Retirement Processing Safe from OPM RIF

OPM has said that retirement processing will not be affected by the announced RIF in its division that provides employment screening and other services to other agencies on a reimbursable basis. That branch will be cut about in half, by more than 300 positions, due largely to lower demand for recruitment, hiring and training among agencies in reaction to budgetary limits of the last several years. “HR Solutions is one of OPM service centers, Retirement Services is a different center,” OPM told agencies in response to inquiries from some of them regarding the potential impact on retirement. “The RIF that is occurring in HR Solutions will not have an adverse effect on or otherwise impact Retirement Services’ processing of claims or other retirement services that we provide.” The retirement processing branch has been under pressure in recent years due to a long-standing backlog of applications that causes some applicants to wait for many months to receive full benefits.