September sees fewer retirement claims made, processed

Retirement

September sees fewer retirement claims made, processed

The Office of Personnel Management reported fewer retirement claims received last month, as well as fewer processed, compared to the month prior.

Amelia Brust@abrustWFED

October 9, 2019 11:43 am

1 min read

The Office of Personnel Management reported fewer retirement claims received last month, as well as fewer processed, compared to the month prior.

The drop in receiving and processing is similar to the same time last year, although last September the inventory was slightly higher. Processing times last September were also higher than last month.

The number of claims received decreased from 8,878 in August to 7,456 in September. The amount of processed claims also dropped month over month, from 9,715 in August to 7,656 in September.

The inventory of claims also fell slightly from 17,576 in August to 17,356 last month, according to numbers from the Office of Personnel Management.

Between August and September, the monthly average processing time for claims rose from 50 days to 57 days, and the year-to-date average processing time remained flat at 56 days. While the monthly average fluctuates more regularly, the YTD processing time has continued trending downward and is now at its shortest time since October 2017, according to the latest OPM release.

Contributing factors to OPM’s somewhat stagnant backlog of retirement claims include what the Government Accountability Office described in a May report as inconsistent agency leadership, persistent staffing challenges and an unfocused approach to IT modernization, Federal News Network previously reported.