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10/09/1998 Release Number: USDL: 99-01
Contact Name:Sharon Morrissey Phone Number: 202.219.8921 |
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The U.S. Department of Labors Pension and Welfare Benefits
Administration (PWBA) has awarded two contracts to national computer firms to
competitively develop its new Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)
Filing Acceptance System -- known as EFAST. |
National Computer Systems, Inc. of Iowa City, Iowa, and Wang
Government Services, Inc. of McLean, Va., are expected to develop fully
functional minimum-capacity systems during the base period. The development
contracts, awarded Sept. 28, will end Sept. 15, 1999. |
When the firms have completed their small scale system
assignments, PWBA will evaluate which system most fully meets the federal
governments needs and then will exercise the first option period of the
contract for one of the two contractors -- either National Computer Systems or
Wang Government Services -- to scale-up its system and process Form
5500 Annual Reports for five years. The scale-up period is set for Sept. 16,
1999 until July 31, 2000. |
The federal government uses the information provided by employee
benefit plans in the Form 5500 Annual Reports in a variety of ways. Filed
annually by employee benefit plans, the information will be available to the
regulatory agencies which administer various sections of ERISA -- the Labor
Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corporation (PBGC) and, on request, to employee benefit plan participants.
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Since 1976 the forms have been processed in IRS service centers
which provided copies of the forms and data tapes to the regulatory agencies
responsible for administering ERISA. In the last few years, the cost of
processing the data to the agencies has been increasing. In these times of
reducing budgets, the agencies can no longer afford to pay to enter the data in
the computer by hand. |
The new EFAST will receive two major types of input from the plan
filers:
· Paper filings that range in length from a single page
to several hundred pages; and
· Electronic filings which must contain the same
information that the filer would submit if providing the material in a paper
filing. |
The contractors will develop an integrated, imaged-based work flow
or process control system using the latest proven technology appropriate to the
work of this contract. It is hoped the system will expedite the efficient
processing of all forms in conjunction with the requirement to create digital
images of each form for data entry, data capture, search, retrieval and
archiving purposes. The contractors are expected to use automated data capture
technology, when applicable, as well as digital imaging, in initial processes
for document analysis and data entry. |
The contractors will receive Form 5500 filings, process the data
into machine-readable format, conduct specified edit tests for validity and
completeness, correspond with filers whose filings fail one or more edit tests,
attempt to perfect the data using filer responses, and, finally, provide the
data to the federal government. |
Many aspects of the filing process are expected to benefit from
the use of advanced technologies. The scanning of paper returns and data
capture will minimize the number of processing steps and manual errors
associated with processing paper returns. It was time for us to upgrade
our technology capabilities to meet the challenges of the new millennium,
said Alan D. Lebowitz, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Programs, PWBA. We
are hoping this more user- friendly electronic filing program will encourage
more employee benefit plans to file their plan information with us
electronically. |
The contractors will process all structured Form 5500 return and
schedule fields so that a comprehensive and complete data set is constructed.
They are expected to design a system with the necessary flexibility to
accommodate any additions, modifications or deletions deemed necessary by the
federal government if initiatives and/or regulatory or legislative changes
warrant such changes. They also are expected to:
- design a system capable of processing and storing data in
different reporting formats corresponding to different plan years;
- write image folders for all Form 5500 series reports and their
follow-up correspondence to a cost-effective media (primary storage);
- back up to a second media stored off-site (backup storage);
- establish procedures for cost-effective storage and retrieval
of image files;
- retrieve and deliver image folders in response to periodic
government requests during the period in which the image folders are stored at
the contractors site;
- store all image folders generated during the period of this
contract for the four end users, the Labor Department, IRS, PBGC, and the
Social Security Administration;
- require EFAST system output data in two formats: image folders
and structured data records.
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On a regular basis, the contractor is expected to deliver images
of the annual reports to the end users, as well as computer readable data that
has been extracted from the images using optical character recognition.
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U.S. Department of
Labor news releases are accessible on the Internet. The information in this
news release will be made available in alternate format upon request (large
print, Braille, audio tape or disc) from the Central Office for Assistive
Services and Technology. Please specify which news release when placing your
request. Call 202.693.7773 or TTY 202.693.7755. |
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Archived News Release Caution: Information may be out of date.
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