Summary: The processing function for civil service retirement and refund claims includes employing-agency processing of individual retirement records and adjudication of claims by the Civil Service Commission's (CSC) Bureau of Retirement, Insurance, and Occupational Health. An estimated 160,000 retirement and survivor annuitant claims and 132,000 refund claims were processed in fiscal year 1977.
Employing agencies have not met established standards in submitting individual retirement records to the Bureau. Delays occur because of poor coordination, low priority assignment, erroneous data, and personnel shortages. The Bureau has not been effective in speeding up the process or in assisting agencies in identifying causes of delays and following up on corrective actions. It does not have established claims processing standards and, after receiving retirement records from agencies, does not process claims promptly. Financial hardship to retiring employees and survivor claimants has resulted from delays and the fact that survivor claimants did not receive special payments while claims were being processed. Also, the Bureau has not carried out the CSC policy of requiring complete and timely replies to correspondence. CSC recently instituted several new policies and procedures which should speed up payments, but additional steps are needed.
