DRP 9-30-25, retiring under VERA status

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I process retirements for a financial regulatory agency. We allowed DRP retirements to extend up to 12/31/2025, so most of our employees chose that date. We also offered a VERA/VSIP to a group of employees to retire during June. I was really stressed in June and would wake up and go to bed thinking about how many retirements I completed and how many I still need to get done.

December is the busiest month and I have three times the retirement cases as any other December. I've got 20% of the cases done, but it is really slow going with the online retirement application (OPM). First, OPM changed the ORA about a month ago to a brand new system. The new-new ORA had many problems that we had to report to OPM to fix. Some of the problems were so bad that they stopped us from processing the retirement. The new ORA also changes the order of how the retirement is processed, so I'm trying not to create too many new accounts at once. The expectation now is that the HR office will enter the service history when they create the account, and if we don't enter it up-front, it's going to be missing or erroneous and we're going to hear about from our employees.

OPM is quickly fixing the problems with the new ORA, but they are doing it so quickly that they aren't letting the agencies now what they fixed. Also, some of the fixes create additional problems.

This has been the hardest year in HR of my career and I've been in this business a long time. There have been dozens of days where I have woken up and wanted to quit my job. Russell Vought accomplished his mission. He wanted Federal employees to wake up and not want to go in to work.

Are you allowing DRP 1 participants who choose 9/30/25 date to change? Most of them picked 9/30 because they were retirement elibigible already - i.e., they didn't know 12/31 was allowed.

I would like to know if anyone made the change recently moving to 12/31/25...TY!

I asked but was told no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I process retirements for a financial regulatory agency. We allowed DRP retirements to extend up to 12/31/2025, so most of our employees chose that date. We also offered a VERA/VSIP to a group of employees to retire during June. I was really stressed in June and would wake up and go to bed thinking about how many retirements I completed and how many I still need to get done.

December is the busiest month and I have three times the retirement cases as any other December. I've got 20% of the cases done, but it is really slow going with the online retirement application (OPM). First, OPM changed the ORA about a month ago to a brand new system. The new-new ORA had many problems that we had to report to OPM to fix. Some of the problems were so bad that they stopped us from processing the retirement. The new ORA also changes the order of how the retirement is processed, so I'm trying not to create too many new accounts at once. The expectation now is that the HR office will enter the service history when they create the account, and if we don't enter it up-front, it's going to be missing or erroneous and we're going to hear about from our employees.

OPM is quickly fixing the problems with the new ORA, but they are doing it so quickly that they aren't letting the agencies now what they fixed. Also, some of the fixes create additional problems.

This has been the hardest year in HR of my career and I've been in this business a long time. There have been dozens of days where I have woken up and wanted to quit my job. Russell Vought accomplished his mission. He wanted Federal employees to wake up and not want to go in to work.

Thank you PP, what can we do to show our appreciation?
Our HR just got my ORA completed, they are moving quickly as promised!
I am so grateful.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know if VERA will be offered next year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I process retirements for a financial regulatory agency. We allowed DRP retirements to extend up to 12/31/2025, so most of our employees chose that date. We also offered a VERA/VSIP to a group of employees to retire during June. I was really stressed in June and would wake up and go to bed thinking about how many retirements I completed and how many I still need to get done.

December is the busiest month and I have three times the retirement cases as any other December. I've got 20% of the cases done, but it is really slow going with the online retirement application (OPM). First, OPM changed the ORA about a month ago to a brand new system. The new-new ORA had many problems that we had to report to OPM to fix. Some of the problems were so bad that they stopped us from processing the retirement. The new ORA also changes the order of how the retirement is processed, so I'm trying not to create too many new accounts at once. The expectation now is that the HR office will enter the service history when they create the account, and if we don't enter it up-front, it's going to be missing or erroneous and we're going to hear about from our employees.

OPM is quickly fixing the problems with the new ORA, but they are doing it so quickly that they aren't letting the agencies now what they fixed. Also, some of the fixes create additional problems.

This has been the hardest year in HR of my career and I've been in this business a long time. There have been dozens of days where I have woken up and wanted to quit my job. Russell Vought accomplished his mission. He wanted Federal employees to wake up and not want to go in to work.

Thank you PP, what can we do to show our appreciation?
Our HR just got my ORA completed, they are moving quickly as promised!
I am so grateful.

Just be kind when writing or emailing your HR staff. Also, keep in mind that not every question can be answered immediately.

I would also say that OPM is still trying to fix many of the glitches in the Online Retirement Application (ORA). Frequently, the retirement estimate that comes up in the ORA system is wrong, but OPM isn't using the estimate for any purpose, so it doesn't matter if it's wrong. I was on a call with OPM today and many of us from different agencies recommended that OPM stop displaying the retirement estimate. Also, some employees don't have a retirement estimate or a high-3 salary show up in ORA and we have no control over that.

Also, the responses to the ORA questions don't populate perfectly to the printed version of the retirement application that you can download after you certify the application. OPM is aware of this and they state that only the answers to the questions matter, not whether they display properly on the PDF printout of the retirement application in ORA.

Thankfully at my agency we have only had a small cut in our staff that processes the retirement application, but at some agencies, they have few staff left who know how to process these applications. I've heard the issue is particularly bad at HHS and its components because a lot of HR staff were RIFed.

Also, not every agency allowed a retirement date beyond September 30th.

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I process retirements for a financial regulatory agency. We allowed DRP retirements to extend up to 12/31/2025, so most of our employees chose that date. We also offered a VERA/VSIP to a group of employees to retire during June. I was really stressed in June and would wake up and go to bed thinking about how many retirements I completed and how many I still need to get done.

December is the busiest month and I have three times the retirement cases as any other December. I've got 20% of the cases done, but it is really slow going with the online retirement application (OPM). First, OPM changed the ORA about a month ago to a brand new system. The new-new ORA had many problems that we had to report to OPM to fix. Some of the problems were so bad that they stopped us from processing the retirement. The new ORA also changes the order of how the retirement is processed, so I'm trying not to create too many new accounts at once. The expectation now is that the HR office will enter the service history when they create the account, and if we don't enter it up-front, it's going to be missing or erroneous and we're going to hear about from our employees.

OPM is quickly fixing the problems with the new ORA, but they are doing it so quickly that they aren't letting the agencies now what they fixed. Also, some of the fixes create additional problems.

This has been the hardest year in HR of my career and I've been in this business a long time. There have been dozens of days where I have woken up and wanted to quit my job. Russell Vought accomplished his mission. He wanted Federal employees to wake up and not want to go in to work.

Thank you PP, what can we do to show our appreciation?
Our HR just got my ORA completed, they are moving quickly as promised!
I am so grateful.

Just be kind when writing or emailing your HR staff. Also, keep in mind that not every question can be answered immediately.

I would also say that OPM is still trying to fix many of the glitches in the Online Retirement Application (ORA). Frequently, the retirement estimate that comes up in the ORA system is wrong, but OPM isn't using the estimate for any purpose, so it doesn't matter if it's wrong. I was on a call with OPM today and many of us from different agencies recommended that OPM stop displaying the retirement estimate. Also, some employees don't have a retirement estimate or a high-3 salary show up in ORA and we have no control over that.

Also, the responses to the ORA questions don't populate perfectly to the printed version of the retirement application that you can download after you certify the application. OPM is aware of this and they state that only the answers to the questions matter, not whether they display properly on the PDF printout of the retirement application in ORA.

Thankfully at my agency we have only had a small cut in our staff that processes the retirement application, but at some agencies, they have few staff left who know how to process these applications. I've heard the issue is particularly bad at HHS and its components because a lot of HR staff were RIFed.

Also, not every agency allowed a retirement date beyond September 30th.

You’re the best, PP.

[Anonymous]

Unemployment rate about to spike after the 30th

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unemployment rate about to spike after the 30th

Nonsense

[Anonymous]

I submitted my paperwork last week and that's the last I heard. I'll follow up closer to the end of the month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I submitted my paperwork last week and that's the last I heard. I'll follow up closer to the end of the month.

What paperwork?