Newly Confirmed TSP Board Works to Resolve Issues Following System Upgrades

Last week, the Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominees to serve on the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, often referred to as the TSP board based on the federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) the Board administers. The Board members begin their service as the TSP struggles with implementing a systems modernization update.

Newly confirmed Board members Leona Bridges and Stacie Olivares will replace current Board members Ron McCray and Bill Jasien. Michael Gerber filled the seat vacated by former Chairman Michael Kennedy. Chairman Kennedy resigned in 2020. Finally, current member Dana Bilyeu received another term.

The Senate confirmed the nominees by voice vote after they were held up for several weeks. President Biden’s final nominee and pick to be Chairman of the Board, Javier Saade, has yet to receive a Senate floor vote. In Committee, Republicans unanimously opposed Saade for Saade’s past social media posts denigrating GOP political leaders.

Meanwhile, the TSP is experiencing ongoing struggles with their newly released modernization system. Two weeks after turning on its new online access system, the agency in charge of the TSP is surging resources including hiring over 185 new customer service representatives to address challenges faced by some account holders.

The Federal Thrift Retirement Investment Board for the past year and a half has planned to implement a new modernized recordkeeping system.

When the system went live on June 1, three quarters of participants were able to access their account with no issue – the remaining quarter experienced issues preventing access to their TSP accounts. Since then the board has brought on additional customer service resources and also posted status updates including a list of known issues.  

Over 91 percent of participants are able to access their accounts now, according to FRTIB Director of External Affairs Kim Weaver.

While the remaining issues are working thru, Weaver sought to reassure participants that their data, selections, and designations all remained in place within the TSP agency systems, even if participants are not seeing that information in their account.