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Why I’m staying at 18F

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Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#11

Post by andrefrancisco »

wyldfire wrote: post #8
andrefrancisco wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, 18F isn't funded by Congress. Agencies pay us for our services out of their own budgets. As long as we keep delivering good work, our funding is secure. *I'm an 18F employee.

Do the agencies themselves realize the subtle benefits of UI/UX changes to websites, TLS, etc? I don't know exactly what all 18F does but it seems like those are among the features I see changing (and appreciate).

Certainly. Lots of agencies have to process forms submitted by the public, and when people have trouble filling out forms it makes processing them much more difficult. We've been able to show that better UX leads to better quality information. Like with our work with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/09/08/reimagining-the-immigration-p...

Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#12

Post by toomuchtodo »

andrefrancisco wrote: post #6
untog wrote: post #3

This is the optimistic view. But it isn't difficult to imagine a Republican congress drastically cutting the funding available to teams like 18F. Of course, time will tell, and I agree that it's too early to judge yet.

Fortunately, 18F isn't funded by Congress. Agencies pay us for our services out of their own budgets. As long as we keep delivering good work, our funding is secure. *I'm an 18F employee.

I assume USDS could be stripped away though, as its under the Executive Office of the President.

EDIT: Not that that's good; its just the environment we're working in now. Hide your staff, hide your code.

Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#13

Post by jsnk »

untog wrote: post #3

This is the optimistic view. But it isn't difficult to imagine a Republican congress drastically cutting the funding available to teams like 18F. Of course, time will tell, and I agree that it's too early to judge yet.

I would be surprised if Republicans tried to balance the budget. Contrary to popular belief and their own rhetoric, Republicans too are not too keen on balanced budget just like Democrats.

Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#14

Post by drivingmenuts »

andrefrancisco wrote: post #6
untog wrote: post #3

This is the optimistic view. But it isn't difficult to imagine a Republican congress drastically cutting the funding available to teams like 18F. Of course, time will tell, and I agree that it's too early to judge yet.

Fortunately, 18F isn't funded by Congress. Agencies pay us for our services out of their own budgets. As long as we keep delivering good work, our funding is secure. *I'm an 18F employee.

Do agencies have discretionary budgets that they can spend on whatever they want? My understanding was that every penny was somehow accounted for and approved by Congress, even if it's buried in fine print.

Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#15

Post by rrdharan »

andrefrancisco wrote: post #6
untog wrote: post #3

This is the optimistic view. But it isn't difficult to imagine a Republican congress drastically cutting the funding available to teams like 18F. Of course, time will tell, and I agree that it's too early to judge yet.

Fortunately, 18F isn't funded by Congress. Agencies pay us for our services out of their own budgets. As long as we keep delivering good work, our funding is secure. *I'm an 18F employee.

Except that in theory you are losing money right now?

https://fcw.com/articles/2016/10/24/18f-oig-financial.aspx

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/02/...

"Instead of securing enough cost reimbursements from its federal clients, 18F is losing millions."

Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#16

Post by ep103 »

petercooper wrote: post #9

Sounds reasonable. I don't know about US politics, but in the UK the civil service is (meant to be) independent of party politics and civil servants are meant to impartial and work with whoever the government happens to be (indeed, it's even a half-joke that the civil service actually controls the politicians who are merely public figureheads).

I was taught in high school, that its basically the same here. Though with every election, the incoming politicians make a big deal of replacing various department heads. Its the main reason that government jobs are intended to be unioned and tenured, ie, to protect them from political whimsy. But expect that to come under fire in the next 6 months, unfortunately.

Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#17

Post by smacktoward »

andrefrancisco wrote: post #6
untog wrote: post #3

This is the optimistic view. But it isn't difficult to imagine a Republican congress drastically cutting the funding available to teams like 18F. Of course, time will tell, and I agree that it's too early to judge yet.

Fortunately, 18F isn't funded by Congress. Agencies pay us for our services out of their own budgets. As long as we keep delivering good work, our funding is secure. *I'm an 18F employee.

Agencies headed by Presidential appointees.

Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#18

Post by Jarwain »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #14
andrefrancisco wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, 18F isn't funded by Congress. Agencies pay us for our services out of their own budgets. As long as we keep delivering good work, our funding is secure. *I'm an 18F employee.

Do agencies have discretionary budgets that they can spend on whatever they want? My understanding was that every penny was somehow accounted for and approved by Congress, even if it's buried in fine print.

Shot in the dark, but I would think that budgets are approved by congress, but there needs to be records for every single penny spent for audit purposes.

Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#19

Post by andrefrancisco »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #14
andrefrancisco wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, 18F isn't funded by Congress. Agencies pay us for our services out of their own budgets. As long as we keep delivering good work, our funding is secure. *I'm an 18F employee.

Do agencies have discretionary budgets that they can spend on whatever they want? My understanding was that every penny was somehow accounted for and approved by Congress, even if it's buried in fine print.

Accounting for how the government spends money is actually a very difficult problem, but 18F is also working on that. We're helping the Treasury Department implement the DATA Act, which will give the public and government a much better way to track how federal money is spent. https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/06/09/data-act-data-act-explainer/

But yes, agencies have some discretion in how they spend their budgets. Agencies are often mandated to operate a service, but are able to spend money by hiring 18F or private vendors to improve how they deliver that service.

Re: Why I’m staying at 18F

#20

Post by monknomo »

wyldfire wrote: post #8
andrefrancisco wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, 18F isn't funded by Congress. Agencies pay us for our services out of their own budgets. As long as we keep delivering good work, our funding is secure. *I'm an 18F employee.

Do the agencies themselves realize the subtle benefits of UI/UX changes to websites, TLS, etc? I don't know exactly what all 18F does but it seems like those are among the features I see changing (and appreciate).

Certainly line offices do, although in my experience HQ is in the process of transitioning away from the mindset that IT means MS Word installs and security management. I've been watching a transition from line office hosted CMS to an HQ hosted CMS and it has been informative how off the mark their assessment of what the agency actually does has been.
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