of leave in 2023, which could be four, six, or eight hours depending on their accrual rate, according to the memo.

The change doesn’t apply to agencies whose first pay period was Jan. 8, 2023, as they will have 26 pay periods, the memo said. 

While most federal workers will get more leave time, the maximum carryover amount for annual leave – 240 hours for most employees and 360 hours for overseas employees – won’t change, OPM said. It encouraged agencies to remind affected workers to use any time over that limit before the end of the leave year so they don’t lose it.

OPM also clarified that while there are 27 leave pay periods for most workers, there will still be 26 pay days in the 2023 calendar year. The number of pay periods affects leave accrual, not pay days, the agency said.

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The agency, which is the medical research arm housed within the Department of Health and Human Services, hasn’t “fully implemented” practices for workforce planning that are established in federal guidance, such as identifying staffing gaps, the Government Accountability Office found.

A dearth of data science experts means the agency risks not having the workforce needed “to administer tens of billions of dollars in annual research grants,” the GAO said. Increased data collection and research advances will only add to the importance of data in the biomedical field, the report said.

The watchdog agency made eleven recommendations that were mostly aimed at NIH building a strategy to address the issue and monitor its progress. In a response to the report provided to the GAO, the agency said it agreed with nine of the recommendations and already implemented two others related to data management.

While NIH set a goal to enhance its data science workforce in a June 2018 Strategic Plan for Data Science, GAO said the agency’s work wasn’t linked to filling the gaps in its workforce because it hadn’t identified those gaps in the first place. 

Efforts the agency made included launching a Data Fellows program and creating a “Data Science at NIH” webpage with related training resources and information, the GAO said.

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Jeff King had been serving as acting IRS CIO since earlier this year on a 90-day loan from the Treasury Department, where he serves as deputy CIO. King will return to that role at the end of June, and Kaschit Pandya will step in to fill that vacant IRS role on an interim basis.

Pandya currently serves as deputy CIO for IT operations at IRS. He spoke to FedScoop in 2022 about how cloud has been a “game-changer” for the IRS.

This marks the third CIO to lead IRS’s IT operations in recent months. Nancy Sieger was the longtime CIO of the agency but, as FedScoop first reported, left to become chief technology officer of Treasury in March and King stepped in temporarily.

All of this comes as the IRS is in the midst of driving a massive tech transformation supported by billions of dollars of funding under the Inflation Reduction Act, which gave the tax agency and $80 billion injection to bolster its enforcement, operations support, business system modernization, and taxpayer services.

NextGov first reported the change at IRS.

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He will take over the role from Traci DiMartini, who leaves the agency on June 16 to become human capital officer at the Internal Revenue Service.

Lau is currently the Regional Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service for GSA’s Northeast and Caribbean Region and is responsible for oversight to four FAS portfolios representing over 120 employees and about $2 billion in revenue.

“We can confirm Traci DiMartini is leaving GSA effective June 16. Jeff Lau will serve as the Acting Chief Human Capital Officer while the search for a new, permanent CHCO is underway,” a GSA spokesperson told FedScoop.

Lau previously held various advisory and management positions in the National Administrative Services and Office Supply Center and  began his career with the GSA in 2004 as a Contract Specialist under the Outstanding Scholars Program. He has a bachelor’s degree in finance from St. John’s University.

In her new role at the Internal Revenue Service, DiMartini will be tasked with helping to create and implement Commissioner Danny Werfel’s long-term hiring plan to grow the agency’s workforce.

Commenting on DiMartini’s appointment, Werfel said: “This is a historic time at the IRS, and Traci brings a strong background in human resource management across government that will be a great addition to our leadership team.”

He added: “With transformation work underway at the IRS, her experience in Future of Work initiatives and other projects positions her to help the IRS develop, build and retain a workforce that can help taxpayers and the nation. The IRS team is excited to welcome her to this critical position.”

DiMartini led the HR office tasked with overseeing the IRS’s 12,000 employees and helped lead efforts to strengthen remote and hybrid work schedules for employees during and after the pandemic, as well as helped develop more training opportunities for managers.

DiMartini previously served as CHCO at both the Peace Corps and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), as well as the Agriculture Department’s director for human resources enterprise management systems and the Office of Personnel Management’s career deputy director for the CHCO Council, according to her LinkedIn.

Details of DiMartini’s departure were first reported by Federal News Network.

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Macgillivray, who led the White House’s push on the need for algorithmic transparency, joined the Biden administration in December 2021 after previously serving as deputy federal chief technology officer during the Obama administration.

Following his departure, Deirdre Mulligan takes the role of U.S. deputy chief technology officer, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Mulligan is a professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and is on leave from the institution while serving in the White House. In February she was installed as U.S. deputy chief technology officer for policy, and has also worked as principal adviser to the National AI Initiative Office.

Macgillivray, who led the White House’s push on the need for algorithmic transparency, joined the Biden administration in December 2021 after previously serving as deputy federal chief technology during the Obama administration. 

Before working in government, he held private sector roles as deputy general counsel at Google and general counsel at Twitter. It’s unclear where Macgillivray will work after leaving the White House.

“I am thankful for the support of WHOSTP Director Arati Prabhakar and am excited to see all the great work to come from the phenomenal Tech Division,” Macgillivray wrote on Twitter on Thursday afternoon.

“It was a huge privilege to get to work here again as part of the Biden Administration. I am extremely grateful and more than a little sad that my time is up,” he added.

Macgillivray during a speech on tech policy at the State of the Net Conference in March of this year highlighted three key goals of the Biden administration, which included improving federal privacy protections for Americans’ personal information and closing digital infrastructure gaps.

The OSTP, which Macgillivray is leaving, was established by Congress in 1976 and has a wide mandate to advise the president on the effects of science and technology on domestic and international affairs.

Details of Deirdre Mulligan’s new appointment were first reported by Axios Pro.

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In a memo sent Thursday, OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said federal agencies, where possible, should allow staff — especially those considered high-risk — to work from home.

“As much of the country experiences dangerous air quality conditions from the ongoing Canadian wildfires, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is reminding Federal agencies to be proactive in protecting the health and wellbeing of our Federal workforce,” Ahuja wrote.

She added: “OPM would also like to remind agencies of the various workplace flexibilities that may be used to reduce health risks associated with dangerous air quality levels.  Agencies are encouraged to permit employees, particularly those with high-risk medical conditions, to telework from home on a day when air quality conditions are dangerous.”

The OPM chief sent the missive to all government chief human capital officers, as thick smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed Washington D.C., along with other major cities in the northeast, Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. According to the Washington Post, air quality is likely to be severely reduced in these areas for at least the next 24 to 48 hours. 

In her missive, the director noted that agencies can deploy other measures to help protect the health of their staff, including by allowing those with flexible work schedules to adjust arrival and departure times to avoid peak commuting hours and to request the use of annual leave or earned compensatory time off.

While telework is not an option for certain government employees, including those working on national security issues or handling certain sensitive data, some agencies have retained a degree of flexibility for staff following the COVID-19 pandemic.

In January, the National Archives and Records Administration reached an agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees union, as part of which all permanent positions at the agency will now be eligible for telework.

At the end of November, the National Science Foundation signed a four-year collective bargaining agreement with the AFGE that included expanded telework and remote work for employees.

Advocates of the increased use of telework at government agencies say that it can be especially beneficial for recruiting staff in areas such as cybersecurity and IT because departments can seek potential candidates from across a wider geographic area.

However, telework has also proved politically contentious, with some lawmakers arguing that fewer employees in the office has resulted in the reduced availability of government services.

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Seven plaintiffs who are participants of or eligible for benefits from the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) – a Federal Government-sponsored retirement savings and investment plan similar to 401(k) plans – joined together to file a class-action lawsuit against Accenture Federal Services (AFS), Alight Solutions and the five members of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“AFS and Alight completely botched the migration of TSP’s services due to an array of technological and staffing shortfalls that have virtually brought the services offered by TSP to participants to a screeching halt,” the plaintiffs state in the class actions suit.

“Defendants’ failure to ensure the timely payment of Hardship Withdrawals, Non- Hardship Active Withdrawals, Out of Service Withdrawals, Death Benefits, and TSP Loan proceeds is not a one-off situation but instead is caused by systemic flaws in TSP’s system,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit alleges that the TSP program’s delay and failure to disburse funds within the program to beneficiaries has forced military personnel, veterans, and federal employees who use TSP to be forced to procure high interest consumer loans as alternatives so they are able to pay their bills and avoid home foreclosures, repossessions, and other hardships.

TSP serves as a tax-deferred retirement savings plan for approximately 6.5 million members of the uniformed services and other federal employees, similar to 401K plans offered to private-sector employees and manages more than $838 billion in assets. 

The plaintiffs are seeking relief from the defendants to immediately disburse proceeds for all approved TSP loans and withdrawals as well as appropriate damages for plaintiffs and class members’ losses.

The suit also requests a declaration that defendants are financially responsible for all notice and relief and requires that the defendants pay both pre- and post-judgment interest on any amounts awarded as well as attorneys’ fees as permitted by law.

The plaintiffs are demanding a trial by jury on all issues.

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