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Senators call on OMB to help fix retirement claim backlog


Senators from two states with high populations of federal employees are taking complaints over federal retirement processing backlogs to the Office of Management and Budget, reports Government Executive.

In a letter to OMB Acting Director Jeffrey Zients, Sens. Ben Cardin (D) and Barbara Mikulski (D) of Maryland, and Sen. Mark Warner (D) of Virginia recommended that OMB implement a number of key actions aimed at freeing up as many as 60,000 federal retirement claims that remain backed up at the Office of Personnel Management.

In the letter, the senators, who represent states with about a quarter-million federal retirees, asked OMB to require OPM to provide Congress with a list of agencies that have not submitted adequate records for retirement application processing.

The letter also called on OMB to impose a number of other requirements on OPM -- including requiring OPM to submit monthly progress reports to Congress, create a standard checklist of materials required of prospective retirees, and work with OMB to come up with a viable IT solution for retirement claims processing.


 

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Reader comments

Wed, Feb 8, 2012 Barbara Jay

OPM has known for the past several years that the Baby Boomers were coming up for retirement and have on several occasion quite the number of individual expected to retire. I think it is absolutely appalling that OPM did not plan for the large number of retirements and have not been held accountable for their actions. They seem to have more excuses than answers on how they plan on fixing it. They let their employees go when they were going to be automated but then failed when they could not go automated to rehire the employees until they have such a large number of retirees and are now trying to lay blame on the agencies from which the employees are retiring. Maybe OPM should be overhauled and retained on there mission. It is shameful that the Government workers having put in 30 or more years of work for the government to be put in such a situation of having to wait for their earned retirement benefits. What are they expected to live on in todays society? Use up all their savings and have none left for a major illness. Something is very wrong with this picture and they should be held accountable for failing to do their job on the retirment issue. I am sure they would not allow it to happen to the employees who work for OPM nor should they allow it to happen to other employes. Twelve months to wait for retirement benefits is to me criminal and unacceptable for loyal employees to be treated as such.

Wed, Feb 8, 2012

Too little, too late for a vast number of us. But it's good they 'seem' to be taking this seriously now. Short-sited goons.

Wed, Feb 8, 2012

It's amazing that the government runs in the 19th century. With payroll automation there should not be a backlog for any retiree. It appears the government doesn't trust their own payroll system figures. Go figure. A retirement benefit should be as quick as hitting a budget if payroll data is stored according to regulation timelines (36 years). These individuals would only be working discrepancy issues versus taking 6-9 months to get someone a full retirement check.

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