Fedweek

The wait for phased retirement to actually become available—it was authorized in law nearly two years ago—will continue for a while, OPM has indicated. Under phased retirement, retirement-eligible employees will be able to switch to half-time work, with the agency’s consent, and draw a proportionate salary plus a proportionate annuity earned up to that point — without an offset, and with retirement benefits later recalculated at full retirement to take the additional service into account. Following passage of the authority, which the Obama administration requested, OPM took nearly a year to put out proposed implementing rules; in recent guidance to agencies it said it is “completing its review of the responses. We anticipate that the final regulations for phased retirement will be published later this year,” without being more specific. The memo addressedrecord-keeping matters that will not be affected by any changes to the proposed rules, so that agencies will be better prepared once the rules are finalized.