CAPPS Notes - January 15, 2003

I. Welcome - Cliff opened the meeting and explained the evacuation process in the event it was needed. Representatives from the Department of Homeland Security are visiting at NFC South and therefore NFC South is not teleconferencing at this time. They may be able to join us later.

II. W-2's for 2002 (Lynda Wilson)

A. Bulletin 02-19 issued December 5, 2002 - testing went OK and NFC South released the W-2's and email was sent out last week.

B. W-2 Software available as of January 10th and CD's are here if you need one; also available on the Download Center. You also rec'd telephone numbers to call based on your Dept/Ag. FYI: Per Ginny, loaded software just fine.

III. Customer Briefing Information (Jody Nyers) As indicated in Margaret's e-mail, a block of rooms is on hold for the NFC Clients to reserve for the NFC HR Customer Briefing on April 1&2. Users are encouraged to register as soon as possible with the hotel as early as possible. Agencies have until five days before the start of a reservation to cancel, in the event that the conference is cancelled. There are two issues we need to discuss as they relate to this briefing:

A. In prior years, the CAPPS meeting has been held during this briefing. This means that those agencies who do not send a representative to the meeting do not get to participate in that meeting. In addition, time scheduling is also an issue. Last year 2 ½ hours were reserved for CAPPS and we finished in a record 45 minutes. This caused obvious problems with the agenda for the remainder of that day. In addition, travel money for the PPSPS staff right now is very tight. Since we do not need to go to New Orleans to have a CAPPS meeting, Jody posed the question "Are agencies interested in continuing to have the meeting during the HR briefing or would you prefer to have the meeting at our regularly scheduled time on the 3rd Wednesday, April 16th." The consensus of the reps present was to hold the CAPPS meeting on the regular date of April 16th here in DC.

B. In light of NFC's visit last month, we currently have no agenda items. In addition, we realize that many of the clients are being affected by the Homeland Security efforts and budget constraints. We need to know if the clients are interested in going to New Orleans for the annual briefing. Just because we have had one for the past several years does not mean that we have to do it this year. While this time is sometimes used to arrange agency meetings with some of the NFC staff, most agencies fly down whenever there are issues to be discussed. Remember this is an HR briefing and is intended to HR folks and not Finance, Budget, etc. In addition, if there are only a couple of issues that agencies would like to have discussed it might be less expensive for all involved to have an all day CAPPS meeting on April 16th and fly the appropriate people up from New Orleans to meet with the clients.

Please contact us by January 30th to let us know your agencies interest in attending this conference along with the number of reps you expect to send. Users are encouraged to register as soon as possible with the hotel. Contact us by 1/30/03 with your agency's decision about going to NOLA and include any topics you'd like discussed.

IV. January 2003 Pay Increase - Cliff indicated the following information is available from OPM at the indicated web sites. Yes, a few of them indicate 2002, but that is the URL from the page where the data is found. Representatives can access the OCA page of OPM's web page to retrieve all of these bulletins and examples of pay computations for manual adjustments and biweekly caps on pay.

A. CPM 2002-17 dated December 31, 2002, " Implementing the January 2003 Pay Adjustments" http://www.opm.gov/oca/compmemo/2002/2002-17.asp

B. For Salary Tables and Related Information:
http://www.opm.gov/oca/payrates/index.asp

For Examples of 2003 Pay Computations:
http://www.opm.gov/oca/compmemo/2002/03PAYCOMP.asp

For 2003 Biweekly Caps on Premium Pay:
http://www.opm.gov/oca/pay/HTML/03GSCap.asp

C. New Special Rate Tables for certain General Schedule Police Officers (GS-0083 series); Tables 983A thru 983F (DOC, FEMA, TREAS, & DOJ).

D. New Special Rate Tables for certain Law Enforcement Security Officers (GS-0080 series); Tables 980A thru 980F (DOC).

E. The 1st pass of PINE will be run on Monday, January 20, 2003. This is a holiday and should not disrupt agency operations. Databases are expected to be available sometime on Tuesday after the 1st pass has completed for that database. The 2nd pass will run on Wednesday, January 22, 2003.

Only DOC, FEMA, TR, and DOJ have employees affected by items C & D. NFC held a conference call with them on January 14th to discuss implementation of the new tables.

Cliff has received some calls about wage schedules. DOD has not posted them as of earlier today. As soon as they are posted, NFC will update the wage tables accordingly. Cliff contacted DOD after the meeting and was advised that the FWS tables had not yet been approved and signed at DOD. DOD advised him that the tables will be posted at their web site as soon as possible following their approval.

The Pay Raise bulletin has been drafted and is in the preparation phase. It is expected to be released shortly.

V. State Tax Changes (Cliff Lee) - Louisiana has passed some state tax changes.

A. Employees with 0 personal exemptions may now claim dependent exemptions. NFC ran a report and there are 203 employees with 0 personal exemptions and dependent exemptions other than 00. NFC will sweep all 203 records to 00 dependent exemptions - maybe in PP-02. Cliff will send an E-mail to confirm the exact pay period when it is determined. Cliff has distributed the list to the client agencies prior to the start of the meeting. The only lists remaining are for HUD & AH. Mary picked up the one for AH. Ginny inquired if any were HUD OIG. Cliff will fax those to her after the meeting.

B. The other part of the formula is the Stelly Plan tax increase. It will be implemented one pay period after the sweep is done. Be looking for an email to confirm the pay periods and new formula into ALLTAX.

C. Q&A's

1. Q: What is the Stelly Plan? A: It is named after the state legislator who proposed the change in LA taxes and only affects those employees in LA.
2. Q: When the sweep is done and the employee chooses to make a different exemption, what should they do? A: employee should submit a La. tax form but only after the sweep is done.
3. Q: What happens if tax form is submitted in PP-01? A: We will let it go if it is entered in 2003. We will sweep records with a modification date earlier than 2003.

VI. Military LWOP & FEHB (Jo Bonner & Jody Nyers)

A. The "MIL" remark was added in PP-24. This remark is to be entered on any 473 action with dual authorities IF the agency made decision that they are NOT paying premiums. NFC has indicated that very few actions with the MIL have been entered so far. We hope this is because those of you who are not paying, have processed very few actions.

B. The sweep to CES 9 which was scheduled for PP-24 has been postponed to PP-26. It is expected to run prior to the pay adjustments. Remember if only one authority is present the record will be swept to CES 9 and the employee is responsible for his/her FEHB premiums. If the employee should have two authorities on those actions, agencies had better process those actions quickly or it will be a manual process for you to change the CES. There will not be subsequent sweeps unless an agency requests AND pays for them.

C. Program changes for CES 1 and the T&A requirement are still on schedule for PP-03.

D. We have a bulletin in draft and hope to have it issued very soon. In short, the correction process will be cumbersome but there is no shortcut. HR offices must look at each case individually. Reviewers cannot make the assumption that the timekeeper made the same decision for all affected employees.

E. Agencies need to ensure if an employee is activated - and several are expected to be activated within the next few weeks - the HR office MUST process the personnel action immediately. The action should be processed for the effective date on the orders and not when s/he exhausts his/her military leave in order to ensure proper payment of the FEHB premiums by the agency. If you wait a whole pay period you'll need to process an AD-343 to get the person reimbursed for his/her FEHB premiums.

F. Q&A's

1. Q: Is there a new authority code to document the new campaign? A: Not that we have seen yet. Technically we have not gone to war yet and that may be the key factor.
   
   
2. Q: If the employee is doing his regular military service (i.e., 2 week training session) and has FEHB, is anything special needed? A: As of PP-03, 2003, no. These employees are not entitled to FEHB benefits paid by the agency. No personnel action is necessary if for less than 30 days. If it is for 30 days or more, the employee is not on a campaign, and the HR office does not process the action immediately the system will default to bill the employee for the FEHB. After PP-03, 2003, the system will bill for these individuals automatically if they use LWOP.
   
   
3. Q: Can we get an updated listing of affected employees? A: Jo will ask NFC South about this but cannot guarantee that a new listing can be provided. As Cliff indicated earlier, the staff is very busy with the Pay Raise, Homeland Security, and E-Payroll initiatives.
   
   
4. Q: Can CAPPS have a copy of the draft bulletin? A: No, there are some critical issues in the draft that must be clarified first. The final bulletin will be out within a few weeks. You can use the information that was provided at the November CAPPS meeting to share with your employees.
   
   
5. Q: What is CES? A: CES stands for Current Employment Status. Most employees who are in a pay status are "0". The "1" code designates employees on LWOP-US for whom the agency is paying FEHB premiums. The "9" code designates those employee on LWOP-US for whom the agency is not paying the FEHB premiums. A complete listing of the CES definitions can be found in the FOCUS dictionary.

VII. Benefits Update (Jody Nyers)

A. New FEGLI Premiums and Age Bands (BAL 02-209 dtd 09-25-02) - this is to remind you that in pp 01 changes to FEGLI (Life Insurance) premiums will occur based on BAL 02-209. The last premium change was in April 1999. The effective date of this change is pp 01 and we just wanted to make sure you're aware of this so when your employees call and wonder what happened to their paycheck balances in pp 01, you can indicate that it could be FEGLI changes as well as FEHB, pay adjustments, etc.

B. Changes in Retirement Deductions and Contributions for Foreign Service employees - employees in foreign service retirement covered by retirement codes 3, W, G, F, H, P, D have been modified recently to include increases to the employee and/or employer contributions in pp 26 and/or pp 01. A handout was provided for those agencies who have employees affected by these changes.

C. Status of "Virtual Locality Pay" for Foreign Service employees assigned overseas - P.L. 107-228 gives certain employees assigned overseas a 'virtual locality pay' to match the Washington, DC locality pay, even though they reside overseas. This is an unwarranted benefit under FERS which is not available to other employees covered by FERS. OPM has objected to this and is awaiting a reply from the Hill on this. NFC will not be programmed until we get a final reading on this and as of 1/13/03 Jody spoke to OPM but they have not heard anything at this point.

Q: We have people overseas. Are they covered by this? A: No they must be in the FS retirement category. A GS equivalent employee stationed overseas does not qualify.

D. TSP Deductions for separating employees in PP24 and PP25 - due to an error on our part, some employees who separated (via NOAC 3xx) in pp 24 and/or pp 25 may not have had TSP deductions. We've got a report that you'll need to go thru and determine if the employee was truly affected and if they were, then you'll need to check w/the employee to see if they want the funds deducted and if yes, submit an AD-343. A report was distributed indicating the employees affected.

1. If the employee is no longer with your agency, the new office can deduct it if the employee elects to do this.
   
   
2. If the employee reached the elected deferral maximum - the deduction cannot be made up.
   
   
3. Employees cannot write a check for TSP. Must be done via payroll deduction and since this is an overpayment, not a missed payment, the agency can submit an AD-343 and have the monies deducted and sent to the Board.
   
   
4. How do we do this for a separated employee? We will get additional information and send notice to the clients.
   
   
5. Check with Mose to see how he has moved the monies - per Lucy, FDIC.
   
   
6. Can they get the report electronically? Recommend that you write your own. Jody had difficulty getting this report.
   
   
7. What code is used to identify those that were contributing to TSP? Unsure - you should check the FOCUS dictionary for the TSP field.

E. BAL-02-212, effective July 30, 2003, New Jersey FEHB enrollment code ED is discontinuing - it is suggested you run a FOCUS report to determine affected employees and alert them.

F. FEHB Child Equity has been implemented, please ensure you are using the correct codes when processing FEHB changes that are covered by the Child Equity Act.

G. NFC South found individuals who were on LWOP via the T&A for YEARS! Without the NOA, the system does not know to stop the FEHB - the rules are if an employee is on LWOP for longer than 30 days, a personnel action should be processed to document this. Please alert your agencies of this requirement.

H. Employees who wish to elect Long Term Care have until the end of January to get those applications into LTC as long as the application was requested prior to December 31, 2002.

I. There is still no update on the TSP daily valuation implementation.

J. OPM has issued BAL 03-301, dated January 9, 2003, on Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA). This will be effective in July 2003.

1. Q: The BAL suggests agencies establish a remark code documenting FSA. Can we see the draft remarks prior to implementation? A: As soon as we establish them, we will send them to CAPPS for review and concurrence.
   
   
2. With FSA, funds that are not used by the end of the year are most likely placed in an administrative fund as employee's cannot get their money back at the end of the year if they didn't use it all.
   
   
3. We're not sure who will handle the contract, it may be like LTCI since it is not tied to the Payroll office.

K. Next OPM Benefits Conference is in Boonsboro, North Carolina, June 3-6, 2003. Information can be retrieved at OPM's website.

VIII. Employee Express Update (George Morris) - No update as this month's meeting is scheduled for next week (January 21, 2003).

IX. Classification Update (George Morris) - OPM has issued a drop dead date of June 30, 2003 for the migration of employees in the 0334 series over to the 2210 series. Therefore, June 30, 2003 will be the end date placed in TMGT to enforce this decision. If OPM does not change their date, we will not change the TMGT date.

Q: The 06/30/03 date will only affect the January increase, right? A: Wrong all actions processed for an employee with an invalid series will reject.

X. Department of Homeland Security (Cliff Lee) - Agencies currently serviced by NFC to be converted to DHS in PP05. The DHS Offfice of the Secretary will be brought onto the system in the near future.

A. Q&A's

1. Q: Do the agencies need to do anything? A: No NFC plans to do this right now from the processing aspect. Agencies are identifing the employees and we will program accordingly.
   
   
2. Q: How is this being done? A: NFC will process a 352 (Termination- Appt In) to take the employee out of the losing department and process a 132 (Mass Transfer) to place the employee in the new department. NFC is trying to do this and retain all of the loose document data (i.e., home address, state & federal taxes, bonds, TSP, EFT's etc.) to make the process as painless as possible to the agencies affected.
   
   
3. Q: When you move them over, will they retain the old agency code (i.e, Customs will remain AF)? A: In the most recent update to the Personnel Data Standards issued by OPM, OPM appears to have set up all new codes under the Department of Homeland Security. OPM has been actively involved in the whole process and that will dictate what happens.
   
   
4. Q: Can someone explain to the NFC folks preparing reports that these reports need to be modified to accommodate these changes since the current personnel offices are still required to provide the HR/processing service. A: We will express your concerns. It will be up to homeland security to make the call if the old agency retains any access to these individuals.

XI. System Change Requests (Cliff Lee) - Rod Keith retired on January 3, 2003. Currently no Acting Director, GESD, has been named. Until further notice, all requests for system changes should be mailed to:

Acting GESD Director
P. O. Box 60,000
New Orleans, LA 70160

Requests may be e-mailed to: nfc.gesdrequest@usda.gov or Faxed to: 504-255-5543

XII. Power Outages at NOLA (Lynda Wilson) - NFC will be experiencing scheduled power outages in the New Orleans complex that are beyond their control over the next couple of weeks. The 1st outage is scheduled for January 20th from 6-10 am and is supposed to have no impact on the system (i.e., the pay raise will be run on machines in a different part of the building than where the outage will occur). The 2nd outage is scheduled for January 25th which is Maintenance weekend. Power for the entire complex will be shut down on that day and thus the system will be taken down. It is expected to be down from 5:00 am EST on January 25th to 12:00 am EST on January 26th . The maintenance activity scheduled for the 25th will shift to Sunday the 26th. For the clients this means the system will not be available on either day.

XIII. EARN (Lynda Wilson) - EARN will be down from January 15th (today) thru January 17th (Friday) so that the programs can be updated to reflect the FEGLI age bracket changes.

XIV. User & Work Group Updates

A. Awards (Jo Bonner) - The next Awards User Group meeting is scheduled for 1-3 today (January 15th). Due to the frigid temperatures in this room, we will move across the hall to the Resource Room which is much warmer.

B. EPIC (Lynda Wilson) - The next EPIC User Group Meeting is scheduled for January 23rd at 10 here in the Lincoln Room. The new EPIC Software (version 2.04) will be available PP-02 on the Download Center. You will have until PP-05 to upgrade. Both versions will work from PP-02 thru PP-04. This version change is to implement the Table 101 indicator which will reflect the fields for corrections, cancellations, and/or new actions.

Q: Can the new organizations under Homeland Security use PACT/PRES? A: Right now these components will continue to use what they are currently using. This will change once the IT issues have been resolved.

C. FESI - There was no update on FESI items since NFC south was unavailable.

D. Leave Share - (Jo Bonner) The only comments on the last segment of the requirements were submitted by TR-BPD. They have been reviewed and a draft response is being routed. Upon okay by the remaining members, any changes will be made and the package will be forwarded to NOLA.

Q: When will it be implemented? A: We do not have a definite target date yet. It depends on the outcome of some of the external priorities mentioned earlier in the meeting.

E. RIF (Debby Berry) - The package is under review by NFC. No update.

F. T&A (Jo Bonner) - The next T&A User Group Meeting is scheduled for January 23rd from 9-11:00 in Resource Room. The next T&A Requirements Meeting is scheduled for January 27th from 9-11 in Resource Room.

1. Jo reminded agencies that any employees currently activated for Law Enforcement duties at civilian installations and are eligible for Emergency Military Leave, receive an 22 days of leave for this purpose each January 1st. The cycle is different from the FY cycle for regular military leave. When paying this leave agencies need to remember that this pay MUST be off-set by the amount the employee receives from the military for this same period of time. This is a law and not an NFC rule.

   a. Q: How do agencies know whether the employee is entitled to this type of leave? A: The orders should provide the citation to indicate it.
   
   b. Q: Can you send an e-mail on this? A: Yes.

2. FYI - OPM has posted a new page on Hours of Work for Travel @ http://www.opm.gov/oca/worksch/HTML/TRAVEL.asp. There are no major adjustments to the policy.

XV. Potpourri

A. Cheryl Cotton (DOJ) - Can the clients get a copy of the NFC priorities once they are figured out? A. There are several priorities that are outside our scope of control, e.g., Department of Homeland Security, Transfer of ATF to DOJ, Payroll Consolidation(target end of FY2004), OPM changes with E-Standardization, etc.. Many agencies may be involved with OPM's E-standardization initiative. NFC would like to get to the pay limitations, FLSA, etc. but again that may take a back seat to these other priorities.

B. DoraLee Rosendorf (TR) - FYI there is a CFC problem that was reported by the Central Maryland CFC office. The office had excess money that did not belong to them. This is due to the way that NFC codes the various regions in the system. Each office has a unique 5-digit code that controls this, but it is not on the NFC TMGT CFC table. The offices did not indicate that this 5-digit code was required to ensure proper dissemination of funds.

C. Ginny Towe (TR-BPD) - FYI - OPM has just posted the E-Payroll notice regarding today's announcement on its website of the consolidated payroll offices.

D. Maria Vargus (GAO) - When are we going to implement the TSP make-up contributions for employee's over 50? A: This is decided by TSP. However, it is expected to be implemented for the June 2003 open season.

ATTENDEES:
NFC North: Cliff Lee, George Morris, Jo Bonner, Jody Nyers, & Lynda Wilson

CFTC - Jennifer Joyner
CSOSA - Gwendolyn Holmes
DOC - Marie Waters
PTO - Tonya Robertson & Sharon Scott
DOJ - Cheryl Cotton, Kay Fields, & Wendy Moore
FCC - Deborah Berry
FDIC - Lucy McCabe
FMCS - Sue McMenamin
GAO - Ethel Clayborne & Maria Vargues
LOC - Sheila Thompson
MSPB - Sarah Bunn, Rachael Campbell, & Debra Summers
NEH - Mary Keys
Peace Corps - Juanita Catchings
SBA - Ronda Hickey
TR - Dora Lee Rosendorf & Ruby Seabrooks
USDA - Cheryl Ruf