Congressional leaders agreed to drop objections to the Bush administration’s plan to revamp rules governing overtime pay.

Both houses had passed amendments blocking the changes, but the leadership yielded to White House insistence that its proposed rule go forward.

In the first rewrite of overtime rules in nearly half a century, the Labor Department proposed that any full-time employee earning less than $22,100 a year would automatically be entitled to overtime pay regardless of job description. The proposed rule would eliminate overtime pay for people making more than $65,000 a year who are classified as executives, administrators or professionals, including engineers, accounting, purchasing and marketing employees.

A final rule is expected next year.

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Boeing fired its chief financial officer after finding that he improperly communicated with an Air Force official who was later hired by the company.

Mike Sears, a 34-year Boeing veteran, talked with the Air Force’s deputy chief of procurement, Darleen Druyun, about a job before she had disqualified herself from participating in matters involving the company. Then both tried to conceal their contacts, the company said in a statement Nov. 24.

Druyun was fired from her position as a vice president of Boeing’s missile-defense unit. She joined the defense contractor in January after leaving the Air Force in November 2002.

The Defense Department’s inspector general is investigating whether Druyun had improper contacts with Boeing while she was working on a proposed Air Force lease of refueling tankers from the company. Her daughter and son-in-law worked for Boeing at the time, and a Boeing executive agreed to buy her house in a Washington suburb.

Boeing said it is cooperating with the IG investigation.

It is the second time this year that Boeing has run afoul of ethics rules. In July Boeing was stripped of $1 billion in Air Force rocket-launch contracts after an investigation found that the company had illegally acquired proprietary documents from its competitor, Lockheed Martin.

GSA’s inspector general has found improper contracting practices and misuse of funds in two more regional offices of the Federal Technology Service, Govexec.com reported.

A draft IG report found the offices in Kansas City, MO, and Atlanta committed improprieties similar to those documented earlier in FTS’s Bremerton, WA, office. The IG found the Bremerton office had bought construction services worth $37 million through contracts that were intended for information technology. One of those was the FAST 8(a) contract. (SAA, 10/3, 10/17)

GSA has canceled a contract with GovConnection Inc., a subsidiary of PC Connection Inc.

The company said GovConnection’s contract management systems and procedures “may have resulted in the sale of unqualified items or the underpayment of required fees.” The parent company said it has replaced GovConnection’s CEO.

GovConnection, formerly known as ComTeq Federal, was acquired by PC Connection in 1999.

PC Connection said it has been notified that the matter is under review by the Justice Department. The company pledged to cooperate with the investigation.

Sales through GSA’s information technology schedule climbed to $14.8 billion in fiscal 2003, up 11% from the previous year.

The number of companies on the schedule grew 14% to 4,330.