The number of outstanding retirement claims in the backlog at the Office of Personnel Management increased to 18,501 in June or 7.4% over the previous month.
The increase was the result of OPM processing the smallest number of claims in a single month so far this year (6,928). In other months in 2019, it has processed as many as 13,000 in one month. That, combined with a slightly higher than number of incoming claims, pushed the backlog up over 18,000. However, the backlog is right around where it was at this time last year.
The Government Accountability Office recently released a report on OPM’s backlog in which it said that OPM isn’t even meeting its own stated goals in keeping up with the retirement backlog. Problems GAO cited that contributed to the situation were that OPM has failed to follow good project management practices in past efforts to modernize its retirement processing process, relying on outdated procedures, and staffing shortages.
The latest complete retirement processing statistics from OPM are included below.
| Month | Claims Received | Claims Processed | Inventory (Steady state goal is 13,000) | Monthly Average Processing Time in Days | FYTD Average Processing Time in Days |
| Oct-17 | 8,850 | 6,818 | 18,860 | 64 | 64 |
| Nov-17 | 5,572 | 5,138 | 19,294 | 68 | 66 |
| Dec-17 | 5,568 | 10,347 | 14,515 | 60 | 63 |
| Jan-18 | 14,590 | 8,638 | 20,467 | 63 | 63 |
| Feb-18 | 13,290 | 9,532 | 24,225 | 46 | 59 |
| Mar-18 | 7,767 | 13,262 | 18,730 | 49 | 57 |
| Apr-18 | 8,390 | 9,631 | 17,489 | 58 | 57 |
| May-18 | 7,625 | 7,090 | 18,024 | 58 | 58 |
| Jun-18 | 9,397 | 9,223 | 18,198 | 65 | 59 |
| Jul-18 | 8,281 | 8,145 | 18,334 | 57 | 59 |
| Aug-18 | 8,826 | 9,647 | 17,513 | 56 | 58 |
| Sep-18 | 7,142 | 7,027 | 17,628 | 64 | 59 |
| Oct-18 | 9,012 | 6,911 | 19,729 | 63 | 63 |
| Nov-18 | 7,510 | 8,077 | 19,162 | 61 | 62 |
| Dec-18 | 5,782 | 6,925 | 18,019 | 60 | 61 |
| Jan-19 | 13,264 | 8,162 | 23,121 | 58 | 60 |
| Feb-19 | 10,792 | 10,543 | 23,370 | 58 | 57 |
| Mar-19 | 10,048 | 13,217 | 20,201 | 50 | 55 |
| Apr-19 | 6,993 | 9,392 | 17,802 | 56 | 55 |
| May-19 | 7,877 | 8,451 | 17,228 | 62 | 56 |
| Jun-19 | 8,201 | 6,928 | 18,501 | 60 | 56 |
