Return to Article: OPM launches electronic retirement system
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55988
It,s been month I have been receving intrem payments can some one tell me what the hell taking so long? payment started in 2/30/2008
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51968
When this new system start it is hard to get answers from personal.
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47926
There is no coordination between OPM and the Defense Finance Accounting System. When there is a difference in calculations over the years, no one bothers to do any structured verification of an individual's current status on creditable service for retirement purposes. OPM fails to communicate with the retiree and just leaves it up to the individual to keep trying to find the way through what should be considered one agency.....OPM has multiple levels of confusion to work through
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47494
I also retired Jan 3,08, so called OPM this week to fine out if I would receive a complete check soon. Was told that I would receive an interim check on the first of April and my annuity check would be correct and in full on the May 1st check. This is just not right (4 months), but to be fair with OPM, the VA Financial Service Center in Austin was very slow in processing my file also (OPM received it on 22 Feb.)??
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47288
Sounds like a good plan, but its a little late for me, and some others who retired effective 3Jan08. Its now 25 March and I've yet to receive a full paycheck.
After 37 years of uninterupted service, I fail to see why it takes so long. I am just glad I saved my annual leave.
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46057
OPM is a very competent organization. What has happened is that as Federal employees retire, the agency looses its knowledge base, people who have institutional knowledge of the policies and regulations regarding our retirement systems. These employees have worked in these programs for years and when they retire, all the specialized skills leave with them. OPM has to have a system in place to try and retain some of the employees or hire them back part time, however still keeping their monthly annunity benefits; this would allow for the newer/younger people to be trained properly by the experts. The automated systems are as good as the data that is entered into that program, if you have bad data going in, then you will receive bad data coming out. There isn't a replacement (automated, etc) for skilled knowledgable people that can respond efficiently to information that is sought.
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45054
I don't have a home computer, so hopefully there will still be a way to contact OPM with retirement questions. There are a number of us out there that don't have or don't even want a computer, so need to keep these individuals in mind and have a process for them too.
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44978
This is another good reason to contract this whole process out. The crew at OPM are incompetant and benefits is a part time position with a long learing curve
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44830
It is nice to have electronic access to your own records. But, I am not excited to think that the only help I can expect when I want to retire is another automated computer! Sorry, but I prefer to talk to a real person--one who is qualified to address the issues. Besides, we need to keep people working in employee-focused jobs such as this.
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44677
I don't believe the problem is with OPM but more so with ones own agency. I was told by the FAA in 2005 that I needed 21 months of ATC time, sometimes referred to as "Good time, or time on the boards" to be eligible to retire. I worked for another six months and then the FSS RIF came about. I transferred back to the terminal option and worked another twenty months. Now thinking I was eligible to retire I had a new calculation performed and was told there had been a mistake on the first one and I needed another 9 1/2 months to be eligible under the ATC retirement option, however, I had taken a HQ's position and no longer acquire time towards the ATC retirement. My options are work another 4 1/2 years for a federal retirement or transfer back to a control position and accumulate 9 1/2 months of board time to retire.
I went through all my sf50's and added up my time, I had staff time that added up to 7 1/2 years and though I was required to maintain currency on position that time did not count toward my ATC or Good Time. No one to blame here but myself.
I recommend when it comes to retirement you do your own calculations, keep your documentation (sf 50s), and carefully think about career enhancing positions such as Quality Assurance, Training, etc., if you even think there is a remote chance you may wish to retire early under a special program like that offered to firefighters, law enforcement, and air traffic controllers. I don't know if staff time is still non-credited toward controller time as it once was even when you maintain currency. It all comes back to the final responsibility rests with you.
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44674
It's disgraceful that the Social Security Administration is not one of the leaders using its employees. After 33 years of service and a long time union leader,this is likely due to its longtime callous disregard for its minority and female workforce dominated by white males.
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44589
I did not have a problem when I retired last Aug 07. In fact, the retirement specialist was very knowledgeable and kept in contact with me the two months before I retired and answered any questions I had. I only had 1 interim check and all went smoothly. When computer programs take the place of a human there are always problems, just like the joke of the DTS and CVS programs.
The main thing is to plan ahead and all will run smoothly.
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44499
Very few retirees are issued more than one interim payment prior to their claim being finalized. And for those who cannot be completed within 30 days, the problem is with the separating agency not providing all of the documentation required to process the claim for benefits. The fact that OPM stores paper records in file cabinets has nothing to do with any delay in claims processing. If all retirement packages submitted to OPM were complete, the claims could all be finalized in less than 30 days. Let's put the blame where it belongs!
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44453
Will the Computer be able to Add & Subtract! Sometimes they have been known to skip to Postal Math when encountering problems! This is one more reason to never Retire. Just apply "More Dough, Go Slow!
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44426
Another "improvement". This system will probably be similiar to the Defense Travel System (DTS). Hundreds of Millions of taxpayer dollars wasted and a system that is a nightmare to use. Everything the current administration has done is a failure.
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44415
It will be interesting to see if these improved systems will allow employees to receive answers to their benefits questions in a timely and efficient manner. If everything goes well then it probably would have gone well to begin with. But, if something is wrong who will be there to help the retiree with this process. Get ready to take a number. Let's hope agencies will be allowed enough money to keep their specialists to continue to assist their employees. When the specialists are gone - they tend to stay gone.
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44405
Michael M.
OPM DOES allow you to view/print your 1099R. It's not real intuitive though . . . .you have to start by clicking the link which says "Request a Duplicate Copy . . ."
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44403
Natural Resources Conervation Service is currently using the Web based Federal Retirement Benefits--FRB Dashboard--which seems to already accomplish what is indicated that the Retirement Systems Moderization (RMS) will accomplish. How are these different? And will will be mandated to change over to the RMS?
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44402
I hope this will help me in my future attemp to retire in 2009.
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44398
OPM may want to test this system on a much smaller population, say the next 500 to 1,000 actual employees applying for retirement. That way they'd get a good cross section of retirement senarios,including disability, law enforcement, FERS, CSRS, Early Outs, etc. They could parallel test it against the current manual system and see if it works as advertised ad improves service delievery and accuracy over the the manual process. I'm sure that the current process produces errors and those 2 error rates could be compared.
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44397
When will OPM allow the current retirees the opportunity of printing off their 1099R from the web-site instead of having to wait for a paper copy to be mailed to them??? I have suggested this every year and no one wants to listen.
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44384
Ms. Ballenstedt would be well-served to get her facts straight. The numbers cited are not employees of the agency; they are the Federal employees who receive payroll services from GSA and the other cited payroll providers.
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44373
It's about time a product is available to simplify this system.
The retirement computation shouldn't be some big secret only a few have access to.
Self serve is the way to go, we do it with everything else on Employee Personal Pages why not retirment too.
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