OPM Retirement Backlog Hits Lowest Since 2017
Clearing the retirement backlog is one of the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) goals. With their most recent retirement report, OPM is making progress on whittling down the backlog of federal employee retirement claims.
At the end of September 2023, the backlog stood at 15,852 retirement requests to be processed. That is the lowest number in six years. The backlog has fallen in six of the last nine months.
However, that’s still more than OPM’s goal of no more than 13,000 pending retirement claims at any given time.
OPM is also processing claims more quickly. Average processing time was 70 days in September, down from 74 days in August. The average time for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 was 77 days. In September, retirement cases completed in less than 60 days took an average of 40 days to process, while cases that took more than 60 days, averaged 122 days to process.
The backlog reached a high of 36,349 pending claims in March 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the backlog, which was already substantial pre-Covid. In March 2022, average processing time was 82 days.
OPM Takes Action
OPM has made tackling the retirement backlog a priority. It is planning to pilot a digital retirement system and to move to electronic retirement records and an online retirement application process. However, that may not be ready until 2026.
OPM is also trying to educate workers and agencies about the process, publishing a retirement quick guide and three “how-to” videos. The goal is to inform workers about timelines and cut down on common mistakes, which often lead to delays in processing. OPM is also trying to cut down on calls to service centers.
In its Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 funding request, OPM asked for more money to increase staff and update technology, including adding a chatbot to help with user retirement questions.
The retirement backlog has not escaped the attention of Congress. In July, Senator James Lankford (R-OK), wrote a letter to OPM Director Kiran Ahuja with questions about OPM’s plans to tackle the backlog.
“This backlog directly harms retired civil servants and their beneficiaries,” Senator Lankford wrote.