INQUIRY 16-06, Personal Benefits Statement

Published: March 25, 2016
Effective: Pay Period 06, 2016

Summary

The Personal Benefits Statement, referred to herein as the Benefits Statement, will be available for employees electronically through the Employee Personal Page (EPP) in April 2016. The employee's human resources (HR) representative will be able to access the Benefit Statements (under the Financial Reports menu) via the Reporting Center.

Affected System

Implementation

The Benefits Statement is the annual notification of employee compensation and fringe benefits. The Benefits Statement provides employees with an estimate of their benefits relating to their current position. For employees who are retirement eligible, we suggest they contact their personnel office for a more comprehensive review of their retirement options.

The Benefits Statement describes the estimated:

• Value of benefits available to an employee or his/her survivors in the event of voluntary retirement, disability, or death in service.
• Annuity benefits and account balances from the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).

The Benefits Statement also states when an employee will be eligible for Social Security and/or Medicare benefits and directs the employee to Social Security Benefits/Medicare Benefits for the explanation.

Who Will Receive the Benefits Statement

The Benefits Statement will be available for each employee who is eligible for retirement benefits and is covered by one of the retirement coverage codes listed below.

Each part-time employee, with one of the retirement plans listed above and one of the following work schedules, will receive a Benefits Statement for his/her applicable retirement plan:

Who Will Not Receive the Benefits Statement

Some employees may not receive the Benefits Statement for the following reasons:

• The employee's retirement coverage code is not shown in the above list.
• The employee is intermittent seasonal (e.g., other than work schedule P, Q, S, or T).
• The employee's 6C Retirement Date identifies the service computation date for employees appointed to law enforcement and firefighter positions or Customs and Border Protection offices. This entails that a special retirement deduction rate (Retirement Coverage Code 0, 6, E, M, O, Q, or T) in the Information/Research Inquiry System (IRIS) Program IR102, Dates & Misc Sal/Pers Data, is invalid. Invalid means that the 6C Retirement Date is earlier than the retirement service computation date or is later than the Benefits Statement date.
• The employee is not eligible for retirement benefits.
• The employee was separated in Pay Period 26 of the prior year or Pay Period 01 of the current year.
• The employee is a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation annuitant with FERS annuitant indicator A or G or CSRS annuitant indicator 1 or 6.
• The employee's TSP balances based on the TSP Record Layout are provided by Thrift Savings Plan System (TSPS) Contractor, Serco, via compact disk.
• The employee's Agency has elected not to issue the Benefits Statement. (See those Agencies below.)

At the Agency's request, the 2015 Benefits Statement will not be created for employees of the following Agencies:

• Architect of the Capitol
• Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
• Congressional Budget Office
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
• Smithsonian Institution (Trust)
• Treasury Technical Assistance
• U.S. Botanic Garden
• U.S. Capitol Police
• U.S. Senate Restaurants

Also, the 2015 Benefits Statement will not be created for employees with the following work schedule codes:

Access to the 2015 Benefits Statement

An employee will be able to access and view the 2015 Benefits Statement following Pay Period 06 processing through EPP. The employee's HR representative can access the Personal Benefits Statement (under the Financial Reports menu) via the Reporting Center. Current users will have access to this report. No additional security access request is necessary.

Payroll/Personnel Output Procedure

The Payroll/Personnel Output (PPO) procedure, which is available online at NFC Home Page, will be updated to include the information in this bulletin.

Listed below are the changes that will be made to PPO.

• Changes the TSP annuity interest rate index to 2.125 percent.
• Changes the FERS death benefit additional amount payable to $32,326.58.
• Changes the 2014 references to 2015 where applicable.

Resources

For more information, see the PPO procedure manual located under the Reporting publication category on the Publications page of the NFC Web site. The Benefits Statement is also available on EPP located under the Research and Inquiry category on NFC's Web site.

Inquiries

Employee inquiries about the Benefits Statement should be handled by the employee's HR office. For questions about NFC processing, authorized Servicing Personnel Office representatives should contact the NFC Contact Center at 1-855-NFC-4GOV (1-855-632-4468) or via the Internet using the Requester Console.