FederalDaily.com > Progress on Improving Retirement Payments

FederalDaily - May 31, 2006

Progress on Improving Retirement Payments

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced last week that OPM awarded a contract to Accenture to help the agency to transition to an electronic retirement system. “It’s a disgrace that federal retirees are not getting full benefits at the first payment. We have examples of new retirees having to wait months for their full retirement pay, and that’s unacceptable. Members of Congress have asked us to fix this problem,” said OPM Director Linda Springer. “With Accenture’s support and expertise, we are one step closer to eliminating the current, antiquated, paper-driven system of retirement benefits processing,” she added. According to OPM, when fully complete, the system will provide a one-stop location for federal retirees to access their retirement records and significantly decrease the time it takes to process claims.

Some CFC Charities Delinquent on Taxes

The annual Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) gave more than 22,000 charities access to the federal workplace, collecting more than $250 million in donations during the 2005 campaign. However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that more than 1,280 CFC charities had tax debts totaling approximately $36 million as of Sept. 30, 2005. Further, at least 170 of the charities with tax debt received about $1.6 billion in federal grants in 2005. GAO investigated 15 CFC charities, selected primarily for the amount and age of their outstanding tax debt. All 15 charities engaged in abusive and potentially criminal activity related to the federal tax system, GAO said. GAO referred all 15 of these charities to the IRS for consideration of additional collection or criminal investigation. To see the full GAO testimony, go to: www.gao.gov/new.items/d06755t.pdf.

Supervisors are Happier than Employees

There is a trend that supervisors, managers and executives view federal employment more favorably than nonsupervisors, according to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) May 2006 publication, “Issues of Merit.” Results of the Merit Principles Survey 2005 showed that:

79 percent of supervisors are satisfied with their jobs, compared with 70 percent of nonsupervisors;

70 percent of supervisors and 59 percent of nonsupervisors responded positively about pay;

71 percent of supervisors were positive about their own supervisors, compared with 63 percent of nonsupervisors; and

71 percent of supervisors responded positively about how their agencies treated them in employment-related matters, compared with 58 percent of nonsupervisors.

MSPB’s “Issues of Merit” reported further that “Supervisors tend to feel more well-informed than nonsupervisors.” Also, it said that fewer employees than supervisors believe they can openly express concerns or that their opinions count at work.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Numbers Increase

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) said last week that data indicates the armed forces continued to discharge two lesbian, gay and bisexual military personnel per day in fiscal year 2005. The rate of discharge has remained relatively consistent each year since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and represents a 40 percent decrease compared with years prior to the attacks, SLDN said. A total of 742 military personnel were discharged under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on openly gay servicemembers, up from 668 discharges among the services in fiscal year 2004. “The law deprives our nation of thousands of skilled men and women who could be instrumental in fighting the war on terror,” said SLDN executive director C. Dixon Osburn. For more, go to: www.sldn.org/templates/press/record.html?record=2979.