Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization of 2011 - Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, first of all, let me thank the chairman and Senator Collins for their work on this bill. I know it has caused a great deal of interest and consternation, but the numbers are overwhelming that without this kind of legislation, the fate of our Postal Service would be in great jeopardy. I commend both the chairman and ranking member for their very good work. I intend to support the legislation. I know they have had to make some hard choices, but I think they are putting the Postal Service back on the path to sustainability, and I commend their leadership.
I also thank them both for an amendment they have been kind enough to include in, I believe, a revised bill, a managers' package, that takes on a related issue that affects not only Postal Service employees but all Federal employees; that is, the absolutely dreadful performance--which is starting to be corrected, but the absolutely dreadful performance that OPM and agencies of the government, including the Postal Service, have done in terms of making sure our Federal employees receive their retirement benefits in a timely manner.
The Presiding Officer and I, both from the Commonwealth of Virginia, have 130,000 Federal employees in Virginia. There are 140,000 Federal employees across the river in Maryland. I am happy Senator Mikulski has cosponsored the amendment I am going to talk about in a few moments.
I want to explain the problem we are facing and why I am asking the Senate to adopt this amendment during the consideration of this bill to reform the postal system.
Over the past year, I and other Members in both parties have received hundreds of requests for assistance from Federal retirees who have experienced significant delays in obtaining their full retirement benefits--delays that oftentimes exceed 12 months, sometimes as much as 18 months and more. In the meantime, these Federal retirees--and no one questions that they deserve and should receive these benefits, but since there is slow processing and antiquated technology, they are not getting these earned retirement benefits. These retirees face inordinate hardships trying to pay their bills and survive on partial payments made while their retirement paperwork moves through the system.
Remarkably, in 2012, our whole retirement system is still a paper-based system. OPM also relies upon every other Federal agency, such as the post office and others where a Federal employee works, to assemble and submit the retiree's paperwork in a timely and efficient manner. But as we have seen with the occasional snapshots that have been taken, some agencies literally have a 30- to 50-percent error rate in submitting the background material for the retiree so OPM can appropriately process the paperwork.
Part of the goal of this postal reform, I know, is going to be to encourage some of the voluntary retirements in the postal system--again why this amendment is so timely. Meanwhile, the retirees wait and wait for benefits; benefits they have earned, and, unfortunately, benefits they cannot get access to. We continue to hear from recent Federal retirees who literally spend 8 or 10 hours a day trying to get through on the customer service line to find out where their benefits are.
I would like to share a few examples of what we are hearing. We recently heard from a retired colonel from Williamsburg, VA, who wrote, ``I retired in March 2011 and at the time of this writing OPM has still not figured out my full retirement pay ..... my savings are getting low.''
From here in Northern Virginia, in Dumfries, VA, we heard from a retiree who said:
I have been subjected to a severe financial hardship because of not getting my full benefits. I was recently told that the bank is repossessing my auto because I cannot afford to make the payments.
He cannot make the payments because this retiree was not getting her benefits. She was existing on partial benefits until OPM could deal with the processing.
From Warrenton:
I am seeking assistance with obtaining my husband's health insurance which was canceled unexpectedly. He worked for DOD. I notified OPM with the appropriate forms and a copy of his death certificate, all of which was apparently lost by OPM. I tried to obtain new forms but was told it would take up to 6 weeks. I am 80 years old and need my health insurance now. My husband and I were married for 60 years.
This is unacceptable. This is not the way we ought to be running this important part of our Federal Government. In January of 2012, OPM's retirement backlog exceeded 62,000 cases--62,000 Federal employees, retirees--who were waiting to get their benefits. Again, let me point out, many of these retirees were waiting for more than 1 year.
We saw huge backlogs in disability claims, death benefits, and quarterly benefits. By OPM's own account, it takes almost 700 days, nearly 2 years, to process some death benefits. Recently, after my meetings with OPM and other members of the delegation, OPM has made some limited progress in reversing the tide of retirement claims. The retirement backlog is now 52,000 claims. OPM has hired new staff and is starting to modernize its outdated processing, but it is clear more needs to be done.
I wish to also compliment Senator Akaka, who was kind enough to let me join an oversight hearing on this matter back in February of this year. What I heard there worried me. So I sent my staff to OPM's retirement processing facility last month to see the problem up close. Unfortunately, my staff's reports confirmed my worst fears. The current process is largely manual, cumbersome, and contributes to significant delays and potential errors. We have been told the newest OPM technology is 12 years old. That is pretty remarkable. It is simply no longer feasible to expect that manual data entry for retirement and benefits claims make sense when we have technology that can dramatically lower processing time and increase accuracy.
OPM needs to modernize its technology in the long run. But in 2012, they need to at least start taking some short-term steps. It is unacceptable that they rely upon paper processing in 2012. OPM, as I mentioned, has made some progress. But ultimately they still want to remain committed to a paper processing system. That does not make any sense. The kicker is this problem is not new. As indicated by this press story, Federal agencies routinely point the finger of blame at OPM for causing these delays, while OPM points the finger back at the individual agencies for not getting the information to OPM in a timely manner.
One might think this story was written in the last few weeks. There have actually been stories written in the Post in the last few weeks about this subject. But the day I am quoting from on this story is actually May 9, 1988. That is 24 years ago. Ronald Reagan was President when this was written, and we have had four Presidents since then. Yet OPM continues to offer the same excuses and the same kind of back-and-forth finger-pointing between agencies. We have seen this show before. It needs to be taken off the air.
What are we going to do with this amendment and how does this affect trying to move the ball forward? My amendment will do three things. First, it requires OPM to report to Congress, GAO, and the public about the timeliness and accuracy of Postal Service claims, requiring OPM to compare the Postal Service with the performance of all other Federal agencies. So we need to figure out, because we do not know at this point--we have a 52,000-claim backlog--whether the backlog is because the agency the employee worked for did not get the information to OPM in a timely manner or whether OPM has not processed this.
This amendment will require the Postal Service to assess how it is doing, getting this information to OPM, and compare that with the performance of other Federal agencies. This will allow us to see which Federal agencies have the best and worst track records in submitting paperwork to OPM. The snapshot we saw a little bit earlier this year at the hearing in February showed that a number of agencies had literally a 30- to 50-percent error rate in submitting their retirement paperwork to OPM.
With close to 100,000 potential new retirees--actually a much larger number, but the effect of this bill may urge the voluntary retirement of 100,000 postal workers to retirement--OPM is going to get hit by a tsunami.
Second, the report will also require OPM to provide a claims aging report. We need to know how long retirement applications have been pending at OPM. By the way, we do not have any of that information right now for the 52,000 cases that are currently pending--no basic aging report.
Third, the amendment will require OPM to at least move forward a little bit in modernizing one piece of their technology, so OPM can at least receive some electronic payroll data from the Postal Service system.
Now, 551,000 people work for the Postal Service right now. If this legislation passes, which I hope it will, and we see the voluntary retirement of 100,000 postal workers over the coming months and years, that is a new tsunami of retirement benefits claims that are going to need to be processed by OPM.
The bottom line is this: OPM, while they are trying to make some progress and I commend Director Berry for some of the actions he has taken, needs to be urged along and we need to get more data about how they do, not only with the Postal Service but with all Federal agencies. My amendment will move forward in that direction.
The Warner-Mikulski amendment focuses on these key reporting requirements and mandates more transparency so we can untangle the chokepoints. I believe we need to honor the dedication and commitment of our Federal workforce, including our postal workers, in making sure that when they do retire, they get their Federal retiree benefits in a timely and efficient manner. Again, I wish to thank the chair and the ranking member for their hard work on this postal reform bill. I look forward to supporting it. I also hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this Warner-Mikulski
amendment that while tangential to the overall reform of the Postal Service, making sure these retirees get their benefits in a timely manner is something on which we should all agree.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. WARNER. I want to thank the chair and the ranking member for working with me on this amendment to get it appropriately modified. This an area that I think there is broad bipartisan consensus, that we need to make sure--whether postal workers or other workers in the Federal system--that when they choose to retire, they can expect those retirement benefits in a timely manner.
I wish to again commend the chair and the ranking member for the fact that putting in place this very reasonable plan that is going to encourage the voluntary retirements of that approximate 18 percent of the workforce--109,000 I believe it amounts to--is going to be a lot easier to make that sell if those postal workers can then expect to receive their retirement benefits in a timely manner. I think if they are hearing the current scuttlebutt that they may have to wait 12 to 18 months to get their retirement benefits, it becomes a much harder effort for the Postmaster and the management of the Postal System to make--even if they got the right incentives in place--to kind of get over that hump if they have to wait a long time.
So I very much thank again the chair and ranking member, Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins, for their support, and I think trying to shine a light, not only on the Postal System but vis-a-vis how other Federal agencies are doing will be important. I look forward to working with them. I know they both focused on this issue in the past. I hope to lend my assistance to make sure we get this fixed.
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