The Office of Personnel Management has responded to congressional concerns over delays in federal retirement processing, the Federal News Network reported Tuesday.
Register now for the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 Digital Transformation Summit on April 22 to gain exclusive insights into government modernization initiatives, tackling outdated legacy systems and exploring next-generation artificial intelligence, cyber and enterprise IT.
Table of Contents
Why Is Federal Retirement Processing Delayed?
OPM Director Scott Kupor, in a letter to House Democrats, stated that the backlog in federal retirement processing is primarily due to outdated technology and cumbersome procedures, rather than staffing shortages.
“The main issues with federal HR, we have found, are not low staffing levels, but inefficient and outdated technology and antiquated, cumbersome regulations and processes,” said Kupor.
Democrats earlier pointed to reduced staffing levels and a surge of retirements under the Deferred Retirement Program as contributors to the backlog.
What Is OPM Doing to Speed Up Retirement Processing?
The agency’s new Online Retirement Application, or ORA, is designed to replace manual, paper-based processes and help expedite previously stalled applications by shifting them to a fully digital system.
“As of today, ORA applications are being completed in approximately 40 days, compared with 90 days for paper-based applications. I am fully confident that this 40-day time period will continue to be reduced as we are able to get the payroll providers fully integrated into the new system,” said Kupor.
He also noted that 1,500 backlogged applications were fast-tracked electronically to payroll and then to OPM, bypassing slower manual processes.
“These applications had been sitting for months — and were likely to be sitting for months longer; ORA enabled us to address this challenge,” said Kupor.
Related Articles
Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has named Jonathan Williams as the agency’s chief economist. The FCC said Monday that Williams will lead the Office of Economics and Analytics, or OEA, and advise Carr and other commissioners on economic issues. “I’m excited that Dr. Williams will lend his talents to the FCC as we continue to integrate economic analysis into our decision-making,” Carr stated. Who Is Jonathan Williams? Williams most recently served as a professor of economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also led the university’s Center for Regulatory and Industrial Studies
The Department of Energy has awarded $2.7 billion in uranium enrichment task orders to three companies to expand domestic production capacity and reduce reliance on foreign fuel sources. The investment is intended to expand the nation’s low-enriched uranium, or LEU, capacity and establish new high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, supply chains, the agency said Monday. “Today’s awards show that this Administration is committed to restoring a secure domestic nuclear fuel supply chain capable of producing the nuclear fuels needed to power the reactors of today and the advanced reactors of tomorrow,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated. Which Companies Received DOE
The U.S. Space Force has issued a request for information to assess commercial data and service options for space- and ground-based environmental monitoring missions. Posted on SAM.gov on Monday, the RFI from Space Systems Command’s System Delta 810 is intended to inform future acquisition strategies supporting the Department of War’s weather and environmental sensing requirements. Responses, due Feb. 20, will be used to evaluate feasibility, delivery approaches and pricing models for commercial offerings. What Capabilities Is SSC Requesting From Industry? Areas of interest include compact imagers for geostationary and high Earth orbits; modular spacecraft platforms operating across low Earth orbit,