OPM reviews some annuity payments to determine of overpayments have been made. Image: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffAn inspector general report has recommended tightening the controls over settlements between OPM and federal retirees in cases of overpaid benefits, after finding that the agency was not fully following its own policies.
OPM routinely selects samples of annuity payments to determine of overpayments have been made, the report noted, and when one is found a notice is sent to the retiree. Such notices can be appealed to the Merit Systems Protection Board in much the same way as are personnel actions against active employees—and also similarly, those cases can be resolved through a settlement rather than being pursued to a formal ruling.
In a look at 51 such settlements in fiscal year 2021 involving $1.1 million, though, the IG found that: 24 provided for monthly repayments over longer than the allowable 98 months; 10 of the 30 in which retirees asserted financial hardship lacked the needed information to document that; and in three OPM agreed to waive more than the allowable 20 percent without a justification. The report also found that OPM did not report improper payments correctly in paymentaccuracy.gov.
OPM management agreed to recommendations to address all of those findings.
The audit also identified one case in which OPM had overpaid an annuitant by nearly $170,000 by failing to stop the annuity when the person was reemployed by the government—even though the person had contacted OPM “numerous times over an eight-year period” seeking to have the annuity stopped. OPM wrote off $100,000 of the overpayment in settling that case based on its admission that its errors were “egregious.”
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