OPM has told agencies to send information on their fiscal 2014 use of student loan reimbursements as a recruiting and retention tool in preparation for the next annual report on those payments.
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 department-wide or agency-wide by March 31 on the numbers of recipients; the pay plan, occupational series, and job title of each; and the total dollar amounts paid out. Those that did not provide any payments are to explain why not.
“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,” the call memo says.
The most recent report, issued in late 2014 and covering 2013, showed that 7,314 employees received $52.9 million in the benefits, down 31 percent and 25 percent from 2012—a decline due to budgetary restrictions rather than to falling need. As in the past, use was concentrated in a few agencies; Defense, Justice, State and the SEC accounted for nearly three-fourths of the number of payments and the dollar total.