CAPPS NOTES - May 15, 2002

I. Welcome                                                                                       Cliff Lee

Reminded everyone of congregation point if have an alarm.. Meet in front of the American History Museum for roll call and then proceed to the Museum Ice Cream Parlor.

II. Pay                                                                                               Cliff Lee

A. 2002 Pay Legislation

• PP-09 implementation of the Biweekly Limitations on Premium Pay (Reference: CPM 2002-01 dated 01-28-02) Changes effective PP09, May 9, 2002 (GS-15/10 Locality Rates > EX-V rate in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Hartford, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco)
  
  
• Regulation has changed significantly - higher of the GS-15/10 rate or EX-V rate.
  
  
• LEOs and regular employees are covered under the same legislation.
  
  
• More flexibility to agencies to waive biweekly limitations.
  
  
• When waiving the biweekly limitation, employees are still subject to the annual limitation which must be monitored manually since the system is not programmed to do so. New data elements will be added in October 2002 for cumulative limitations, but the programming needs to be prioritized.
  
  
• Availability Pay, AUO, standby, and firefighter pay are still subject to the biweekly limitation - cannot waive this under any circumstances. There will be an edit to preclude the override of the biweekly limitation for LEO's and other employees whose adjusted biweekly pay is at the biweekly cap (GS-15/10 or EX-V); in these cases the biweekly cap is generally the annual cap as well.

B. Annual Pay Limitations

• Pay Administration Work Group - call to arms! Need pay and compensation people with pay administration expertise to participate in work group - forest service, border people, leo's, special agents. Some agencies have overtime outside title 5 that needs to be addressed. Need names by June 19th - next CAPPS meeting - so we can kickoff in July. Will conference in agency contacts and NFC representatives. Everyone who has special requirements needs to be represented - some agencies have different caps, special overtime subject to the caps, etc. Please provide name, telephone, email, et al to Cliff by June 19th.
  
  
• Interim monitoring by agencies - some agencies have focus reports which we will share and then will address system needs in the work group.

III. Benefits                                                                                    Jody Nyers

A. Long-Term Care Insurance

• Information regarding the cost for LTCI is available at OPM's LTCI website - http://www.opm.gov/insure/ltc/index.htm.
  
  
• Table 001 updates needed for POI- needed for payroll deduction in the fall - seems to contain a lot of POIs that don't have end dates. NFC South running Focus reports or you can run your own. Must update table by May 31st. Q: Why do we need this data? A: It is part of the information needed for the transaction interface between LTC Partners and the NFC.
  
  
• Treasury presented HCUP question about printing SF-50s if table has end date - this will not be a problem as long as the POI on the table is not deleted, it needs to have an END DATE which will then make it a history record. Agencies need to assure OPM is properly notified as well. Call 703-908-8764, Steve Goldstein at OPM to report your changes.
  
  
• Satellite Broadcast on May 15th at Jefferson Auditorium at 12:30pm-2nd in series of 3 and all CAPPS reps are invited to attend. FYI: Today is end of early enrollment.
  
  
• Three options - direct billing, automated debit, payroll deduction.
  
  
• Legislation is pending that may make LTCI pre-tax like they did with FEHB.

B. FEHB Child Equity Act (Court Ordered FEHB Coverage)

• New NOAC 916 with authorities BEG and END.
  
  
• New remarks - FE1 and FE2.
  
  
• Testing/Implementation - going fairly well - Implementation pp 10; testing will continue May 16th and into next week - if don't implement in 10 have to wait until pp 24 because of data base expansion.
  
  
• Table changed for FEHB coverage codes 6, 7, 8 and nine employees now have that as a code but no programming has been done. For these employees incorrectly coded, agencies will need to switch it back and then do a 916 BEG to start it correctly - should have edit that says can use the code unless process a 916 BEG
  
  
• Employee Express Impact - hoping to send them an C but EEX can't handle until fall so will send them an N in the interim.
  
  
• A bulletin will be coming out in a few weeks and is extensive.

C. TSP Open Season Dates

• TSP bulletin 02-12 - after the close of the May 15 through July 31, 2002 open season, the dates of the TSP open seasons will change to 10/15 - 12/31 and 4/15 - 6/30; the corresponding election periods will then be the months of December and June. During the 10/15 - 12/31/2002 open season employees will have the option of increasing percentage of contribution to 8% (CSRS) and 13% (FERS). The increases in the TSP contributions may become effective 12/01, 12/15, 12/29 or 01/12.

D. NAFI Retirement

• NAFI (non-appropriated fund instrumentalities) retirement applies to employees who are covered by retirement from the Armed Forces (eg., Army, Air Force, etc.). Currently we have 5 employees in the system with NAFI retirement; these people need to pay their annuity to the portability offices and not to OPM. USDA has 1, FCC has 1, NLRB has 1, and Treasury has 2. These are currently handled manually and programmers are working this summer to get programming done, testing, etc. for automated process. No date as yet when this will be implemented. The manual process must be done every pay period - not working for cv05 but is for cv06 and cv07.
  
  
• OPM will not issue another retirement coverage code at this time; therefore, code 4 is none and 5 is other is what we're using. Code 5 is the better choice because it deducts FICA. If you have an employee that should be paying into NAFI retirement, please contact Jody so she can help get it set up correctly in the system.
  
  
• NFC Directives Branch is currently drafting a bulletin or procedure update for the Non-automated Processing chapter of the Payroll/Personnel Manual.

E. Office of Child Support Enforcement - George Morris

• Info about state contact offices and central processing units that have been set up - OCSE is pushing to use EFT for payments to a central location rather than paper checks to a single entity. Main problem is court order indicating send payment to a particular person and this would not be the case if sent to a central organization for the state. In essence, ignoring a court order.

IV. Employee Express Update                                                  George Morris

The meeting is not until next week - will bring up code "C" issue on FEHB Child Equity as well as number of allotments increasing from 2 to 16.

Q: Can employees increase allotments via EEX? A: Not at this time. EEX still looking at how many their system can accept. OPM is checking with client base to determine what EEX should accommodate.

Continue to get questions about bonds - EEX cannot differentiate between bonds when an employee has more than 1 so multiple bonds are handled by the HR offices. What does employee see if have more than two allotments - George will ask NFC what they send to the EEX.

V. New EPIC Version                                                                Lynda Wilson

EPIC Version 2.02 is now available for downloading from the NFC Download Center. This version will be implemented at the beginning of processing pay period 11.

EPIC will be unavailable beginning at 1:00 p.m. (central time) on Friday, June 7 when NFC will begin the process to move the new version to production. It is anticipated that the server version will be loaded by Saturday, June 8. The client version must be loaded on the LAN or PC by June 10 or June 8 if you plan to work the weekend.

Please notify the appropriate individuals in your agency to have the new software downloaded and installed timely. Once we switch to the new server version, EPIC will not be functional without the new client version on your end. Give me a call on 202-720-2199 if you have any questions.

VI. Tax Changes                                                                               Cliff Lee

A. PP-08 implemented new rates for Hawaii, New Mexico, & Oregon

B. PP-09 implemented new rates for Arizona, North Dakota, & Kenton County, KY

States were not happy about getting less money from taxes so many are changing their formulas.

Arizona sweeps of tax documents included CV05 - 1972, CV06 - 4464, and CV07 - 1277. NFC will not be providing a list of changes. A tax bulletin will be issued. Employees can change their withholding status be submitting a new state tax document.

County Tax in Kenton County, KY - Affected individuals are CV05 (USDA) - 10, CV06 - 44, CV07 - 5800 (in the IRS service center). Kenton County changed changed their tax formula. It is an occupational license fee with the maximum set at $243.14. Reports indicating employees that have exceeded the maximum were distributed to the agencies at the meeting. (1 page for USDA, 4 pages for DOJ, and 85 pages for Treasury). Employees can file with the County for a refund or the agency can submit an AD-343 to have the overage refunded.

VII. User & Work Group Updates

A. Awards  - Jo Bonner

Maximum # of Time Off awards - When the Time Off Award authority was initially granted, there was a one year expiration date established. OPM has since lifted that limitation even though most agencies have retained the one year expiration. Agencies that have requested that NFC extend the expiration period or remove it altogether need to be aware that the database can only hold 27 Time Off awards at any one time. We do not anticipate that this will be a problem, but we wanted to make sure that we informed the agencies. Agencies may want to make sure that they alert employees to the fact that there is no incentive to stockpile a Time Off award. Time Off awards cannot be liquidated via a cash payout if the employee leaves the agency. Tom Neumeister reported that they had already noticed that Smithsonian's were not dropping off after one year. Jo indicated that this is probably because someone has requested that the one year limit be extended and/or lifted. Other reps indicated that they did not know what their agencies may have requested and wanted to know what their limits were in the system. Jo has not asked for such a list, but will do so. FYI - Time Off Award hours that have been forfeited cannot be added back via TINQ. The only TINQ activity permitted on a Time Off Awards is to adjust the number of hours used. UPDATE SINCE CAPPS MEETING - Becky checked the programs and MSPB (BD-50) has changed the forfeiture from 1 year to 2 years. GAO (LG-97), NLRB (NL-NL), and Smithsonian (SM 70 & 71) have lifted the forfeiture edit and now have no time limit for usage of their Time Off awards. For everyone else, the edit remains in place for forfeiture after 1 year.

Other award issues: No update on the implementation of the 848 (Referral Bonus), but we are pushing to have it done before the cut-off for the database modernization. An SPR has been sent regarding the problem with first year savings field.

Next meeting is June 12, 9-12. The workgroup meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month. Please contact Jo if you have new members or changes to the current membership.

B. EPIC  -  Lynda Wilson

Next meeting is June 13 at 10am

C. FESI  -  Vickie Cline

Who participated in conference call for last meeting? Neither FDIC, Treasury nor USDA. Cheryl, USDA asked what was discussed? May 13th is the FESI test window. Conference call last week but no update was provided; were there changes for pp 10? A suggestion was made to remove Hans from the CAPPS agenda as he does not attend regularly; appears there needs to be a replacement since no one seems to know what is going on with FESI, does the group still meet?

FESI test area needs to be updated to include EPIC (preferably by the next test window) so that they can begin testing interaction with EPIC. NFC also needs a process in place to provide to FESI User Group prior to each test window a list of changes they have made so that agencies can make changes to their systems to accommodate the new functionality. NFC needs to provide the FESI User Group a list of all the Data Base Expansion changes with a plan for testing the FESI interface with the agencies.

DOC asked about Focus reports. Refer to the HR briefing notes to get discussion on Focus changes as a result of data base expansion. Mary indicated that Census has volunteered to take the lead for heading up a Focus User Group. Mary will give us message to send out - Lynda will send request to NFC South.

D. Leave Share   -   Jo Bonner

The draft Leave Share requirements package was e-mailed to CAPPS reps this morning. Due to the size of the file, some e-mail systems rejected the e-mail. CD-ROMs were made for those agencies and Jo distributed them to the reps in attendance after the meeting. Comments are due no later than June 19, the next CAPPS meeting. The package is quite large and consists of 602 pages plus 100 pages in the three attachments which provide recommended layouts for the applications, employee entry web screens, and HR screens. Jo recommends that agencies at a minimum print the attachments and the system design portion (page 575 through 602) of the specs package. This will provide the big picture overview. We would like for everyone to review the data elements with the recommended field sizes, edits, etc, but this can probably be done electronically without printing the whole document. (Thanks go to Lynn Brooks in directives for converting the documents into Adobe so that clients would not need to convert the documents themselves to be able to read them electronically.)

Next meeting is May 16, 9-3. The work group still needs to complete the form letters and reports area, but these two attachments are not needed immediately for NFC to begin work on the main project.

E. RIF  - Debby Berry

The RIF Requirements Package was forwarded to NFC on April 25.

F. T&A  -  Jo Bonner

• Web STAR update: NFC began implementation of Web STAR with 7 NFC employees in PP-07. In PP-08 NFC processed 38 and Treasury joined with 118 (four of Treasury's were rejected, but that was due to HR - personnel actions). Jo indicated that NFC was pleased with the implementation and asked that Vicki provide Treasury's opinion of how things were going.
  
  According to Vickie everything at Treasury went well and they had great support from CS (particularly Doug Womac) They plan on bringing on another group of timekeepers in PP-09 and will continue with an additional 14-16 timekeepers a pay period until they start with Mint. They're preparing an implementation schedule for Doug a list of what will be implementing. Treasury is currently using the test database to train the timekeepers the week before they join the pilot. The timekeepers are going from PC-TARE to Web STAR so there is a learning curve. Doug has been great with all the help he has provided. Treasury is very pleased with Web STAR so far.

  Jo indicated that APHIS plans to join the Web STAR pilot in PP-09 along with additional timekeepers from NFC and Treasury. If agencies are interested in participating in the Web STAR pilot or planning to implement after the pilot, they should contact Doug Womac to arrange this. While implementation should not be a problem, it is our first web application of this magnitude and we want to take it slow in the early stages. In addition, NFC security access for timekeepers is a requirement of Web STAR and due to the huge volume of security requests these days, agencies need to allow time for this. Because of the ease with which T&A's can be done in Web STAR and requirement to have NFC access, some clients are planning to consolidate timekeeping functions and reduce the number of timekeepers. (i.e., instead of having 5 timekeepers do T&A's for 5-6 people apiece, one timekeeper will do all 30).

• What is difference between client STAR versus Web STAR?

a. Web STAR contains a few more edits and will actually edit against MASC (the mainframe accounting).

b. The current version of Web STAR does not utilize the mainframe leave balances. Only the annual and sick leave mainframe balances are brought over with the import during implementation, and the timekeeper can change them.

c. Web STAR has three roles versus the five roles found in client star. This is because NFC handles the security and the system administration in Web STAR. All the agency administrator has to do is create T&A contact points.

d. Since the software is maintained at NFC, agency staff does not need to update each machine with new versions or patches as they are released.

e. Since Web STAR is a web based system with the database located at NFC, the agency does not need to ensure that a back-up is made. In addition, this means that the T&As can be accessed by any machine with appropriate web access and NFC security.

f. The Web STAR data is housed at NFC and thus the completed T&A's do not have to be physically uploaded to NFC via a separate T&A process. Once they are marked for transmission, NFC simply reads them in the next pass of TIME and updates the file to indicate that they have been picked up.

g. Future versions of Web STAR will include such things as daily time, one leave balance (the mainframe's), and employee entry as well as improved edits

• During the HR briefing it was mentioned that the T&A layout file (PC-TARE layout) might be changing due to the implementation of the military leave changes during the database modernization process. Jo spoke with the database modernization team on this issue and they have thoroughly reviewed the package and believe that the military leave changes can be done without changing that layout. This means that agencies will not be required to come off the PC-TARE with the implementation of the these changes. However, NFC is still encouraging users to migrate from the PC-TARE system sooner rather than later. The PC-TARE software is old technology and max-ed out for coding. Changes cannot be made to it as regulations change and enhancements are made to other systems. We have notified clients of this in the past. Treasury recommended that NFC send a letter similar to the one issued for PACT/PRES requiring clients to be off by January 1, 2003. We may do that, but the circumstances are slightly different. Because of the change in the database with the modernization initiative, PACT/PRES will not work after the implementation of those initiatives. However, it might be a good idea to remind clients that PC-TARE is being phased out and that they should plan for the future now. Due to the massive security effort, it would be difficult for NFC to handle a sudden, massive influx of WebSTAR users.
  
  
• In the March meeting, CAPPS reps had requested a breakout of the T&A systems used within the NFC client base. Jo had planned to release the information at today's meeting, but a review of the data revealed that a couple areas might be confusing. She will obtain clarification on those issues, footnote them, and release the data at the June CAPPS meeting.
  
  
• The next T&A User is scheduled for May 29 from 9-12. This is a special meeting requested by Treasury to review clarifications being submitted as a result of the meeting with the Requirements Coordination and Development Branch last August.

VIII. Potpourri

A. Jody Nyers - 6-7 months ago PPSPS changed the start time of CAPPS from 10:00 to 9:00 to allow extra time since another group has the meeting room at 12:00. However, the CAPPS meetings have not exceeded two hour in quite some time. Would the reps be interested in changing the meeting back to 10:00? Only three individuals responded and all three preferred to keep the meeting time at 9:00. Therefore, the start time will remain at 9:00.

B. Mary Arnold (DOC) - DOC has experienced some problems with health benefits documents entered into EPIC during the last two pay periods (7&8). EPIC indicates that the document has applied but the change is not reflected in IRIS 115. When the employee is paid, the health benefit change is not reflected in the pay stub, nor is it visible in EPIC or IRIS. After PAYE runs, the health benefit change is entered again and it applies with no problems. No one else has experience the problem - that they're aware of anyway. Jody has submitted an SPR (02-0615) on the problem.

C. Mary Arnold (DOC) - Reported that 113G report is showing highly expanded counts on the FTE. NFC was supposed to fix the problem and rerun it. Chris is checking on it. A number of agencies have reported this to their customer reps. There may have been a notice sent to CAPPS from CS, but it apparently did not get to everyone. Please request that the notice be resent.

D. Ginny Peck (TR-BPD)- Inquired about the status of the hostile fire pay payment situation. Cliff indicated that we are still waiting for IRS to rule on the Federal Tax issue. Vickie/Mike will check with IRS. Yes, DOD did issue guidance for payment on their employees. However, they did not wait for the IRS ruling.

E. Steve (Peace Corps) - What do agencies need to do to obtain the cost savings from going to a paperless E&L Statement (i.e., Employee Personnel Page)? The cost savings does not kick in until the agency makes an agency-wide decision to stop the mailing of the E&L. Agency wide decisions affect the negotiation with the U.S. Postal Service, but pockets of employee on the staff do not.

F. Jo Bonner - The leave drill down screens demo'd at the HR Customer Briefing will be available in October. Copies of the demo can be seen on the NFC web page.

G. Debbie Berry (FCC) is interested in how agencies are planning to handle their T&A's in the event of an emergency. Lynda recommended she check with Mose Lindsay since he was compiling contingency plans for all of the clients.

H. Tom Neumeister (Smithsonian) - The Retention Allowance amount reflected in IRIS is incorrect. They have five or six employees that were granted a retention allowance when they came into Smithsonian. The data in IRIS reflect what it was at that time, but as it has changed over time due to Pay Adjs, WGIs, etc. the increases have not been updated to IRIS. Mary Arnold (DOC) indicated that the data on the IRIS screen is just a projection at time the retention allowance is implemented and it is never updated based on changes and it isn't reflected correctly on the SF-50s. Cliff has submitted an SPR on this issue, but we don't know when it will be corrected. Tom wanted to know if they can run a focus report to find employees on retention allowance and the equivalent dollars paid. Mike Mire believes it could be done by pulling the TC code. Since PQ046 provides this data by pay period for each employee you could see which TC combo to use.

I. Kelynn Lewis (FEMA)- FOCUS update - FEMA submitted several reports to kick off "after bear runs". When the reports all failed, they called their customer rep who said there were no problems with the FOCUS upgrade it was in the reports. FEMA verified the reports and called back and were told yes, there is a problem. FEMA's concern is that NFC didn't allow the clients to test even if only for a short time. Since FEMA pulls data once a pay period for all of their reporting needs, they had to stay up Monday night to make sure the reports were going to run and that they would have data. Apparently some individuals were contacted about testing but not all. Had everyone been notified of a test they would have been more testers. Mary Arnold (DOC) indicated that they did participate in the test and during the testing the reports worked. Those same reports would not work when they went to production. No fix yet.

J. Mary Arnold (DOC) - had reports that culprit reports had no data.

K. Mike Mire (Treasury) - Treasury has an employee who was not mailed his Annual Benefits Statement because his 6c retirement data was earlier than it should be. Why are there no edits in the system to prevent this 6c retirement data from preceding the SCD. Lynda indicated those edits were in the system at one time. However, clients complained and wanted the edits removed. NFC did so, now it is up to the agency to ensure that the information is correct.

L. Several representatives requested that PPSPS check with customer support about emails and names used on the CS distribution lists. Sometimes all of the clients receive the notices and at other times they do not. It was PPSPS's understanding that they were pulling their list from the CAPPS website, but maybe they have more than one CAPPS mail group at NFC. PPSPS will send a request to the clients to update CAPPS.

M. Vicki Cline (Treasury) requested that we go back to reports in soft copy since they're easier for the clients to distribute. PPSPS indicated that it was not be choice that we stopped. The method we were using was bootlegged from another organization and is no longer functioning. We'll work on getting something new established.