OPM has told agencies to report by March 31 on their use of student loan reimbursement authority in calendar year 2013.
Required information includes the number of employees who received repayment benefits, their pay plan, occupational series and job title, and the amount spent.
“We invite you to share any additional information regarding best practices, lessons learned, program effectiveness, metrics used to measure program success, establishing a business case, program impediments, or other relevant details about your agency”s use of student loan repayments as a recruitment or retention tool. In addition, we encourage you to identify any ways to improve the student loan repayment program,” OPM said.
The report covering calendar year 2012, released last September, showed that while the number of employees receiving the incentives continued to grow, up 4 percent to about 10,500, agencies devoted about 2 percent less, a total of $70.3 million, due to tight budgets.
Like recruitment and retention incentive payments, use of student loan reimbursement authority is concentrated in a handful of agencies, primarily Defense, Justice and State—which among them accounted for seven-tenth of the benefits provided.
The authority allows agencies to pay up to $10,000 a year, $60,000 lifetime, to employees to pay off certain forms of student loans.