I.    Welcome – Wendy Moore, GESD, Payroll/Personnel System Policy Staff (PPSPS

II.   Semi-Annual/Annual Updates to Customer Contacts - Dawn Hughes-Morris, GESD, Client Management Branch (CMB)

Dawn Hughes-Morris announced the distribution of the Customer Notification on the Semi-Annual/Annual Updates to Customer contact list.  NFC is also requesting points of contact (POC) for an additional Contact Type – Agency Security Officer (ASO).  A definition of each Contact Type was provided with the notification.  Agencies are reminded to update their customer contact information not only in response to these periodic update requests but also as personnel changes occur.

Dawn and Mike Zeringue will be working on a process to be consistent with the Agency Security POC’s and the agency main POC’s.

In the future, this list will be sent directly to CAPPS POCs for updating.  Responses will be required from everyone.

III.  EPIC Web Implementation – Alisa Wells, GESD, Web Applications, System Branch (WESB) 

Alisa announced that the final phase of testing will begin on April 27, 2009 and is expected to run through June 16, 2009.  The planned implementation date is July 27, 2009. The Sunset of EPIC Client is planned for 3-4 months after Web Client implements. 

She is asking agencies to submit no more than 50 SSN’s for testing by April 17, 2009.  Treasury indicated that 50 were not enough SSN’s.  They would like to submit 50 for each agency within a Department. 

EPIC WEB Transition Training – Dawn Hughes Morris. Due to space considerations and to ensure that each Department has an opportunity to participate, we must limit each Department to no more than 10 attendees. We are requesting each Department POC provide a consolidated list of attendees with preferred session date/time to Customer.Support@usda.gov no later than Friday, May 22, 2009.

IV.   REMEDY Update – Deidre Charlot, GESD, Personnel Processing Branch

Phase 1 is to deploy Remedy 7.1 throughout GESD in support of the Payroll/Personnel System - Internal Use Only.   

Objectives

• Single system to track and manage inquiries through problems and change requests (initial contact through developer action, if necessary).
• One time input with ability to update, close, refer, or escalate tickets electronically
• Partnering with the Remedy Support Group in ITSD
• Targeting deployment in August 2009 

 Completed 

• Contract study to ensure that objectives can be met with Remedy
• Confirmed hardware, software and contractual support needed to support deployment
• Workshop to define categorization of tickets – set up workflow 

Next Steps

• Two additional workshops to define workflow and system design
• QA testing in May 2009
• In-house user acceptance testing in June 2009 

Phase 2 will be to support user interface for ticket entry and status reporting.  This phase is planned for deployment in September 2010. 

V.    Schedule Release Update – Charles Stensrud, GESD Staff Office 

Chuck provided a handout on scheduled release status updates as of April 9, 2009.  He indicated that the number of projects per release is always subject to change.  The current release schedule is projected out to 2010.  The Ultimate goal is to cut the process down to two weeks for review and scheduling.  

VI.   FERCCA Update – Helen Young, GESD, Payroll Processing Branch 

As of the end of March there were 600+ FERCCA on hand.  During the last years NFC has processed 1350+ cases.  A couple of the Payroll Representatives are currently in San Diego attending FERCCA meetings. 

The Operations Staff is monitoring the FERCCA mailbox.  There is a three day turnaround to acknowledging emails.  Contact Helen or Customer Support if there are problems.  Modifications are being to the FERCCA bulletin. 

Agencies can check on some statuses in SPPS, however can not see everything if using SPPS Web.   

2007 – Completed.  Request for expedites are caught up.

2008 – Requests completed well into the 2008 year. 

Since the process starts in payroll the number reported by Patrick Foret’s area may differ from Operations.  Plans are to establish a repository database that will allow the reporting of more comprehensive status of each case. 

VII.  Performance Metrics Reporting/Workgroup - Dawn Hughes-Morris, GESD, Client Management Branch (CMB). 

Handouts were distributed on the current performance metric.  Dawn Hughes-Morris and Doug Toomey are putting together a workgroup to look at the metrics and revised where needed. 

ACTION ITEM:  An email will be distributed asking for volunteers to serve on this workgroup.

VIII.     Communications Plan – Candace Latort, GESD, Associate Director, Payroll Operations and Dawn Hughes-Morris, GESD, Client Management Branch (CMB) 

Dawn and Candace are working on a project to identify all touch points that address customer needs.   

IX.  Benefits – Jody Nyers, Government Employees Services Division (GESD), Payroll/Personnel System Policy Staff (PPSPS) 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 (ARRA) Update
(COBRA – OPM’s Temporary Continuation of Coverage (TCC) of FEHB). 

OPM issued Benefits Administration Letter (BAL) 09-202 on March 19, 2009.  The BAL discussed ARRA, which was enacted on February 17, 2009, and provides a premium assistance of 65% (paid by the agencies) for eligible enrollees health insurance coverage. The period of coverage runs from Sept 1, 2008 thru December 31, 2009.  The BAL also provided the health benefit rates and the notification letters for agency HR offices.  The responsibility is on the agencies to notify their current and new enrollees of the TCC Premium Assistance providing them the opportunity to elect this coverage.  On or about April 1^st, benefit reps were provided with a report of their current TCC enrollees (from NFC’s Direct Premium Remittance System (DPRS) so that they could notify those enrollees of this change.   

DPRS is the system that handles the TCC for health insurance for separated employees and is managed by NFC for all government-wide TCC enrollees, not just NFC serviced clients.  The system has been in place for many years and has worked fine providing the enrollees with health insurance coverage at the cost of 102% (to the enrollee).  NFC is working on the system modifications to accept the 65% payment, remit that to OPM, and ensure coverage continues for these enrollees.  NFC will be establishing a PO Box for receipt of the notification letters and the SF-2809; however, until that PO Box is established, please send these documents to: 

USDA, NFC, DPRS
PO Box 61760
New Orleans, LA  70161 

As updated information is available, Jody will provide that to the benefit POC’s. 

X.   SL/ST Pay System update – NFC implemented this project in support of the Senior Professional Performance Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-372) dtd. Oct. 8, 2008.   OPM issued final guidance on April 2, 2009.  On May 18, 2009 (Pay Period 10) NFC implemented the programming.  Programming will be retroactive to April 12, 2009 (Pay Period 08, 2009)  See Bulletin: Title I, 09-8, Changes for the SL/ST Pay System. 

XI.   Retire EZ – Cheryl Ruf, GESD, Government Employees Services Division (GESD), Payroll/Personnel System Policy Staff (PPSPS) 

It does not look like RetireEZ is going away.  OPM should give top priority to completing the RetireEZ project designed to improve retirement record keeping and processing, which has been partly stalled since last year due to problems with the benefits calculation function. OPM was urged not to "set an unworkable timetable as a goal to the detriment of system accuracy and performance," likely a response to warnings issued by GAO about the program before its launch last year that OPM downplayed.

OPM had another EHRI/SSC Requirements Meeting on April 2, 2009. 

This was the 5^th SSC meeting on this Topic.   

OPM is planning the next meeting for April 30^th.  At this meeting OPM plans to focus on the data feed.   

OPM is targeting the summer of 2009 for publishing the retirement feed specs. 

The current scope of the feed

·        Transfer to a different Agency

·        Mass transfer to a different payroll provider

·        Separation and Certified Ad Hoc

·        The Certified Ad Hoc will include

ü  Notification about possible discontinued service

ü  Preliminary IRR for disability

ü  FERS election

ü  Military service deposit paid in full

ü  Compensation (OWCP)

ü  Appointment of re-employed annuitants 

The data dictionary has 405 data elements right now. The latest data dictionary is version 1.06 and has been e-mailed to Agency POCs.  I have also e-mailed the handouts from the April 2^nd meeting to the POC.

XII.    OPM Bargaining Unit Status (BUS) Code Conversion Initiative/Workgroup – Mary Arnold, Contractor, GESD, Government Employees Services Division (GESD), Payroll/Personnel System Policy Staff (PPSPS)

To improve the capabilities of OPM to serve the needs of Federal agencies, labor organizations, Congress, the Administration, academia, and the general public in a timely and efficient manner, OPM worked with Federal agencies and labor organizations to more accurately assign BUS codes and this resulted in a new numbering system.   

·        OPM Bargaining Unit Status (BUS) Code Conversion Initiative/Workgroup

·        OPM mandated renumbering of BUS codes are scheduled for implementation by NFC in PP 20/09

·        Customer Notification due PP 18/09. The customer notification will have additional information on how we will handle the updates (e.g., sweeps, SF-50’s, NOA’s)

·        CMB working with agencies to clear up issues.  .

·        NFC programmers meeting to develop specifications (will address FESI and EmpowHR issues).    NFC intends to meet internally sometime prior to the end of PP 16 with the EmpowHR and PPS staffs to find out what all needs to be considered for EmpowHR and FESI users.  We will provide further details as they become available  

 In the meantime, Mary has prepared spreadsheets for each organization to show the old and new bus codes as provided by OPM.  I still have a few discrepancies where I need further information from the agencies on what to do when they have employees in a bus code for which OPM did not provide a new code.  You may request a copy of my findings to date via e-mail to mary.arnold@usda.gov.  I recommend that you work with your labor relations staff to finalize the cross-walk and clear up any discrepancies at OPM prior to PP 16. 

XIII.    NFC User Group (UG) Updates and Meeting Schedule – 

EmpowHR User Group - The user group met on April 7, 2009.  There was an update on the old Pay Docs.  Patricia Bonds gave an update of the March EmpowHR CCB meeting.

We talked a little about Override Codes.  There are two demos.  One April 15^th @ 1:00 pm on the Person Model and another April 16^th @ 8:30 am on Manager Self Service/Employee Self Service with Approval Workflow Engine.  The next EmpowHR UG meeting will be June 11^th. 

TAUG –   UG developed requirements for revising the Leave Error Report. Next meeting scheduled for June 17, 2009 

EPP UG - The UG agreed to have the meeting on a quarterly basis.  If special projects arise UG will meet on an as needed basis.  Handed out a Draft charter for the UG to review.   Any comments or changes can be sent to the EPP mailbox

EPP UG Mailbox: EPP.UG@usda.gov.  EPP System problems need to continue to filter through the OSC help desk.  The UG is the mechanism for working on enhancements or reporting major issues.  Next EPP UG meeting will be June 16^th.  

EPIC UG – Continuing to test EPIC WEB.  Implementation Pay Period 15.  Next UG meeting, June 2, 2009. 

UPDATES: 

1. DPO Addresses – NFC made table changes.  DPO addresses to be processed the same as for FPO and APO with a city code of 0003.  The following information is found in Postal Bulletin 22250 (1-15-09):

Effective January 18, 2009, the Postal Service revised to reflect a request from the Department of State to distinguish diplomatic overseas mail from military mail.  A Diplomatic Post Office (DPO) is a designated USPS civilian Post Office that falls under the jurisdiction of the postmaster of either New York City or San Francisco.  These facilities are operated and managed by the Department of State to serve overseas personnel at American embassies and consulates.  DPO is the preferred name for mail addressed to these overseas offices. 

With this change, DPO last line address information must contain the DPO designation and the appropriate two-letter state abbreviation (AA, AE, or AP) followed by the zip+4 or 5-digit Zip code.

2. Cancellation of Occupational Series Codes – discussed need for agencies to review OPM publication and follow up with appropriate classification and subsequent processing then to let NFC know this has been done.  NFC can then enter an end-date in TMGT to prevent future erroneous use of obsolete series.