Personnel Management Office 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is providing notice of revised normal cost percentages for employees covered by the Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS) Act of 1986.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is providing notice of adjusted present value factors applicable to retirees who elect to provide survivor annuity benefits to a spouse based on post-retirement marriage, and to retiring employees who elect the alternative form of annuity or elect to credit certain service with nonappropriated fund instrumentalities. This notice is necessary to conform the present value factors to changes in the economic assumptions adopted by the Board of Actuaries of the Civil Service Retirement System.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management is issuing an interim rule to abolish the Cumberland, Maine, nonappropriated fund (NAF) Federal Wage System (FWS) wage area and redefine Cumberland, Kennebec, and Penobscot Counties, ME, to the York, ME, NAF wage area. Aroostook, Hancock, Knox, Sagadahoc, and Washington Counties, ME, will no longer be defined. These changes are necessary because the closure of the Naval Air Station Brunswick will leave the Cumberland wage area without an activity having the capability to conduct a local wage survey.

The Office of Personnel Management has posted on its public open government Web site a preliminary plan for retrospective review of its existing regulations. OPM prepared this plan in compliance with Executive Order 13563, Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review, issued January 18, 2011. The Executive Order outlines the President's plan to create a 21st-century regulatory system that is simpler and smarter and that protects the interests of the American people in a pragmatic and cost-effective way.

The Office of Personnel Management has posted on its public Web site an inventory of the services contracts exceeding $25,000 that were awarded by the agency in Fiscal Year (FY) 2010. The inventory was prepared in accordance with Section 743 of Division C of the FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Public Law 111-117, and with a Memorandum from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy dated November 5, 2010. It consists of two parts: (1) A complete listing of all contracts; and (2) A summary by Product or Service Code to show the use of contractors to perform ``special interest functions'' as well as the services that accounted for the agency's greatest percentage of spend in FY 2010. Both parts of the inventory can be found at: https:// www.opm.gov/doingbusiness/contract/businessops.aspx.

The Retirement Services, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) offers the general public and other Federal agencies the opportunity to comment on an existing information collection request (ICR) 3206-0204, Court Orders Affecting Retirement Benefits. As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, (Pub. L. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. chapter 35) as amended by the Clinger-Cohen Act (Pub. L. 104-106), OPM is soliciting comments for this collection. The information collection was previously published in the Federal Register on March 9, 2011 at Volume 76 FR 12999 allowing for a 60-day public comment period. No comments were received for this information collection. The purpose of this notice is to allow an additional 30- days for public comments. The Office of Management and Budget is particularly interested in comments that: 1. Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of functions of the agency, including whether the information will have practical utility; 2. Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions used; 3. Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and 4. Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submissions of responses.

This gives notice of OPM decisions granting authority to make appointments under Schedules A, B, and C in the excepted service as required by 5 CFR 213.103.