CAPPS NOTES for Meeting on April, 2001

Welcome – Cliff, et al

The April meeting was convened at our new starting time of 9:00am, in room 0204. Several attendees stated a definite preference for the new starting time. This extra time proved beneficial since it took almost three hours to thoroughly cover the agenda topics.

TSP Update – Jody

• Elimination of the C, G, & F funds from NFC and EEX input screens 5/01 (to coincide with TSP Open Season). Thereafter, employees must directly communicate their funds elections to the Board over the Web, phone, or via election form. Failure to elect specific fund(s) will default new TSP withholdings to G fund (or current designations, as appropriate).
  
  
• Identified new S & I funds to take effect in 7/01.
  
  
• Identified the option, beginning with the TSP Open Season 5/15, to designate higher contribution amounts (6% & 11%). (Questions about whether Employee Express would be ready to handle this new contribution were raised, and Macon subsequently confirmed that they would be ready for the Open Season. A separate question was raised about a percentage amount that has been converted to a dollar amount and the dollar amount entered exceeds the percentage amount, PAYE will convert to the correct dollar amount so as not to allow the employee to enter a contribution amount higher than allowed).
  
  
• TSP Eligibility Codes 1 & 2 have been modified. An NFC Bulletin is forthcoming detailing this.

Repayment of Student Loans – Cliff

Cliff discussed the repayment of student loans and the fact that the problem was officially effective 4/12/01. He recommended that agencies refer to the OPM Student Loan web site at www.opm.gov/studentloans/ . In addition, he mentioned that OPM posted a detailed “Questions and Answers on Repayment of Student Loans” covering 32 OPM questions and 16 tax-related IRS questions. Cliff indicated that he would email the Q&As to the CAPPS reps. (The Q&As were emailed to CAPPS on 4/18).

The current regulations require agencies to establish a Student Loan Repayment Plan. Several attendees asked if any agencies had developed such a plan. Cheryl Ruf indicated that USDA had a Draft Plan under review, and would request permission to share the Plan with the CAPPS group. (Cheryl has advised us that USDA is making some modifications to its Draft Plan and then will share it with the CAPPS community.)

It was also mentioned that OPM had published proposed changes in the regulations in the Federal Register on 3/16/01. The proposed regulations would expand the coverage to additional employees, as well as expand the types of covered student loans. Comments on the proposed regulations are due to OPM by 5/15.

Non-Citizens with F-1, J-1, & M-1 Visas – Jody

Non-Citizen employees who are currently working in the United States with a F-1, J-1 or M-1 VISA must be entered into the system with Special Employee Code “62" to avoid paying OASDI/HITS taxes. PINE/PEPL/ PAYE changes will be effective pay period 11. Only a few agencies (National Gallery of Art & Smithsonian) have been identified to have employees affected by this change; however, if your agency has employees in this situation, you must enter the special employee code to ensure they do not pay social security & medicare taxes.

Formation of the PINE/PEPL Work Group – Cliff

Cliff announced the formation of a new PINE/PEPL Work Group to begin the lengthy task of reviewing and revising the PINE and PEPL edits. He indicated that the Work Group would be a small group of 6-8 people, and requested nominations from the agencies for Work Group members.

Cliff announced that all additions, changes, or deletions to the PINE and PEPL edits in the future must be cleared with this Work Group to ensure compliance with the regulations and OPM processing guidelines. He indicated that this Work Group will work closely with the EPIC,HCUP, and FESI Work Groups to coordinate any additions, changes, and deletions to edits.

Employee Express Update - George

George provided an update/review of EEX Key Reps meeting on 4/17. Issues identified included clearing of all Spring release issues, and the beginning of Fall release planning. Briefly discussed problem which arose with an employee having more than one owner/co-owner, and/or beneficiary; original requirements allowed for only one bond per employee. Data for employees with more than one bond will not transfer to EEX, nor will the employee be allowed to update or purchase new bonds through EEX.

Proposed Changes to Employee Personnel Page - George/Cheryl

USDA/IG employees have concerns over “different” salaries which show in SF-50/EPP/E&L, due to AUO and other special pays. This is primarily a LEO issue, but others may be impacted as well. Discussed proposal for drop down box on the EPP which will show various aspects of overall pay, and there was general concurrence that this was a priority for EPP change, right after the proposed Leave drop down box. This will be discussed with NFC/ASD (South) to get on the enhancements and priority list for 2001.

Recent Changes to 074 Table (and related classification issues) – George

Discussed the GS-201/203 series changes, as well as the GS-500 series; also identified the new GS-22xx family being established to cover new IT positions, and the differentiation of the 391/393 &334 functions.

USAID/Foreign Service changes – George

Identified changes being developed for USAID relative to the FS positions, and indicated that we will send out documentation to agencies that are affected, when received. NOTE: Received several on 4/26-27, and will forward to CAPPS after reviewed by PPSPS.

CAPPS on the Web - Jody (for Lynda)

The CAPPS website should be available by the first week in May. An email will be sent out announcing the site which will be accessible from the NFC Home Page and by going directly to the URL.

PATS6B Report - Jo

Jo handed out a copy of the most recent report along with screen prints on how to obtain a report from the NFC Reporting Center. If a representative does not have access to this feature on the Reporting Center, the rep will need to work with his/her security officer to obtain access. The customers raised some concerns regarding the variety of numbers that are assigned to an issue. Jo explained that the PATS6B was an internal ASD report that was being shared with the customers. However, she suggested that if there are additional fields that would be beneficial that they could certainly be considered. Representatives were asked to review the report and submit any suggested changes to Jo by May 4th.

One issue raised was the number of REMEDY numbers that may be assigned to the same issue. Mark Leigey agreed to check on this issue with the Customer Support Branch.

FEHB Change of Effective Date - Jody

Currently the system makes the first day of pay period 01 as the effective date of open season changes; however, OPM is publishing final regulations detailing January 1st as the effective date of all open season changes. USDA expressed concerns about this to OPM back in 1998 when draft regulations were published. This could be a burdensome task for NFC to modify their systems to accept pro-rating of funds between carriers, notifications to carriers, reconciliation issues, etc. NFC & USDA are planning to hold a meeting to discuss the impact on the system considering OPM’s implementation date (ie., 1/1/02). Additional information will be provided at a future CAPPS meeting and/or via email.

Work Group Updates

• T&A - Jo: general update; Work Group meets every Tuesday of pay day week; next meeting is 5/1 in room SM-7A.
  
  
  • The T&A requirements package was formally submitted to NFC-South on March 9th and the Military Leave requirements were submitted on March 16th. NFC is currently reviewing both packages to for implementation feasibility and timeframes.
    
    
  • If you are using STAR in an ORACLE format, please contact Jo at
    jbonner@cfo.usda.gov
    
    
  • If you have individuals that you want to participate with the User Acceptance testing of STAR or if you cannot participate, but would like to have specific scenarios tested, please contact Jo.
    
    
• Leave Share - Jo: general update; next meeting on 5/3/01 from 9:00-12:00 in Room 3017-South Building.
  
  
• Awards - Jo: general update; next (FINAL) meeting on 4/24 from 9:00-12:00 in SM-7A. The final recommendations will be forwarded to the CAPPS community for comment.
  
  
  • OPM did establish a Referral Bonus award (NOA 848). This NOA became effective on April 1, 2001. However, OPM has not yet provided any additional guidance on its usage other than “we strongly recommend prudence in their used pending the forthcoming guidance”. Upon receipt of the final guidance, NFC will take steps to implement the new NOA. If an agency wishes to pay a Referral Bonus in the interim, they will need to do so via the manual pay process.
    
    
  • Jo did contact OPM regarding awards that are currently classified in the 900's series for which we now have 800's series NOAs. OPM’s philosophy on this is that if an agency established a 9xx action to handle awards for a special program and OPM has now established an 8xx action to cover that same situation, the agency should use the 8xx action in lieu of the 9xx. However, if there are special considerations tied to the 9xx that cannot be utilized with the 8xx action, it is appropriate to continue using the 9xx. (An example, the payment of the Foreign Language Award to LEO’s is covered under NOA 844. However, some agencies are permitted to give Foreign Language Awards to non-LEO’s. An agency with both would utilize the 844 for LEO employee’s and the 9xx would be used for non-LEO’s.) Please review your agencies use of 9xx awards and be prepared to provide feedback to Jo when the request for comments on the awards package is issued.
    
    
• EPIC - Jody (for Lynda): general update; EPIC V1.07 has now been implemented.
  
  
• EPIC HCUP - Wanda Vaughan, DOJ: Wanda announced the establishment of the HCUP and EPIC History Corrections Work Group. The purpose of the work group is to analyze and review the current HCUP process to determine any systematical problems to be corrected prior to completion of the development and testing of the EPIC History Correction application. All CAPPS representatives were asked to submit their current HCUP problems to the work group which provide detailed analysis, review, and testing of HCUP packages. The analysis and testing will serve to distinguish between user error and programming error which will enable the identified programming problems to be corrected prior to testing and implementation of EPIC History Corrections. The problem cases need to include copies of IRIS screens prior to the processing of the HCUP package (where available), as well as those following the applying of the HCUP package. Once the work group is satisfied with the test results and changes made with the current HCUP processes, the work group will move to the development, testing and implementation of EPIC History Corrections. Participants in the EPIC History Corrections application are expected to provide scenarios which will assure all areas of the process are adequately tested. Wanda will be chairing the work group and all interested participants should contact Wanda on 202-616-6373, EMAIL: Wanda.J.Vaughan@usdoj.gov or Wynnie Myers on 540-542-7576, EMAIL: Wynnie.Myers@FEMA.GOV. The 1st meeting is scheduled for 5/7/2001 at 10:00 am (this will be a working meeting and could last all day). Location of Meeting/Training: Department of Justice, 600 E Street N.W., Rm 4086, Washington, D.C. 20530. Each agency participating will need to provide Wanda with Agency code, POI, and SSN’s of records to be loaded to the test area, no later than April 25, 2001. Once the testing area has been defined your Agency Security Officer will need to request access. Wanda will provide you with the Security Profile information.
  
  
• FESI - no update
  
  
• RIF: no update; last meeting was on 1/30/01; Eileen Youngblood (NFC/ASD) is providing NFC support on current documentation. George will provide point-of-contract for issues; however, no one is leading the group during Debbie Berry’s absence through May.

Potp.

[several minor issues were discussed, however the following appeared worthy of note]

• DOJ identified problems with the lack of an error message/tax warning when there is a change to PMSO which results in a change in the Geo code (PINE 022/063) – this will be referred to the PINE/PEPL work group being established.
  
  
• Issues raised regarding the reissue/cancellation of checks – NOT a CAPPS issue; agencies referred back to FSD
  
  
• Issues raised regarding designated agents – NOT a CAPPS issue; agencies referred back to FSD

Next meeting is Wednesday, May 16st, at 9:00am in room 0204. Hope to see you there!