Watchdog officials questioned Nov. 15 the Office of Personnel Management's ability to manage complex information technology projects, citing two-decades' worth of failed efforts to modernize civil servant retirement processing.

During a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on federal workforce, U.S. postal service and labor policy, OPM Director John Berry estimated that unsuccessful retirement system modernizations have consumed $100 million during the past 20 years.

As part of the last attempt--called RetirEZ, which OPM terminated in February 2011--OPM let retirement staff go in anticipation of the reduced workload that a successful implementation would have brought, Berry said.  

Since then, "we have had to make do with fewer staff and reduced budgets," Berry said. Retirement processing remains paper-bound and manual; non-disability processing time averages 133 days, Berry said.  

The agency has created a new proof of concept system that would allow human resources professional and retirees to submit data electronically, Berry added, also stating that he's redirected resources internally toward retirement processing and hired additional personnel.

However, OPM's problems with information technology have been systematic, warned some officials during a second panel of the hearing for which Berry not present.

OPM "sometimes lacks the needed, dedicated expertise to expertly oversee the development of agency IT projects," said Patrick McFarland, the OPM inspector general.

Echoing the IG, Government Accountability Office Director of Information Management and Technology Resources Issue Valerie Melvin said that a big concern "has been that OPM lacks an overall management structure--IT management capability, in terms of the fundamental tools and mechanisms for really planning and managing."

OPM in October went through a difficult re-launch of its job applications portal, USAJobs, with the new system being prone to crashes in the days following its Oct. 11 launch. USAJobs has since stabilized, Berry told the committee, with help desk requests dwindling to a likely state of steady normalcy.

For more:
- go to the hearing webpage (prepared testimonies and links to YouTube webcast available)

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