April 24, 2000

We are requesting your assistance in reviewing the Official Personnel Folders of certain current and former employees who may be eligible to receive back pay awards as a result of the special rates lawsuit, National Treasury Employees Union v. OPM, No. 83-0279 (D.D.C.).

The Department of Justice and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) are actively engaged in discussions with the National Treasury Employees Union on how to resolve this case without further litigation. The lawsuit affects tens of thousands of Federal employees in many different agencies who received special salary rates between 1982 and 1988. The parties are considering a class action settlement providing lump-sum payments to affected employees, instead of requiring individual agency payroll systems to correct personnel records and compute actual back pay awards for each affected employee.

Based on the terms of the settlement now under consideration, we expect that eligibility for a lump-sum settlement payment, and the amount of that payment, will depend on the special rate table(s) under which the employee was paid during the period. In most cases, we have been able to identify this information through records in OPM�s Central Personnel Data File. However, in some cases, we lack information needed to assign a special rate table number. As a result, we need to review a number of employees� Official Personnel Folders to determine the applicable special rate table(s).

We request your help in the following ways:

1. We need volunteers to assist us in reviewing the Official Personnel Folders of certain former employees at the St. Louis Records Center during the week of May 15-19. Jo Ann Perrini, of my staff, will visit the St. Louis Records Center during that week to supervise this task. She will need 6-10 employees of agencies located in the St. Louis area to assist her. We would appreciate any employees you can offer to participate in this review. 

2. We need your staff to review the Official Personnel Folders of certain current employees for whom we have been unable to identify the applicable special rate table(s). We will need a point of contact in each agency headquarters office to coordinate this effort agency-wide. We will provide your headquarters office point of contact with a listing of affected employees employed by your agency. We will also provide appropriate instructions. Your point of contact will be responsible for coordinating a review of the affected employees� Official Personnel Folders to identify the special rate table(s) under which each employee was paid, and for providing this information to OPM.

Please contact Jo Ann Perrini or Bryce Baker by telephone at (202) 606-2858 or by email at payleave@opm.gov to provide us with the names, telephone numbers, and email addresses of employees who might be able to assist us in reviewing records at the St. Louis Records Center during the week of May 15-19. In addition, please provide us with the name, telephone number, and email address of your headquarters office point of contact for reviewing the records of current employees. Please respond by May 5, 2000.

Thank you for your assistance. By working together, I believe we can achieve a successful resolution of this matter.

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Last Modified: 3:38:50 PM on Wednesday, August 20, 2003