Terry Gerton Federal workers are keeping an eye on a number of issues, starting with retirement. People always want a benchmark: How is OPM performing on retirement processing lately?

John Hatton The agency has made strong progress in speeding up retirement claims. Average processing time has fallen from 109 days in July to 66 days in September, and the target is around 60 days. The backlog, which peaked at about 65,000 cases in February, is now below 10,000, at roughly 8,800. That suggests OPM is moving in the right direction. It has been dealing with a surge of retirement applications tied to the Deferred Resignation Program and reductions in force carried out by the administration in 2025, so the workload has been much heavier than usual. OPM also moved to an online, digital retirement application and processing system, which has helped. Some staff also left through the deferred resignation program, which reduced capacity. The biggest delays were not always at OPM itself, but often at agencies and payroll processors. Even so, it is encouraging that the department has treated the issue seriously and is pushing cases through as quickly as possible. Many retirees have still faced long waits, but given the number of claims coming in, the progress so far is a positive sign.

Terry Gerton It sounds like these new processes could provide a strong foundation going forward and help keep the system manageable.

John Hatton That is the hope. Digital case handling is moving faster than paper-based processing, so the numbers show meaningful improvement. Whether there are more efficiency gains ahead remains to be seen, but the trend is encouraging for the future. Ideally, more retirees will begin receiving full annuities sooner, and those whose paperwork has moved from agencies and payroll processors to OPM will also get their back pay. It is good to see the process moving more quickly.

Terry Gerton That is good news. Another issue that has drawn attention is the difference in cost-of-living adjustments between the FERS and CSRS systems. FERS retirees get smaller COLAs than CSRS retirees. Why has this become such an important issue for NARFE?

John Hatton Inflation has been elevated and remains a concern. A cost-of-living adjustment is supposed to keep an annuity from losing value as prices rise. The reduced COLA under FERS was part of the compromise when that system was created in the 1980s, but not having a full adjustment weakens the value of the annuity over time. In a period of high inflation, the loss builds year after year. In any single year the difference may seem small, at most about 1%, and in some years it is even less. But over a retirement, that 1% or 0.5% — last year it was 0.6% — can add up to tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars depending on the size of the annuity and how long someone is retired.

Terry Gerton Is that the thinking behind the Equal COLA Act?

John Hatton Yes. The goal is to make sure the cost-of-living adjustment actually does what it is supposed to do: preserve the value of the annuity. The Equal COLA Act was originally introduced by Congressman Connolly, and his successor, Congressman Wilkinshaw, has carried it forward, along with Senator Padilla in the Senate. Support has been growing from one Congress to the next. The effort now is to keep building that support so leaders and committees in both chambers feel enough pressure to advance the bill. We hope allies in Congress can continue to broaden backing and help ensure COLAs maintain their intended value.

Terry Gerton John Hatton is staff vice president at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, NARFE. Another issue federal employees are facing is a new OPM rule that removes the long-standing time-in-grade requirement for promotions. It has drawn some attention. What do you see as the main issue?

John Hatton The idea appears to be removing what is viewed as a barrier to rewarding strong performers. Instead of requiring someone to stay in a job for a fixed period, the rule would allow managers to promote an employee if a vacancy opens and that employee has been doing excellent work, even if they have been in the role for less than 52 weeks.

Terry Gerton What concerns come with that?

John Hatton Some commenters worried it could be used to promote people based on favoritism or political loyalty. That concern is real and should be weighed against the need for performance management and managerial flexibility. We understand that tension. Our focus has been on ensuring that employees cannot be fired without merit-based review, that hiring remains competitive, and that whistleblower protections stay in place. We have been disappointed by policies that weaken a number of those merit protections. Compared with those changes, this one seems much smaller and more in line with a reasonable balance in performance management. The broader worry is political favoritism — decisions driven by politics rather than objective criteria, including how money is distributed or whether certain localities or groups are favored. That is a more serious problem. This rule, in my view, does not rise to that level the way some other policies do.

Terry Gerton Federal civilian personnel policy has a lot of moving parts right now. Are there guardrails you would want to see, or that employees might want to see, to keep this change as modest as you describe?

John Hatton On this specific issue, we do not have major objections to eliminating the requirement. The guardrails we would most want are against creating new excepted service schedules, such as Schedule Policy/Career or Schedule G, that would weaken competitive hiring. We would also want to avoid non-disclosure requirements tied to suitability determinations and repeal efforts affecting the MSPB and OPM. Those are the larger concerns for us, not this particular change.

Terry Gerton As you lay out those concerns, Congress is heading into a lame-duck session after the election, and there are many civilian personnel issues lawmakers could take up. What is at the top of NARFE’s priority list when Congress returns?

John Hatton The immediate priority is funding the government and avoiding a shutdown. The best outcome would be either a deal or at least a continuing resolution that carries funding into the new year. Since the September 30 funding deadline has already passed, the hope is that lawmakers can finish the job before the end of the calendar year rather than push it into the next one. We would still prefer a continuing resolution over a shutdown. Another major issue is a possible pay raise for federal employees, which may or may not be included in the appropriations bill. The president’s alternative pay plan calls for a freeze for nearly all federal workers except law enforcement. We would like Congress to step in and authorize a raise through the appropriations process, as has happened before. In 2019, a pay increase was approved afterward and applied retroactively. That remains on the table, and the Federal Workforce Caucus and other members are pushing for it. Appropriators will have to decide how far they want to go and what the final outcome will be.

Terry Gerton Are you concerned that election-related turnover could disrupt continuity on these issues?

John Hatton I think there will still be enough lawmakers in place to carry these issues forward in the next Congress. Every election changes the political environment and who is setting the agenda, so we do some planning, but we wait for the results before locking in priorities. Those results will shape what can move through the House and the Senate. The Senate tends to be more bipartisan because of the filibuster, while the House could see real changes in which bills advance out of committee and onto the floor depending on the outcome.