Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Office of Personnel Management recently announced the agency has won a streamlined A-76 competition of case processing services associated with the Federal Erroneous Retirement Coverage Correction Act (FERCCA).

FERCCA, which was passed into law in 2000, provides relief to federal civilian employees who were placed in the wrong retirement system by allowing them to choose between the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) and the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS).

The competition was conducted to determine whether OPM employees or private sector employees could do the work of processing FERCCA cases more efficiently and effectively. OPM employees were determined able to perform these services for approximately $500,000 to $600,000 less per year than a private sector contractor over the performance period of up to 3 years. With OPM's Division for Human Resources Products and Services (HRPS) doing the work internally, there will be a total cost savings of approximately 1.7 million over a three-year performance period over the private sector.

OPM Director Linda M. Springer said, "Utilizing in-house resources and expertise will bring greater efficiency and effectiveness in processing the claims and facilitating the transfers of current federal employees and annuitants. OPM can correct a situation that created uncertainty for thousands of federal employees," Springer added, "Retirement system modernization will help us to avoid these errors in the future. Once FERCCA is completed and a new technology is implemented, we should no longer have employees with incorrect retirement coverage in the future."

FERCCA was enacted to give employees and annuitants placed in the wrong retirement system an opportunity to choose between the FERS and the offset provisions of CSRS. The Act will allow OPM to remedy these errors and ensure that employees who were placed in the wrong system for three years or more will not be harmed.

Our mission is to ensure the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce. OPM supports U.S. agencies with personnel services and policy leadership including staffing tools, guidance on labor-management relations and programs to improve work force performance.