OPM Retirement Modernization: Longstanding Information Technology Management Weaknesses Need to Be Addressed

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is the central human resources agency for the federal government and, as such, is tasked with ensuring the government has an effective civilian workforce. As part of its mission, OPM defines recruiting and hiring processes and procedures; provides federal employees with various benefits, such as health benefits; and administers the retirement program for federal employees. The use of information technology (IT) is crucial in helping OPM to carry out its responsibilities, and in fiscal year 2011 the agency invested $79 million in IT systems and services. For over 2 decades, OPM has been attempting to modernize its federal employee retirement process by automating paper-based processes and replacing antiquated information systems. However, these efforts have been unsuccessful, and OPM canceled its most recent retirement modernization effort in February 2011. GAO was asked to provide a statement summarizing its work on challenges OPM has faced in managing its efforts to modernize federal employee retirement processing. To do this, GAO relied on previously published work as well as a limited review of more recent documentation on OPM's retirement modernization activities.