The Office of Personnel Management should work with agency HR chiefs to help promote and establish phased retirement programs, according to a letter from a federal group.
Richard Thissen, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, wrote in a May 28 letter to OPM Director Katherine Archuleta that years after phased retirement was passed into law, federal employees are still left in limbo.
"After the law passed, and to this day, NARFE members continue to contact our offices, wondering when phased retirement will be available at their agency. Many said they were delaying retirement decisions until their employing agency provided more information on phased retirement options," Thissen wrote.
Phased retirement would allow eligible employees to work half-time while receiving half a pension. OPM said agencies could start accepting applicants as soon as Nov. 6, 2014 if they finalized their programs. But so far federal employees have been kept waiting as agencies take months to conduct reviews of the OPM regulations. Congress passed the authorizing legislation in 2012.
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The OPM regulation does not make it mandatory for agencies to implement phased retirement programs.
Thissen said Archuleta was in a unique position as chairwoman of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council and OPM director to encourage agencies to use phased retirement and to track which agencies were implementing phased retirement programs.
"As we near the three-year anniversary of the law's passage, I am respectfully requesting that you work with the members of the CHCO Council to ascertain when their agencies will be implementing phased retirement, and report this information publicly," Thissen said.
