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.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:Not VERA, regular retirement at the end of the DRP#2. I do expect to wait at least 4 months to see any money sent to my checking account. My concern is about health insurance. I'm keeping my FEHB plan -- but if the paperwork is not processed, my plan won't get the premiums paid. So...? If I need medical care, I'll have to pay upfront and ask to be reimbursed later?!? I don't want Medicare other than Part A since it's free. Healthy but a bit worried...

Anonymous wrote:Not VERA, regular retirement at the end of the DRP#2. I do expect to wait at least 4 months to see any money sent to my checking account. My concern is about health insurance. I'm keeping my FEHB plan -- but if the paperwork is not processed, my plan won't get the premiums paid. So...? If I need medical care, I'll have to pay upfront and ask to be reimbursed later?!? I don't want Medicare other than Part A since it's free. Healthy but a bit worried...