Benefits expert John Elliott will discuss what you should be doing to prepare for retirement, and OPM Director Katherine Archuleta will talk about the status of phased retirement, the retirement-claims backlog and other civil service issues. July 9, 2014
The Office of Personnel Management cut the longstanding backlog of pending retirement claims by more than a third in the first half of 2014. By the end of May, the inventory of claims had fallen to about 14,500, according to new OPM data released Thursday. That's down 38 percent from a peak of more than 23,500 claims in February.
Debra Roth, partner at Shaw Bransford and Roth will discuss what's happening at the VA and OPM Director Katherine Archuleta will talk about the status of phased retirement, the retirement-claims backlog and other civil service issues. May 28, 2014
The Office of Personnel Management received 8,047 new retirement claims in April, which is about 1,500 more than the 6,500 it projected that it would receive for that month.
Thanks to better than expected progress in processing federal retirement claims last month, the Office of Personnel Management's backlog of pending claims is shrinking for the first time this year. By the end of March, the number of backlogged claims shrank from more than 23,500 claims to about 18,500.
More than 12,000 federal employees filed for retirement last month, according to new data from the Office of Personnel Management. That was about 2,200 more retirement applications than the agency expected to receive under new monthly projections it began using this month. Despite an overall slower pace of retirements this year compared to last, OPM's progress in clearing a longstanding inventory of claims appears to have stalled. In fact, the backlog grew in February by more than 2,200 claims.
The exodus of employees from the federal workforce was a big story this past year: More federal employees retired in 2013 than the year before, providing grist for the mill for predictions of a coming federal retirement wave. Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management's efforts to clear a longstanding backlog of new retirement applications faced hurdles because of the steep sequestration budget cuts that hit government. Federal News Radio parsed through the data over the past year. In the series of charts and graphs below, track the latest trends.
Fewer federal employees filed for retirement in December than in any month in nearly the last two years, according to updated statistics from the Office of Personnel Management. Just 4,952 federal employees filed for retirement in December. But even with fewer employees retiring in December, OPM's retirement processing failed to keep pace with projections. The agency had expected to process 11,500 retirement cases but actually ended the month clearing a little more than 6,440.
The number of federal employees filing for retirement is on a downward swing. For the fifth month in a row, fewer federal employees than expected filed for retirement, according to new data from the Office of Personnel Management. However, OPM's efforts at processing federal-employee retirement applications also took a nosedive last month. OPM processed just 5,700 claims in November, less than half of what it predicted it would and nearly half the number of cases the agency cleared last month.
About 5,800 federal employees filed retirement applications in September, according to new data provided from the Office of Personnel Management. That's some 2,600 fewer than OPM expected to receive and more than 6,000 fewer than submitted applications in September 2012. That unexpected drop allowed OPM to process more applications than it anticipated and to make significant progress clearing a longstanding backlog of cases.
The Office of Personnel Management processed more retirement applications than expected last month -- for the first time since April. The enhanced processing power is thanks to a year-end budget review that allowed OPM to restore limited overtime for employees working in its Retirement Services Offices, OPM said. The agency had suspended employee overtime beginning in April, citing the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.
The Office of Personnel Management now estimates it will not be able to clear a longstanding backlog of retirement claims until next summer. OPM Associate Director for Retirement Services Ken Zawodny told Federal News Radio the suspension of overtime in late April has left the agency essentially treading water when it comes to processing retirement applications.
OPM processed just 8,683 claims last month — about 2,800 fewer than it had initially expected to. That's the second month in a row OPM fell behind in processing monthly claims according to new OPM data. The agency was forced to eliminate overtime for employees in its Retirement Services operation at the end of April because of the automatic budget cuts.
The No. 1 complaint people have after retiring is how long it takes them to get the first full annuity payment. Depending on a lot of things it can take anywhere from a couple of months to more than a year.
The Office of Personnel Management's efforts to process retirement claims and reduce a longstanding backlog slipped last month, after the agency was forced to cancel employee overtime because of automatic budget cuts. OPM processed 10,954 claims in May, according to new data, 546 fewer than it had projected. That's only the third time in the past 16 months - since the agency rolled out a new plan for clearing the backlog — that OPM failed to hit its processing goal.