Though the application submissions are now online, humans still currently check the information coming in to make sure they\u2019ve been completed properly and manually key in information into a calculator in \u201ca significant number of cases,\u201d Kupor said. That introduces \u201ca huge amount of delay in the system\u201d and is something the agency is working to fix.<\/p>\n
The aim is to ultimately have a system where the retiree, human resources, and the payroll provider all submit their information online and route that package electronically \u2014 not to a person in the agency\u2019s retirement services division, but to a Digital File System<\/a> that can fill in the application and do the calculations, Kupor said. Under that future process, he said, all individuals at OPM will be doing is reviewing and spot checking.\u00a0<\/p>\n The simple target of what OPM is trying to do with retirement services, Kupor said, is to go paperless \u201cas quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n While many priorities across government have changed from the Biden to Trump administrations, the modernization of the federal retirement system has remained a primary goal, getting early interest from DOGE. Despite an influx of retirements<\/a> under the Trump administration\u2019s incentivized programs to get workers to leave federal service and now a long government shutdown, OPM is making incremental progress toward that goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Coming soon<\/p>\n Several key developments to bring federal retirement closer to its end-goal are moving forward \u2014 with some nearing completion in the near future.\u00a0<\/p>\n The biggest focus areas for OPM are working to integrate payroll providers across the government with the system and completing development on an automated calculator that can read and process the incoming information, Kupor said.<\/p>\n By the end of the calendar year, Kupor said his hope is that the agency will have major providers across government integrated with the system \u2014 though the shutdown could impact that timeframe.<\/p>\n As it stands, delays getting necessary historical payroll information from those providers can take 15 to 30 days, Kupor said. But once they\u2019re integrated, the information will be sent electronically in a computer-readable format on day one, as opposed to the current process of sending PDFs.\u00a0<\/p>\n He estimated that of the roughly five or six major payroll providers, only one is currently providing machine-readable information.\u00a0<\/p>\n While OPM\u2019s own retirement services work is not funded by appropriations and is therefore not impacted by the current lapse, the shutdown is impacting HR and payroll partners elsewhere in government.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal was to have all that done by December 31st. I still hope \u2014 I still believe \u2014 that\u2019s possible, but I think if something slips, that will slip as a result of the shutdown,\u201d Kupor said of the payroll integration.<\/p>\n An automated calculator, called Janus, is similarly nearing the finish line.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kupor called that project \u201cvery far along\u201d and said he anticipates that the tool will be completed in the next month or two. FedScoop previously reported that Biden administration officials had made substantial progress<\/a> on that element.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re almost at the point where all the calculations can now be done automatically, instead of literally via an Excel spreadsheet that a retirement services person is using,\u201d Kupor said, noting that the complexity of some cases is a challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n New updates<\/p>\n Smaller developments are advancing, too.<\/p>\n In the next couple of weeks, Kupor said OPM will roll out a capability that will do more spot checking of each submission up front so people can\u2019t file an application that hasn\u2019t been vetted by the computer. That will eliminate a lot of what OPM refers to as \u201cunhealthy\u201d applications coming into the system, which will \u201csave a lot of time,\u201d Kupor said.<\/p>\n
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