CAPPS NOTES for Meeting on April 17, 2002
(from New Orleans)

2002 Pay Legislation  -  Cliff Lee

Biweekly and Annual Pay Limitations - The new Biweekly Limitations on Premium Pay will be implemented in pay period 9. Agencies must continue to monitor the Annual Limitations on Pay. The Annual Limitations on Pay will not be addressed by NFC until after the database change. A NFC bulletin will be issued about the changes to the Biweekly Limitations on Premium Pay. OPM has more information on their Web site. Reference: CPM 2002-01, dated 1/28/02

Impact of Financial Allotments Increase on Employee Express - George Morris

A bulletin is being issued concerning these changes, which were implemented in pp 06. We are going from 2 to 16 financial allotments + 4 TSP loan allotments. Employee Express is discussing the need for more ability to allow employees to access the higher number of allotments.

Titles and class changes  - George Morris

OPM is making a lot of changes and plans to accelerate their schedule for deleting series. We have the ability to enter an indicator in PMSO by occupational series and place an end date in tables with a future date to allow us to track changes and assure PMSO changes are made timely.

Benefits Update   - Jody Nyers

Long Term Care - information available at http://www.opm.gov/insure/ltc. Programming is being done for payroll deductions to begin this Fall (PP 20). Providing information to employees on LTC is the responsibility of the Agency Benefits Officer. Open season will run from July 1 - December 31, 2002.

FEHB child equity - deals with Court Ordered FEHB. We are testing in pay period's 8/9 with implementation in pay period 10. A new NOA with authority and remarks has been established. They are 916 BEG and 916 END. A bulletin will be issued with this information.

OCSE  - George Morris

OCSE is developing training for HR/Payroll individuals who handle discreet case. They are also looking for volunteers with experience in this area to work on developing desk guides for HR specialist use. This information and training will be made available to all POIs as well as those individuals who handle indebtedness

Military Leave (Payment of FEHB Premiums)  -  Jo Bonner

As previously discussed, agencies are authorized to pay FEHB premiums for up to 18 months for individuals who have been called up for military duty. Jody and JO are both involved in this particular issue since it affects both benefits and military leave. One question that has come up and has been forwarded to OPM is "Who pays the premium during a pay period in which the reservist receives paid leave?" Currently NFC is set-up to automatically deduct this from the employee's salary for that pay period.

An inventory was taken during the meeting to determine which agencies planned to implement this initiative. USDA, AOC and GAO indicated that they plan to implement. Representatives need to notify either Jody or JO if their agency is going to implement. Once we receive an answer from OPM and determine the size of the population affected, we will be in a better position to determine how it will be handled. In the interim, USDA, AOC, and GAO should not be sending AD-343's to manual pay to stop any bills issued for this purpose. Letters should be sent to Stephen Loeffelholz indicating that the agency is picking up the cost and what accounting should be charged.

User & Work Group Updates

Awards  - Jo Bonner

Dual state taxes for spot awards implemented pay period 6

Will take 2% for each state

EPIC  - Lynda Wilson

Regular meeting two week ago

NFC working on identifying all fields identified to FOCUS

Review reporting needs and furnish requirements of reports for the Reporting Cente

Problems currently being worked are in four areas:

1. user problems (either P/P processing or system use),Database problems, database sweeps two weeks ago so no longer a problem,
2. table issues (table 101 not all system generated fields were identified and currently reviewing the entire table,
3. system problems (identified and currently testing 2.02

FESI  -   Vickie Cline

Meeting scheduled tomorrow 10:00 in NO in conference room 12

Leave Share -  Jo Bonner

1. Will distribute package next month
2. Have worked on package since 2000
3. Will provide Adobe file since package is over 600 pages

RIF  -  Debbie Berry

1. Work group in final stages of reviewing the comments on the requirements package
   
2. Will finish and send to NFC in May

T&A Work Group

• Pay Period 7 will have one NFC timekeeper go live on WEBSTAR
• Since it is a new process we will go very slow
• In Pay Period 8, 5 timekeepers from Treasury and a couple more from NFC will be implemented
• DOJ and USDA-APHIS have both expressed an interest the following pay period.
• Rick Minella will provide more in-depth information during the WebSTAR session later in the conference.

Database Expansion Project Update  - Glenda Dorsey

We have completed the analysis of what we think is needed based on customer surveys and have responded back to all the requests with a status. Some were not database changes so they were not included - the true database changes were included. No functionality changes at this point. We will have same functionality until we make changes beginning sometime around pay period 04 in 2003. NFC will need help verifying test results to assure there is no change in functionality when the changes are made this fall (pay period 20). DOC requested a copy of the items that are changing. Glenda will provide it to CAPPS.

Questions:

What is impact on client software? Will need a new EPIC client - trying to minimize the change in front ends - STAR and SPPS clients will have more changes than any other apps - will be minimal if using web applications.

What is impact on FESI users? FESI will have to work closely with NFC - both T&A and personnel actions will change.

What is impact on FOCUS? FOCUS - will have major effect - see below

Database Expansion Project - Impact on Focus   - Reuben Vaughan

Susan Reggio who works for Ruben was scheduled to make the presentation but was unable to attend. The number of records allowed are at max. NFC has consulted with IBI who has no plan to increase limit so NFC is exploring alternatives which include splitting current PAYPERS into multiples or leaving current definitions in place and putting new records in new place. Majority of the records changing may not impact PAYPERS since most are TSP changes that will not be programmed for a while. Changes in downloads will be kept at minimum - may want to pull together a FOCUS User Group to discuss changes. It has been 8-9 years since some reports were developed and agencies need help changing reports

Potpourri

DOC - On 12/31 there were documents processed through Employee Express that did not apply in IRIS. According to Glenda, Employee Express did not send those transactions over and it was not discovered until mid January. NFC could not overlay the data on the database because of possible intervening changes so they are working on reports to give to agencies on what did not apply. Most have been reentered via EPIC or PACT but many were TSP related and lost earnings are involved. Agencies requested the reports as soon as possible.