A bill introduced in the House and Senate last Friday would trim the federal workforce by 10 percent through attrition. Introduced by Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and South Carolina Senator Mick Mulvaney, the bill is expected to save $139 billion and cut 10 percent of federal employees by 2015. According to Sen. Mulvaney, the federal government has grown by nearly 15 percent while the private sector has shrunk by 6 percent. Read more (Federal Daily).

Farm Service Agency employees from around the country were honored for their outstanding service last Friday during the 2011 Administrator’s Awards for Service to Agriculture. Several group and individual awards were given in six different categories that include civil rights leadership, excellence in leadership and management, award for support service, outstanding team accomplishment, excellence in achieving goals and objectives, and heroism and emergency response.

“I’m impressed with the commitment that FSA employees have to farmers,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who served as the keynote speaker during the ceremony. Vilsack said that the agency is underappreciated because people don’t realize the work that is done affects the farmers and ranchers that supply food, fiber and fuel to the American people. “No matter the challenges or factors that are out of your control, you still remain true to the FSA mission of helping farmers,” said Vilsack.

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FSA Administrator Bruce Nelson held a breakfast reception this morning in his office to personally thank awardees of the 2011 Administrator’s Award for Service to Agriculture. The awards program, which will be held today at 2 p.m. EDT. at the USDA headquarters in Washington, D.C., recognizes FSA employees who have excelled beyond expectation and set new benchmarks of service excellence. Individual and group awards will be presented as well as field awards and volunteer service recognition.

The president’s recently proposed plan to cut the deficit would increase contribution amounts made by employees toward their retirement and eliminate Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) annuity supplement for new employees. The plan also would create a commission to help modernize the federal personnel system. Labor unions squawked at the plan saying federal employees have sacrificed enough. Read more (Federal Daily).

The Farm Service Agency is amending the fees charged and collected for guaranteed loans, effective Oct. 1, 2011. According to a Sept. 20 federal register notice, FSA currently charges a 1 percent fee of the guaranteed amount on all guaranteed loans. That rate will increase to 1.5 percent. Comments on this interim rule should be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking Portal by Nov. 21,2011. Learn more or submit comments.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The federal government is looking to improve its websites and it needs the public’s input. Beginning today, the National Dialogue for Improving Federal Websites will launch a two-week online forum, allowing the public to submit and vote on ideas regarding content, readability, usability, design, mobile websites, applications and social media. The online discussion is part of President Obama’s campaign to cut waste. All comments will be forwarded to the .gov Task Force for a National Web Strategy. Visit the website.