Veterans Affairs sets new record for disability and pension claims processing
Veterans Affairs sets new record for disability and pension claims processing
The VA has gone through more than 2.5 million claims so far in fiscal 2025, surpassing last year’s total.
- Veterans Affairs is setting a new record for the number of disability and pension claims processed in a single year. The VA has gone through more than 2.5 million claims so far in fiscal 2025, surpassing last year’s total. The department said it’s shrunk the claims backlog by 37% since President Donald Trump took office. The backlog did increase when more veterans became eligible for benefits under the PACT Act in the Biden administration, in part because more veterans became eligible for VA benefits under the toxic-exposure PACT Act.
- The Energy Department is seeking to toss out a mass amount of older Freedom of Information Act requests. In a public notice this week, DOE said those who submitted a FOIA request prior to Oct. 1, 2024 need to email a “Still Interested” inquiry to the department in the next 30 days. Otherwise, DOE may close out the request. The requirement doesn’t apply to requests that are in active litigation. DOE says it needs to free up limited FOIA processing resources. The department received 4,000 FOIA requests in fiscal 2024 and expects an additional 5,000 by the end of 2025.
- Agency operations have become a concern at the Office of Personnel Management. A new report from the Government Accountability Office found that improper payments, IT security and skills gaps in OPM’s workforce are hindering its ability to deliver on missions. Many of GAO’s recommendations have remained ongoing for years. The new report comes as OPM is on track to lose one-third of its total workforce by the end of the year.
- Plant inspectors at the Department of Agriculture are suing the Trump administration. The new lawsuit comes after the National Association of Agriculture Employees got word that USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was canceling its collective bargaining agreement. It’s the sixth legal action that federal unions have taken against President Donald Trump’s order to broadly cancel collective bargaining on “national security” grounds. The 1,500 USDA employees, however, argue that their jobs have nothing to do with national security — and therefore should have been excluded from Trump’s order. The new lawsuit comes as a few other agencies are also terminating their union contracts.
- The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is helping critical infrastructure owners and operators secure their operational technology. New guidance released by CISA this week details how critical infrastructure organizations can create and maintain an inventory of OT assets. CISA said doing so is critical to defending operational systems from cyber threats. The guidance comes as hackers increasingly target OT and industrial control systems to cause physical damage. Cyber experts said many organizations haven’t inventoried their OT systems, leaving them vulnerable to cyber intrusions.
- Agencies can now get significant discounts when they buy content management platform software from Box through the General Services Administration’s schedule contract. GSA established an enterprisewide contract with Box for agencies to receive up to a 75% discount for the company’s Enterprise Plus for Government software, and a 65% discount for their Enterprise Advanced for Government software. These discounts are compared to current GSA schedule prices. As part of the OneGov agreement, GSA said Box is providing agencies with a FedRAMP High and DoD IL4 compliant platform for content sharing, document workflows, digital signatures and records management. GSA has now signed at least 11 agreements since it announced its OneGov strategy in April.
- The Office of Management and Budget is losing a longtime career official. Deidre Harrison, the deputy controller of OMB, is leaving at the end of August. Federal News Network has learned Harrison will join the consulting firm McKinsey. Harrison joined OMB as a program examiner in 2014 and then became deputy controller — basically the deputy CFO of the government — in 2021. During her tenure, one of her big priorities was the rewrite of grants regulations and the establishment of the Council on Federal Financial Assistance, which helps identify areas where agencies need to improve in how they deliver grants. It’s unclear who will take over as deputy controller when she leaves.
- Both the House and the Senate want to overhaul how the Defense Department evaluates contractors. The House Armed Services Committee’s version of the 2026 defense policy bill requires the Defense Department to create an “objective, fact-based, and simplified system for reporting contractor performance.” The amendment mandates DoD contracting officers to “only include negative performance events that have a material impact on contract performance or government interests in CPARS and shall exclude positive or neutral performance assessments.” Each negative event will be categorized into one of five categories, and contracting officers won’t have to do annual or regular performance evaluations unless they have confirmed a negative performance event. The Senate version of the defense bill largely mirrors the House measure.
- Former government officials and industry executives have launched a commission to examine what it would take to implement a Cyber Force — without weighing in on whether one should be created. The move follows a provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill that directed the Defense Department to assess whether the U.S. needs a separate cyber military branch. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, in partnership with the Cyberspace Solarium Commission 2.0 project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is leading the initiative. The panel brings together more than a dozen members, including Michael Sulmeyer, former assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, and former Commanding General of Army Cyber Command, Lt. Gen. Ed Cardon. The commission will officially launch on Sept. 16.
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