Four Congressmen sent a letter to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) this week seeking answers about ongoing delays with federal employee retirement application processing. The letter was a follow up to one sent in December.
The December letter asked OPM the following questions:
- What guidance has OPM provided to agencies to ensure that retiring employees who lost access to government email and internal systems can continue to communicate with human resources offices using personal contact information?
- What steps is OPM taking to address retirement applications that remain stalled at agencies or payroll providers and have not yet been transmitted to OPM for processing?
- How is OPM assessing the impact of agency human resources staffing reductions on retirement processing delays across the federal government?
- How does OPM track and account for delays that occur at agencies and payroll providers, rather than solely within OPM’s own retirement processing timelines?
- OPM has heavily advertised its new digital retirement tool, the Online Retirement Application (ORA), and promoted its role in retirement processing reform. Please provide a list of named agencies (with components when applicable) that have wholly adopted and launched ORA for their entire HR teams and workforce. For agencies that remain in interim status, please provide a list of agencies (by component when applicable) and what the adoption status is, and the estimate for full usage. Please also provide what number and percentage of current cases are and are not using ORA, what the reasons are for non-adoption and usage, and what steps remain to be taken by OPM and employing agencies for full implementation.
- Please list any step and/or discrete action under the end-to-end retirement processing process that is not captured by ORA.
- What has been the impact on OPM’s customer service and support for the existing retiree population amidst the growing number of new retirements, and have there been any staffing or work assignment changes within the components that manage this process since December 2024?
The new letter was sent to OPM Director Scott Kupor by Congressmen James Walkinshaw (D-VA), Robert Garcia (D-CA), Kweisi Mfume (D-MD), and Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA).
The new letter expresses their frustration that OPM provided only a partial response to the first round of questions, and they said that they are still receiving complaints from constituents about delays and communication failures regarding the retirement application process.
Among the new stated concerns are that OPM has not provided a clear answer as to how retirees may directly contact their former employing agency’s HR office for retirement application status updates or clear data on the level of adoption to date of the new Online Retirement Application.
The new letter asked 13 specific questions seeking detailed responses on ORA adoption metrics, staffing changes, system limitations, and backlog management strategies.
Despite their concerns, the lawmakers also noted that they support modernizing the retirement processing system. The letter concludes by saying, “To be clear, we are supportive of efforts to modernize OPM’s retirement application process and hope to see continued progress on the use and implementation of ORA. What we do not support is the use of rhetoric about modernization efforts to obscure the existing backlog of retirement applications for federal employees, many of whom were pushed out by the Trump Administration’s workforce reduction policies.”
A copy of the April 13 letter is included at the end of the article.
OPM Retirement Backlog Status
After growing every month since September 2025, the OPM retirement backlog sharply reversed course in March, dropping 15% over its previous all-time record high set in February.
Among the highlights of the latest retirement processing figures:
- Over 22,000 retirement claims were processed in March versus 14,759 new claims received
- Total backlog now stands at 55,681
- The number of digital claims continues to grow; they made up 60% of the total received in March
- Digital claims are processed in about half the time as paper
For all of the latest details, see my article from last week.
The Honorable Scott Kupor
Director The Office of Personnel Management
1900 E Street, NW,
Washington, D.C. 20415
Dear Director Kupor,
On December 22, we wrote to OPM with questions regarding ongoing delays in federal employee retirement application processing and requested a full response by January 29, 2026.
To date, OPM has provided only a partial response to a number of those questions. In its partial response, OPM also indicated it expected additional progress by early 2026 in the adoption and usage of its new digital retirement tool, the Online Retirement Application (ORA). In the meantime, we continue to hear from constituents who are experiencing significant delays and communication failures regarding their retirement applications.
We write to follow up on outstanding questions from our initial letter and to request an update on ORA implementation across the federal government.
Outstanding Questions and Status Update Requests:
What guidance has OPM provided to agencies to ensure that retiring employees who lost access to government email and internal systems can continue to communicate with human resources offices using personal contact information?
While information regarding OPM’s Online Retirement Application (ORA) system was provided, no clear answer was given regarding how retirees may directly contact their former employing agency’s HR office when there is a concern regarding the status of their retirement application.
1. Are there mechanisms for retiring employees who lost access to government email and internal systems to directly reach a human being in the human resource office of their former employing agency, yes or no?
2. If yes, what is the guidance or process OPM has provided to agencies regarding this type of outreach?
OPM has heavily advertised its new digital retirement tool, the Online Retirement Application (ORA), and promoted its role in retirement processing reform. Please provide a list of named agencies (with components when applicable) that have wholly adopted and launched ORA for their entire HR teams and workforce. For agencies that remain in interim status, please provide a list of agencies (by component when applicable) and what the adoption status is, and the estimate for full usage. Please also provide what number and percentage of current cases are and are not using ORA, what the reasons are for non-adoption and usage, and what steps remain to be taken by OPM and employing agencies for full implementation.
OPM did not provide the number or percentage of current retirement cases that are not being processed through ORA.
3. Please provide a breakdown of how many federal retirement applications are in progress and not being processed through the ORA system.
4. OPM provided GSA and USPS as agencies in interim ORA adoption status and stated that full implementation of ORA was expected by early 2026. Please provide an update on their implementation status.
5. OPM stated that the remaining agencies not yet fully onboarded to ORA include primarily smaller agencies and congressional offices. Please provide a list of these smaller agencies.
Please list any step and/or discrete action under the end-to-end retirement processing process that is not captured by ORA.
OPM mentioned 3 retirement case types that are not yet fully captured by ORA (i) disability cases; (ii) deferred retirement cases; and (iii) postponed retirement cases – but did not provide which discrete actions related to these case types are not currently integrated with the system.
6. Please provide more information regarding what parts of these cases are not fully integrated with ORA.
7. Please also share what percentage of total existing retirement cases each of these case types comprise.
8. OPM also stated that it anticipated full integration of all case types by the end of Q1 2026. Please provide a status update on integration.
What has been the impact on OPM’s customer service and support for the existing retiree population amidst the growing number of new retirements, and have there been any staffing or work assignment changes within the components that manage this process since December 2024?
OPM noted in its original response that its Contact Center Representative staffing levels had decreased from 150 to 115 between January 2025 and January 2026 due to a combination of normal retirement and new Trump policies like the Deferred Resignation Program, designed to push federal employees out of federal service. However, OPM did not mention any staffing or work assignment changes within the Office of Legislative Affairs, which plays an important role in the retirement process, often helping Members of Congress advocate for retirees when they encounter challenges with application processing.
9. What, if any, staffing level changes have occurred within the Office of Legislative Affairs between December 2024 and the present? Please provide quarterly data on staffing levels from December 2024 to present.
10. Given other staffing changes within OPM over the last year, have any teams within OPM specifically designated to handle retirement cases, including but not limited to the Retirement Services team, received any new responsibilities that previously belonged to other teams, yes or no?
11. If so, what are those responsibilities, and from which teams were they transferred?
A January 30 letter that we received from the Deputy Inspector General of OPM raised concerns associated with staff reductions across the agency resulting from Trump-implemented staffing initiatives such as the Deferred Resignation Program, Reductions in Force, and the termination of probationary staff. The Office of the IG refers directly to its OPM Top Management Challenges for FY 2026 report and states that these staff reduction policies pose a challenge to building and sustaining an optimal workforce to support the agency’s mission.
Specifically, the IG cites data from its November 2025 report indicating the loss of more than 100 staff in the Retirement Services division due to the Deferred Resignation Program. The Office of the IG reiterated concerns that these losses would compound existing delays in retirement processing.
12. Why was this staffing reduction number not included in OPM’s first response?
13. What plans, other than implementation of ORA, does OPM have to address staffing shortages within the Retirement Services division? Even if ORA improves long-term efficiency, how is OPM addressing the existing retirement backlog, including cases resulting from the Trump Administration’s workforce reduction policies, under current staffing levels?
To be clear, we are supportive of efforts to modernize OPM’s retirement application process and hope to see continued progress on the use and implementation of ORA. What we do not support is the use of rhetoric about modernization efforts to obscure the existing backlog of retirement applications for federal employees, many of whom were pushed out by the Trump Administration’s workforce reduction policies.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Congressman James Walkinshaw (D-VA)
Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA)
Congressman Kweisi Mfume (D-MD)
Congressman Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA)
