Divorced former federal employees getting annuity supplements received a surprise in their financial statements in 2016, as the Office of Personnel management retroactively changed their policy on whether a portion of those annuity supplements is due to a retired employee\u2019s ex-spouse, according to a Feb. 5, 2018, Inspector General report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRetirees and the former spouses learned of OPM\u2019s decision only when their annuity amounts changed \u2014 many years after the parties had divorced, after a state court had ordered a former spouse\u2019s marital share, and after OPM had accepted the state court order for processing,\u201d the report said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn addition, OPM applied this new interpretation retroactively to the date when the retiree started receiving an annuity supplement, resulting in a debt due from the retiree to the former spouse. OPM\u2019s new policy has been causing immediate financial disruption to annuitants. Moreover, OPM\u2019s new policy improperly changes previously litigated final state court orders without notice to annuitants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Annuity supplements are paid in addition to basic annuity to certain federal retirees who retire before they are eligible for Social Security. For example, law enforcement officers, whose mandatory retirement age is 57, would be forced to deal with a lapse in retirement coverage without annuity supplements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previously, the OPM policy was to treat annuity supplements like Social Security, making them not allocable between former spouses unless otherwise outlined in divorce settlements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The OPM Office of Inspector General became aware of the issue after it was copied on a Sept. 16, 2016, email sent by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association to then-Acting Director Beth Cobert. The email raised concerns over OPM\u2019s rule change without public notice, and the OIG then determined that the issue warranted examination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe recent report released by OPM\u2019s Inspector General should be alarming to any federal employee,\u201d said FLEOA National President Nathan R. Catura, author of FLEOA\u2019s original letter of concern to OPM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe report confirms that the Office of Personnel Management has, in effect, quietly inserted itself into federal retirees\u2019 private divorce proceedings. OPM has decided, as if by fiat, and without any judicial or congressional input, that divorced federal retirees must part with a larger portion of their hard-earned retirement funds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Catura, FLEOA only became aware of the change after its members received letters from OPM declaring that these retirees had been \u201coverpaid\u201d and now owed the government thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OPM asserted that the change was made due to legal requirements, though the OIG concluded that \u201clanguage of the statute simply does not mandate the conclusion that the Basic Annuity and the Annuity Supplement should be deemed to be one and the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The OIG also found that OPM does not have the authority to resolve ambiguities in court documents, meaning that if a court order of a divorce does not address annuity supplements, OPM\u2019s responsibility is to return the order to the court to resolve the ambiguity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barring this lack of authority, OPM is still required to issue public comment and notice of such a change, and cannot make the new interpretation retroactive, according to the OIG.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The OIG recommended that OPM cease implementing the changed policy, reverse decreased annuities that were part of the new policy and examine whether it has a legal requirement to make updated guidance available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OPM disagreed with all three recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn effect, there are federal retirees who woke up one morning to find that their well-established divorce settlements had been changed, not by the previous spouse or a judge, but by the United States Office of Personnel Management,\u201d said Catura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWorse still, when the impact of OPM\u2019s decision was confirmed by the agency\u2019s Inspector General, who issued numerous recommendations to resolve the problem, OPM rejected every recommendation and asked the IG\u2019s office not to make the report public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OPM also attempted to prevent the publication of the OIG report on the basis that it represented a legal argument that could be used by annuitants in appeals over the agency\u2019s decisions. OIG declined the OPM request as it would go against the purpose of the IG outlined in the Inspector General Act of 1978.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Office of Personnel Management policy, not released to the public, requires divorced retirees receiving annuity supplements to pay the government back for portions of past annuity payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":30527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":69,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,109,31,15,33,9,69],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2853],"class_list":["post-11211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-federal-retiremen-academy","category-home","category-management","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight","category-pay-benefits"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"R7Z5OPJLQJEWHACHFOZEX2HVJY","arc_canonical_url":"\/management\/pay-benefits\/2018\/02\/09\/opm-retroactively-changed-retirement-benefits-without-notice\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n