Latest of Many Delays

The DoD announcement is the latest in a string of troubles agencies have had with payroll withholding issues this year. Many employees did not receive until only in recent weeks the 1 percent raise retroactive to the start of the year that was enacted into law in February. Similarly, many agencies were unable to meet the July 1 start-up date of the federal flexible spending account program, with DoD and several others not expecting to make that benefit available until September and several, including the Veterans Affairs Department, not making the benefit available until January 2004. Many TSP investors age 50 and older have been impatiently waiting for the catch-up program to begin, since the authority for catch-up investing was enacted into law late last year. The troubled start of the TSP’s new computer system-itself delayed numerous times over many years–has only added to the frustrations they are expressing.