Federal Manager's Daily Report

Congress has sent to President Trump HR-353, a bill authorizing a number of programs to enhance federal government weather forecasting while requiring greater oversight of contractors by the National Weather Service.

Under the bill, the NWS would have to report annually to Congress and post publicly its number of full-time employees by GS grade, the number of contractor employees by equivalent level, the number of current vacant positions, the five most common positions filled by contractors and their GS equivalents, the percentage of contractor employees who formerly worked for the NWS or another entity within the parent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and salary data on both in-house and contractor employees.

“The goal of this section is to hold the NWS accountable for the use of contractors instead of civil servants and to demonstrate that the use of contractors is more costly than hiring federal employees. It will also require the NWS to be more forthcoming about the number of vacant positions in the NWS,” said the National Weather Service Employees Organization, which pushed for inclusion of the language.