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the Office of Personnel Management
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recently announced a major milestone
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with respect to how it processes
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retirement applications for federal
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employees This has the potential to
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really be a boon for federal employees
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in the long term Here are the details If
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any of you have retired from the federal
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government in the last few years you
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probably know how long the process can
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take It can take at a minimum months It
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can even take upwards of a year or more
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Some of the comments we've seen from our
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readers and viewers on YouTube have
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indicated that it has in fact taken over
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a year for their retirement applications
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to be processed by the Office of
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Personnel Management What you may not
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know is that the way the process works
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currently is OPM processes all of its
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retirement applications for new federal
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employees completely by hand using
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paper And it does this using reams of
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paper files stored in a limestone mine
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outside of Berser Pennsylvania This
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facility is known as Iron Mountain and
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it's been in use as a secure records
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1950s The government started using it
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for that purpose during the Cold War um
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because it was considered a secure
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records facility that would be more
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resistant to bomb threats This mine and
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this process that OPM uses
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recently gathered national attention
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because Elon Musk pointed it out He told
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reporters at the time quote "We're told
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the most number of people that could
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retire possibly in a month is 10,000."
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Were like "Well what Why is that?" Well
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because all the retirement paperwork is
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manual on paper It's manually calculated
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and written down on a piece of paper
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Then it goes down to mine and like what
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do you mean a mine The Department of
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Government Efficiency posted about this
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on X and in that posting it said federal
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employee retirements are processed using
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paper by hand in an old limestone mine
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in Pennsylvania 700 plus mine workers
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operate 230 feet underground to process
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approximately 10,000 applications per
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month which are stored in manila
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envelopes and cardboard boxes The
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retirement process takes multiple months
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The Office of Personnel Management is
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well aware of this problem and the
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delays it creates with processing
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federal employees retirement
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applications by hand using paper Past
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efforts to modernize the system as well
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as recent ones have been made in order
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to bring the system into the 21st
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century For example in 2008 OPM tried
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and failed to modernize its retirement
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processing system when it set up the
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retire easy program It was suspended
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after a couple of years and also
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spending millions of taxpayer dollars
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due to problems with the contractor More
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recently in 2023 OPM launched its
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retirement quick guide which is still in
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use and on its website today This helps
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federal employees understand the
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retirement process It provides a current
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estimate of how long the process is
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expected to take from the time you
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submit your paperwork until you start
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getting your full annuity payment And as
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of the time of recording this it's
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currently estimated at 3 to 5 months And
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it also highlights common mistakes and
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how to avoid them such as missing
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signatures on documents And just last
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year in 2024 Federal Dues Network
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reported that OPM announced it was
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developing and testing a new online
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retirement applications processing
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system The tests included a pilot
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program that was running at several
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agencies Guy Cavalo OPM's chief
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information officer told Federal News
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Network that it would take quote many
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years to modernize the retirement
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processing system but that the agency
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was working on it incrementally Now fast
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forward to February 27th OPM announced
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on that date in a video that was posted
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on X that it has achieved a major
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milestone with respect to processing uh
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federal employees retirement
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applications The AY's acting director
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Chuck Ezil said in a video that the
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Trump administration gave the agency a
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challenge It wanted to see if OPM could
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process a retirees application in just
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one week but also do so completely
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digitally The video then goes on to say
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that the OPM retirement services team
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was able to complete this task in just
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two days And as Matt McIaac the deputy
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associate director for retirement
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operations at OPM said in the video
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quote "We've proved that it's possible
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and now we are going to figure it out
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and we're going to get this done for
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everybody else too." Also even more
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recently just a few days ago Airbnb
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co-founder Joe Gabilla told Fox News
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that he wants to create a quote like
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store experience for OPM's current
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antiquated retirement processing system
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What he told Fox News was quote "This
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will be an online digital process that
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will take just a few days at most It's
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an injustice to civil servants who are
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subjected to these processes So what
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does this mean for you federal
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employees Well the important point with
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all of these recent events is that OPM
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and the Trump administration are
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obviously focused on this and they're
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aware of the problem The agency is
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clearly working towards finding a
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solution for it It's done that in the
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past but they did have a successful test
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recently according to the video they
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posted on X So that's some good news If
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the modernization efforts are successful
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ultimately this is good news for you for
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federal employees To go from a
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paperbased system that at best takes
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months to a digital system that takes
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just a few days would be a huge help to
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retirees And that's because of interim
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payments When you first retire from the
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federal government you submit your
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retirement application you get what are
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known as interim payments and those
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payments represent a portion of your
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full annuity payment So what that means
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is that new federal retirees are left
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without their full retirement income
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until the Office of Personnel Management
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finishes processing um your retirement
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application So obviously it would be
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better for this part of the process to
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be only a few days rather than months or
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even upwards of a year It means you'll
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get your full retirement income that
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you've been budgeting for and are
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expecting much more quickly This is an
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interesting and I think pretty exciting
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milestone that OPM has announced with
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respect to modernizing its retirement
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applications processing system It'll be
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interesting to see where it goes from
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here and if the agency's ultimately
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successful It'll be good news if they
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are for the federal workforce because it
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means that when federal employees retire
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from federal service they'll get their
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full annuity payments much more quickly
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The agency's obviously been focused on
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it in the last few years especially
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since they've made strides along the way
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that have apparently ultimately
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culminated in this announcement they
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they made in February I hope you found
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this video helpful Please remember to
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like and subscribe to our channel to get
8:07
all of our latest updates Thank you for
8:09
watching and have a good day
