Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) today announced it will continue to progress with the RetireEZ program without the assistance of Hewitt Associates of Lincolnshire, Illinois. The 10-year, $290 million contract was cancelled due to Hewitt's failure to deliver a functioning retirement calculation engine in support of RetireEZ. The termination takes effect immediately. No work under the contract had been performed since OPM issued a stop-work order in May 2008. Additional elements of the overall RetireEZ program, including the process improvement element and data conversion, are unaffected by this action and progress continues to be made in both areas.

"We have worked with Hewitt in hopes of a successful joint venture on RetireEZ. Unfortunately, they have failed to meet the requirements of their contract," said Ronald Flom, OPM's Senior Procurement Executive and Associate Director, Management Services Division. "Since Hewitt has proven unable to deliver a working engine which will help us meet our goal of enabling retirees to plan for retirement and calculate their payments, we have no choice but to find an alternative means of doing so."

"Since the stop work order was issued, we have worked diligently to carry through with the other elements of RetireEZ, and the progress we have made is significant," said Acting Director Michael W. Hager.

Hager noted the data conversion element, one of the three main facets of RetireEZ, is moving forward, having integrated data from multiple sources for more than 1.5 million active Federal employees. Approximately 2 million paper records for active Federal employees have been converted to electronic data. OPM has captured more than 8 million imaged records for more than 1 million active employees.

OPM will now consider all options regarding the calculation engine portion of RetireEZ, and will press forward once options have been considered and evaluated.

OPM Deputy Director Howard Weizmann discussed plans for RetireEZ in the near term.

"We will be working to convert remaining paper records to an electronic format, work with agencies to ensure the data we receive is electronic, continue to enhance training and other aspects of the program, work to eventually eliminate interim retirement payments, and overhaul our call center to improve customer service," Deputy Director Weizmann said. "As Acting Director Hager has said, we will deliver accurate and timely benefit payments to Federal employees."

Our mission is to ensure the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce. OPM supports U.S. agencies with personnel services and policy leadership including staffing tools, guidance on labor-management relations and programs to improve work force performance.