OPM Introduces New Plans to Eliminate Retirement Processing Backlog in Senate Hearing
In a hearing last Wednesday on the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) efforts to solve the agency's retirement processing backlog, OPM Director John Berry told Senate members he plans to hire more staff to eliminate the claims backlog.
"For the foreseeable future, we are dealing with a paper and pencil process," said Berry. "That's why I am hiring more people and doing it with a frozen budget."
Berry said OPM is working to create an automated federal employees' retirement information system but is "still in a paper-pencil world." An IT project designed to automate the retirement processing system was abandoned by OPM last year after it did not produce desired results.
Currently, 130 retirement claims processing specialists work at OPM and Berry said he plans to hire 56 more and additional customer service staff. Berry also said OPM is debating whether to give bonuses to claims processing employees as an incentive to speed up the claims process.
Processing a claim takes 156 days on average, but many wait much longer for receipt of their full annuity payments. OPM faced a backlog of almost 50,000 claims by the end of 2011. Berry said his highest priority in 2012 is eliminating the current backlog.
OPM hopes to eliminate the backlog within a year and a half in a plan that includes hiring more staff, removing poor performers and upgrading technology, according to a plan OPM released last month. In January 2012, OPM processed almost 20 percent more retirement claims than in January 2011.
"The effect of such long delays on new federal retirees is obvious and serious - they must ‘make do' while waiting to receive the full amount they have earned," said National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association President Joseph Beaudoin. "The wait is too long, and the uncertainty is too much, particularly in the current economy."
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With all the talk on the Hill and at the Office of Personnel Management on federal workers’ insurance and retirement benefits options, it could be hard to understand how the different initiatives or legislative proposals will affect federal employees.