• The Army is overhauling how it treats discrimination and harassment complaints. Beginning later this year, the service will no longer allow soldiers to anonymously file allegations of discrimination or harassment with military equal opportunity offices. Instead, EO offices can process claims while keeping soldiers' personal information confidential. Troops who opt to file a confidential claim will not be required to notify their command or initiate a complaint that could lead to an investigation. Commanders may still act on anonymous allegations that warrant further review.
• The Office of Personnel Management is facing a new class action lawsuit. Federal employees are suing the Trump administration after it cut coverage of gender-affirming care from the government’s health insurance programs. The lawsuit from transgender and non-binary workers alleges that the cancellation of the insurance coverage violates Title VII, which protects employees against sex discrimination. The case comes after OPM directed federal insurance carriers to end coverage of gender-affirming care, beginning earlier this year.
• Former federal employees can now more easily access their official personnel records. The Office of Personnel Management has created an online portal where former feds can request and receive copies of their files electronically. The new portal replaces a previously paper-based, manual system. OPM says accessing records should now happen much more quickly. Previously, it could take weeks or even months.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency lost thousands of employees without any strategy behind the cuts. FEMA has lost 4,500 staff under the Trump administration, including 58 senior executive service employees. The Government Accountability Office reports that those workforce reductions happened without any strategic planning, leaving FEMA without critical positions filled. Many FEMA regional directorates saw their workforces cut by 9% or more due to voluntary reduction initiatives. FEMA agreed to develop a new strategic plan and workforce analysis once it gets a Senate-confirmed administrator in place.
• A new bill would provide lifetime identity protection services to federal employees whose information was stolen in the 2015 Office of Personnel Management hack. Senator Mark Warner and several others introduced that legislation this week. The bill comes as current identity protection coverage for around 4.2 million current and former feds is set to expire this September. The legislation would also reimburse affected federal employees and contractors for privacy software and other eligible tools used to reduce their personal information online.
• The Defense Department is asking Congress for broad new authority to directly sell military real estate, lease it back when needed and reinvest the cash from those sales into a number of defense priorities. The proposal would allow the Pentagon to bypass much of the current General Services Administration property disposal process so it can sell military real estate more quickly and have greater flexibility to spend that money. DoD said selling off its real estate would help the department fund the Trump administration's ambitious Golden Dome missile defense system, southern border operations as well as development of artificial intelligence data centers.
• One of the Army’s signature modernization efforts is facing headwinds across the Army National Guard as outdated infrastructure and operational demands make it harder to field the service’s newest equipment. Aging Army Guard facilities are struggling to accommodate the new gear, and Transformation in Contact's additional requirements are raising burnout concerns in Guard units that are already stretched thin. The Army told Congress earlier this year that repairing and replacing facilities to meet its future needs could cost nearly $65 billion and take 137 years to finish.
• The Defense Department has failed to comply with federal improper payment requirements for the fifth consecutive year. A new audit found DoD did not adequately assess the risk of its improper and unknown payments, publish reliable improper payment estimates or report improper payment estimates of less than 10% of required programs. Auditors said DoD continues to rely on incomplete data to estimate improper payments. At the same time, the inspector general said the department has improved its compliance by restructuring its payment integrity portfolio to better identify high-risk payments.

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