Agencies that didn’t use the authority are to explain why not, and whether they have a policy in place that would allow its use or are planning to have one. Image: Vitalii Vodolazskyi/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffOPM has told agencies to report on their calendar year 2022 use of student loan reimbursements, one authority agencies can use to attract and keep employees in high-demand occupations.
Under the program, an agency can pay an employee up to $10,000 a year and up to $60,000 lifetime to be used pay off certain types of student loans. OPM wants information by March 31 including the numbers of recipients, their occupations, and amounts paid.
The most recent report, issued late last year and covering 2020, showed that agencies paid incentives to some 9,600 employees totaling $76.7 million that year, up from 9,100 totaling $72.3 million in 2019.
OPM also invited “any additional information regarding best practices, lessons learned, program effectiveness, or metrics used to measure program success. We would also appreciate your input on how agencies can best establish and justify each business case, as well as how to address and resolve program impediments. Your agency may provide relevant details about your agency’s use of the student loan repayment authority as an effective recruitment or retention tool,” a memo says.
Agencies that didn’t use the authority are to explain why not, and whether they have a policy in place that would allow its use or are planning to have one.
Annual reports consistently show that only a handful of agencies account for the large majority of the payments—DoD, Justice, State and VA together make up about nine-tenths—and that the payments also are concentrated in a few occupational fields including engineering, contracting, medical, special agents, foreign affairs, legal and accounting.
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