I. Welcome and Updates

Jeanette Richardson announced to the CAPPS attendees the procedures for an “Evacuation” in the event of an emergency and/or a “Shelter-In-Place” crisis situation.

II. Updates – Eileen Youngblood

A Customer Notification was sent out 5/21/07 to the customers requesting the number of FERCCA cases the agency is expected to receive.

A Customer Notification was sent out 5/30/07 advising of the implementation date for the removal of the routing/account numbers on the hard copy Statement of Earnings and Leave (SEL).

A Customer Notification was sent out 5/30/07 with an attachment from Ivan Jackson providing the VPS manual that will assist the agencies with their printing issues.

III. FERCCA Update - Reggie Hargett

Reggie Hargett (NFC) stated so far he has received a projected number of 1700 cases. He asked those agencies that have not yet submitted their estimates to please submit them as soon as possible.

IV. Customer Forum – Theresa Trentacoste

Tara Lala announced that the Annual Forum will be held during the third week in July on the 16th, 17th and 18th. She requested the agencies send in their pre –registration forms that are needed for evacuation purposes. Jerry’s session will be held Tuesday morning and demos will be provided Tuesday afternoon. Both Wednesday and Thursday will have the exact same schedule of demos.

Dora Lee requested the agenda information be posted to the NFC website. Tara agreed to post it. Tara also advised an email will be sent out this week with schedule and demo information.

Jo Bonner clarified that Jerry’s session will be conducted Tuesday morning, July 17th, and in the afternoon, the demos will start.
George Morris asked if the July CAPPS Meeting was rescheduled. Jo Bonner explained there would be no July CAPPS meeting. Tara Lala confirmed. Also, Tara explained that all the sessions and demos would be held in the Jefferson Auditorium.

V. OPM Regulatory Changes – Wendy Moore

Update 46: Wendy advised a meeting was held last Monday to discuss the NOA for all award types. She has received lots of feed-back on all the different types of award codes available. She will send this information to programmers. NFC is still on target for a pay period 17 testing. An email will be sent out to provide the security criteria needed for the testing Ids to be ready for pp17. If testing goes well, implementation will be in pay period 20.

VI. Benefits Update – Jody Nyers

Auto Enrollments (are moving forward after discussion at the Board, it heads to Capitol Hill for approval); this will probably go forward sometime in 2008. TSP thanked everyone who provided comments; there will be much more on this as it moves forward.

- The Roth IRA issue had numerous comments concerning how it would work, the significant changes needed, loan issues and, therefore, is put "on hold" until a later date.

- Fund default will be changing from the "G" fund to the "L" fund; however, it's imperative that agencies enter a correct date of birth when processing actions on new employees due to "L" fund allocations.

- Password changes have been implemented and TSP will be adding security on account numbers soon. To date, over 1 million participants have changed their passwords.

- Loan default program - In the Fall of 2006 approximately 28,000 employees had loans that went into default; when this happens, TSP notifies the employee three times, once at the beginning of the quarter after the default (ie., no payment), then in the middle of the quarter then finally at the end of the quarter (90 days later) and issues a taxable distribution to the employee. Hard copy reports were issued in mid-May to payroll offices and the Agency Technical Services (ATS - part of TSP) is working with HR offices to notify employees who are in a default situation. It's imperative that the TSP-41 (Notification to TSP that a participant is in nonpay status) is sent to TSP if an employee is in nonpay status. Therefore, if the HR office is processing a 473 (LWOP) action, please remember to submit the TSP-41. Especially, if this deals with a military situation and the employee has been called to active duty. NOTE: NFC's report was tiny, <20 records, all in one agency and the error was an invalid POI, it's been corrected and these loan's are now okay. No action on agency part at this time.

FSAFEDS Insert

Hard copy inserts will NOT be mailed; an electronic version of the FSAFEDS Insert will be included on the EPP. A 'draft' of the flyer was distributed to CAPPS for review. An electronic version went out to CAPPS & the Benefits Group and comments are due by July 16, 2007 to Jody.Nyers@usda.gov.

RSM

The Retirement Systems Modernization (RSM) project is moving forward and NFC is scheduled to be implemented in the Fall of 2008. OPM may contact your agency to discuss the project to talk to the agencies about any paper records they may have on hand that needs to be sent to OPM to be scanned and included in the RSM file. NFC has already started working with OPM to develop the automated feeds for current employees to RSM.

VII. FEHB System Changes – Termination of FEHB

Treasury submitted a request to have NFC stop the automatic termination of Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) after 365 days of nonpay status. This ties in w/their seasonal employees who have had their FEHB terminated incorrectly. Before NFC will make any changes, we need to gather information from the CAPPS/Benefits community as this would be an 'all or nothing' change. We are not 100% sure that all HR offices want to monitor nonpay counters and be responsible for the termination of the employee's FEHB. In years past, ie., the early 90's, HR offices did have this responsibility and turned it over to NFC. Jody asked that the CAPPS/Benefits community find any information they may have on this issue and share it with her as soon as possible. Additional discussion and research is needed; an update will be provided at the August CAPPS meeting. NOTE: If you find any information out, please email Jody asap. Jody.Nyers@usda.gov

New FEHB Termination Code

In addition to the request above, Treasury is asking that a new FEHB Coverage Code be established that ties in with the 'systemic termination of FEHB.' Currently, there are 5 FEHB Coverage Codes (1=enrolled, 2=ineligible, 3=waived, 4=eligible pending, 5=cancelled) and we'll need to discuss the changes above before considering adding a new code (eg., 6=systemic cancellation). More to follow at the August CAPPS meeting.

FERCCA Cases and possible TSP errors

The Bureau of Public Debt (BPD) reported some instances where FERCCA changes were made, ie., NOAC 803 Change in Retirement Plan, was processed and the employee's TSP automatically changed from X percent to a lower percent (eg., 15% to 9%). Jody asked if anyone else had experienced this and many CAPPS reps concurred. Additional research is needed and BPD supplied examples to Jody who is working with NFC South on this issue.

Additionally, with regard to FERCCA, please follow the instructions in the NFC bulletin, which is located at: http://dab.nfc.usda.gov/pubs/docs/title1/title1-07-03/title1-07-03.html and contact the FERCCA team with your questions/concerns/assistance.

VIII. User Group Updates and Meetings – Eileen Youngblood

A. Updates

Dora Lee provided the T&A User Group update. She stated they discussed the new regulations on compensory time and how it relates to military duty. A proposal for a report that will list all compensory time broken out into the individual types available will be presented to the Reports User Group. The group also discussed how Title V and non Title V agencies would use old verses newly incurred comp time.

Ginny Towe provided a brief update on the EPIC User Group Meeting. The group discussed the expansion of the NOA codes and the “opening up” of grayed out fields. Ginny asked that the users notify her if they experience any issues with these open fields.

IX. Lagniappe

Jennifer Joyner of CFTC asked for a FERCCA update due to her late arrival. Eileen, NFC, discussed the information previously provided earlier in the meeting.

Dora Lee, TR, inquired on where to send the FERCCA cases. Jo Bonner, NFC, explained the number of cases should be sent to the Customer Support Mailbox and the actual cases sent to the address listed on the FERCCA Bulletin.

Stephanie, GPO asked what happens to the balance once the FERCCA adjustments are done. The employee wants all documentation on bill payment done by the agency for retirement purposes. Jody advised to send her the employee information so she can to the research.

Shelia, LOC, advised that when she processes a correction to the retirement code, the 007 appears in the HCUP package.

Ginny, TR, advised she uses the 803 NOA to change the retirement code.

Jo explained that problems do arise when you try to correct an action that is back as far as 16 years. The problem arises due to some tables only go back as far as 1992. In addition, Jo explained that processing the 803 NOA caused the employees’ TSP contribution amount or percentage to change from 20% to 7.6%.

Monique, USDA, advised she had problems with processing the 891 NOA. When will TMGT be updated? Jo explained that TMGT was updated per OPM Update 45; however, EPIC is not currently updated. She further stated that EPIC should be updated and ready for testing in pay period 16 or 17.

Stephanie, GPO, stated she is having problems processing the 950 NOA (shift change). The system treats it like an exception. Jo advised Stephanie to send the case to her Customer Support Representative.

Sheila, LOC, stated that the 810 NOA has a current effective date in TMGT. She has two employees in suspense due to this erroneous effective date. Jo advised to send a request to change the beginning effective date (for their agency specific 810 NOA) to TMGT.

Attendees:

Monique Salahuddin (AG)
Chris Jones (AG)
Patty Moore (AG)
Linda Gandara (ARC)
Janet Allen (AOC)
Jingie Miller (AOC)
Jennifer Joyner (CFTC)
Gwendolyn Holmes (CSOSA)
Shavon Butler (CSOSA)
Grindl LeGrand-Brewer (DOC)
James Hoebel (DHS)
Jaine Santiago (CBP)
Winston Farmer (DOJ)
Lina Reter (DOJ)
LaShonda Terell (DOL)
Deborah Berry (FCC)
Sabrina Reynolds (FCC)
Juwan Samuel (FERC)
David Kaplan (FMC)
Sue McMenamin (FMCS)
Shanyta Ingram (FMCS)
Rosa Dortch (HUD)
Sheila Thompson (LOC)
J. Redd (SBA)
William Turner (SBA)
Tom Neumeister (SI)
Jeanne Hillcock (SI)
Doralee Rosendorf (TR)
Cindy Kenlon (Census)
Cindy Borza (Census)

NFC North:
Jo Bonner
Wendy Moore
George Harris
Jody Nyers
NFC:
Eileen Youngblood
Bob Varnau
Penny Forbes
Larry Barrecca
Ivan Jackson
Lynn Isbell
Reggie Hargett
Steve Cunningham
Randolph Gonzales
Mose Lindsay
Candace Letort
Louise Richard
Client Management Branch Customer Service Representatives