Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a letter Monday demanded answers from Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor regarding delays with federal employee retirement application processing.
This was a follow-up letter to one sent in December from the four lawmakers led by Congressman James Walkinshaw (D-VA).
According to a press release from Walkinshaw’s office, “thousands of federal employees who have spent careers in public service are now waiting in administrative limbo, unable to reach their former agency’s HR offices, uncertain about their benefits, and trapped in a processing backlog. For many, the wait continues with no clear answers in sight.”
In Monday’s letter, the lawmakers warned that the retirement processing delays are due to the Trump administration’s the deferred resignation program (DRP) and other workforce reductions, and that OPM’s response to their inquiry in December was only to “tout new technology rather than come clean about the depth of the crisis.”
“To date, OPM has provided only a partial response to a number of those questions,” the House members wrote. “In the meantime, we continue to hear from constituents who are experiencing significant delays and communication failures regarding their retirement applications.”
Kupor recently cited that 317,000 federal employees left the government in 2025. OPM recently implemented a digital retirement application system. While processing digital claims is faster, many paper claims are still coming in from federal agencies as the government transitions to the digital system (the online retirement application or ORA).
“While information regarding OPM’s 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,” the letter states. “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.”
While the Office of Personnel Management’s retirement application backlog declined by approximately 10% last month, there are still more than 55,600 unprocessed claims in its backlog.
The full text of the letter to OPM is available here and below.
The Honorable Scott Kupor
Director The Office of Personnel Management1900 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,
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