Originally published OPM wants federal retirement processing fully digitized in three weeks’ time on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2025/05/opm-wants-federal-retirement-processing-fully-digitized-in-three-weeks-time/ at Federal News Network
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Agencies are facing a tight timeline to move to a paperless federal retirement process, as the Office of Personnel Management puts the finishing touches on a multi-year modernization project.
In guidance it published last week, OPM gave agencies less than one month to move to completely digital retirement services for all newly retiring federal employees.
“Legacy systems, with outdated technology and cumbersome procedures, have delayed retirements and frustrated employees who have dedicated their careers to public service,” OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell wrote in the guidance. “By harnessing modern technology and inter-agency collaboration, OPM has been working to deliver a retirement process that is fast, user-friendly and responsive to the needs of our employees.”
In a press release Monday, the Trump administration touted the effort as one being led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Ezell said DOGE has been working with OPM’s Retirement Services team for the last several months, “with the goal of creating an entirely digital process that dramatically reduces the amount of time it takes to process retirement applications, providing a more efficient and improved experience to federal employees.”
OPM’s project to create and test its Online Retirement Application (ORA) system, though, it has been in the works for much longer than the last few months. At least as far back as 2023, OPM documented plans for launching the ORA. In a fiscal 2024 congressional budget justification, OPM wrote that it had already started developing the ORA, which it described as “a customer-facing portal that allows retirees, agencies and payroll providers to submit their retirement applications online.”
During the Biden administration, OPM also published an IT modernization plan for fiscal 2022 through 2026, which laid out a timeline for reaching improvements in retirement services and other long-time agency projects. In that strategic plan, OPM detailed its efforts to modernize the pipeline for retirement processing, including with Electronic Retirement Records (ERR), the Online Retirement Application (ORA) and Retirement Services surveys. The Biden-era strategic plan, however, appears to have been removed from OPM’s website. The webpage that previously housed the document now displays an “unexpected error” message.
The Trump administration is now taking the ORA project over the finish line. By June 2, agencies that use the National Finance Center (NFC) or Interior Business Center (IBC) for payroll and HR services will have to submit all retirement paperwork electronically. OPM said it plans to provide a separate system for electronic retirement submissions for agencies not using NFC or IBC.
“OPM will coordinate directly with payroll providers to ensure all agencies they service will have access to ORA in the near future,” Ezell wrote in last week’s guidance.
OPM also said agencies using NFC and IBC should begin training HR staff on the changes prior to June 2. And after July 15, OPM will no longer accept paper submissions at all. Any retirement packages sent by paper will be returned to agencies to be resubmitted digitally through the ORA system.
The update comes as OPM is anticipating a wave of retirement applications, stemming from the increasing number of federal employees who have opted into the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and the deferred resignation program (DRP). OPM recently argued that without modernizing its HR systems, it would be unable “to process the expected doubling of the retirement application backlog with the same quality of service.”
“OPM is experiencing a systemic breakdown in its HR, payroll and benefits infrastructure, evidenced by payroll errors, retirement processing delays, grievance filings and serious data reconciliation failures,” the agency wrote in a now-rescinded justification of a contract award to Workday, which has since been canceled.
OPM reaching other federal retirement milestones
Efforts to modernize the federal retirement process have been taking place at OPM for decades and have transcended multiple administrations with mixed success. Over the course of the last 20-plus years OPM has tried time and again to improve the technology and processes around the retirement system, only to continually fall short of expectations.
Around 2023, then-OPM Chief Information Officer Guy Cavallo changed the strategy and attempted to make progress in federal retirement modernization using a “small bite” approach. Cavallo said at the time that he believes past modernization efforts have failed because the agency tried a “big bang” approach.
As part of the IT strategy that started several years ago, OPM began piloting its online retirement application, as well as launching a chatbot to answer common questions about the federal retirement process. The agency completed the digital retirement pilot in December 2024, according to a source familiar with OPM’s retirement modernization efforts who agreed to speak to Federal News Network anonymously.
Earlier this year, OPM reached two other milestones that resulted from years of work to digitize the retirement process. The agency, for one, announced in February that it had processed a federal retirement application entirely online from start to finish for the first time ever. And in April, OPM announced that it had launched digital versions of four federal retirement booklets — a project that took the agency a year and a half to complete.
But concerns remain about how much of a difference the new online application system will make in the retirement processing timeline. Moving the application online may help reduce paperwork errors from retiring feds, but more complex retirement cases have historically taken longer to complete. Some retiring employees may also have older personnel records that are only available in physical copies, which would still require paper-based work to process.
A 2019 report from the Government Accountability Office also noted that paper-based applications are just one of the three main reasons OPM is struggling to expedite the retirement process. GAO said OPM’s Retirement Services has also had insufficient staffing — particularly during peak retirement season. Incomplete applications from retiring employees further slow down the process.
John Hatton, staff vice president of policy and programs at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the push to digitize the federal retirement application.
“While OPM had previously piloted this concept, we’re glad to hear the news of an expanded and accelerated move to a digital retirement application process,” Hatton told Federal News Network. “If it works well, it should cut back on burdensome delays for federal retirees awaiting their full retirement annuities.”
“But we’re not ready to celebrate yet,” Hatton added. “We need to see how this system works in practice. Will it effectively cut down processing time, and by how much? Will it maintain accuracy in processing applications, so retirees receive their full benefits?”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email [email protected] or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11
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Originally published OPM wants federal retirement processing fully digitized in three weeks’ time on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2025/05/opm-wants-federal-retirement-processing-fully-digitized-in-three-weeks-time/ at Federal News Network
Originally published Federal News Network
