In a reversal from last month, the Office of Personnel Management’s retirement claims backlog headed upward in October. The 16,678 backlog in claims are an increase of 1,226 from September, and 3,678 claims higher than the steady state goal of 13,000.

In October, 6,924 new claims were filed, an increase of 156 more than September. OPM also processed fewer retirement claims last month. The agency said it processed 6,098 claims, a  2,781 drop from the previous month.

Initial retirement cases in October completed in less than 60 days on average took 42 days to process, up 2 days from the previous month, while initial cases that were processed in more than 60 days on average took 113 days.  That’s a 9 day improvement from September.

Along with the increase of the claims backlog, the monthly average processing time in days grew from 70 to 73. But there is some good news: The fiscal year-to-date average processing time in days decreased from 77 to 73 days in October.

January of this year still holds the record for the most retirement filings in the last 12 months with 12,404 claims filed.

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