The interest comes as Congress is preparing to work on agency budgets for the fiscal year starting October 1. Image: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffMembers of both parties have recently put renewed attention on the issue of delays in processing federal retirement applications, citing examples of cases in which their constituents have waited many months to get a final determination.
The latest pressure on OPM on that issue comes in a letter from a dozen House and Senate Democrats, following sometimes testy questioning of OPM director Kiran Ahjuja by House Republicans in the Oversight Committee there.
The interest comes as Congress is preparing to work on agency budgets for the fiscal year starting October 1; several of the signers of the letter are on committees overseeing that process.
“We write to express our concern with the excessive delays federal retirees in our states are facing as they wait to obtain their hard-earned retirement benefits,” it says. “It has been reported that average retirement processing times have been far above the agency’s stated goal of 60 days— instead often exceeding 90 days. We are aware of at least one case that has been in processing for fifteen months.”
While OPM is working on an application to determine the exact annuity amount, new retirees receive interim payments, with the difference made up once the figure is finalized. Those payments are supposed to be for about 80 percent of an initial estimate but in some cases are far lower, causing a financial hardship for the retirees during that period.
Over the years, OPM has tried a number of different approaches including increasing staff and working to transition what is still often a paper-based process to a fully digital one. In the latter category, OPM more than a decade ago rolled out an online portal to much fanfare but then quickly ditched it when numerous problems arose.
The letter notes that a GAO report found that after adding staff and increasing use of overtime, OPM did not “measure overtime productivity or correlate overtime data with application processing data.” It asks how OPM is addressing that issue and how it is measuring the effectiveness of those strategies.
It also notes that OPM is testing an electronic application form and an electronic system to store retirement information, and asks for the results of that test.
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