A group of lawmakers sent a letter to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) earlier this month urging the agency to address the delay with processing and delivering federal retirement benefits to federal employees.
“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,” the lawmakers wrote. “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.”
SEE ALSO:
- OPM Retirement Application Backlog Update
- How to Deal With OPM’s Delay in Retirement Application Processing
Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Representative Robin Kelly (D-IL) led nine of their colleagues in the effort to urge OPM to fix delays in reducing the retirement application backlog.
The lawmakers said OPM’s backlog is attributed to the agency’s reliance on the manual processing of paper-based applications, insufficient staffing and submissions of incomplete applications.
As the backlog has grown over time, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) called on OPM last June to modernize the application review.
“A recent report found that OPM received close to twice as many retirement claims in January 2023 as it did the previous month,” the lawmakers wrote. “What is OPM’s plan to handle the increased caseload without further extending processing time?”
The lawmakers requested information about OPM’s review process and how the agency plans to streamline its review process in the coming months to adequately address the backlog.
The lawmakers also wrote:
“OPM’s strategic vision includes an initiative to modernize the application process, including developing an electronic application form and an electronic system to store retirement information. A pilot digital retirement system, which is based on OPM’s modernization initiative, already has been rolled out. How many retirees has the pilot served so far? What is the timeline and cost to implement the pilot program across the agency?
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that OPM uses methods, such as hiring additional staff and using overtime pay to address large caseload amounts and understaffing issues; however, the same GAO report found that OPM does not ‘measure overtime productivity or correlate overtime data with application processing data.’ Does OPM plan to measure how these strategies affect application processing and productivity in the future? What other strategies is OPM using to reduce processing time, and how is it measuring the effectiveness of those strategies?
“We cannot fail to serve the public servants who have dedicated so many years to keep our government running. We look forward to your timely response to this letter.”
Joining Duckworth, Durbin and Kelly in sending the letter to OPM were Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and House Representatives Shontel Brown (D-OH), Annie Kuster (D-NH) and Mark Pocan (D-WI).
To read the full text of the letter, go here.