Federal Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS: Understanding the Different Perspectives and Differing Interests
by Attorney Robert R. McGill
As with most things in life, attempting to secure a Federal Disability Retirement annuity under FERS or CSRS requires an extraordinary amount of time, effort, planning, and the collection, formulation and coordination of a compendium of information. Multiple questions arise at the early stages of planning: Can I live on 60% of the average of one’s highest-3 consecutive years of salary for the first year, then upon the second and subsequent years at 40% (planning stage)? Will my doctor support me (collection of information stage)? How must it be stated, and what must be stated, on the Applicant’s Statement of Disability (Standard Form 3112A, both for FERS & CSRS) (formulation stage)? How do I get the doctor to cooperate, make sure my Supervisor does his or her portion, and who fills out the Agency Certification of Reassignment and Accommodation Efforts (SF 3112D) (coordination stage)? And these are just a small fraction of the questions one needs to ask in preparing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.
Before engaging in the minutiae of preparing an application for Federal Disability Retirement, it is often a good idea to take a macro-perspective of the process as a whole.
What a potential applicant for Federal Disability Retirement needs to understand, at a minimum, are the varying perspectives of (potentially) differing interests involved in the totality of the process of this “thing” called Federal Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS. The four (4) main interests involved are: (1) The individual applicant who will be filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits; (2) The Agency for which the applicant works; (3) The Doctor who is treating the applicant who is contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits; and (4) The Office of Personnel Management. The key to success in filing and winning an approval is to recognize the different perspectives of each of the four main interests, to coordinate the differing interests, and then to formulate a plan to garner the proper support from each.
Thus, let us take each interest in the order listed:
1. The individual applicant who is contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS. Whether because of medical conditions which have impacted the physical body – from Cervical, Lumbar or Thoracic degenerative diseases, or Shoulder Impingement Syndrome; Lupus; Multiple Sclerosis; Parkinson’s Disease; Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; Plantar Fasciitis; Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (including allergies); Fibromyalgia; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; Migraine headaches; or a host of other medical conditions not listed (this is not intended to be an exhaustive list, by any stretch of the imagination) – to Psychiatric diagnoses of Major Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder; panic attacks, Agoraphobia; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; ADD or ADHD; Autism Spectrum Disorders (including Asperger’s); Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, etc. (again, this list is not meant to be exhaustive), the important point is to know that the individual has come to a stage in his or her life where a medical disability has become so intractable, despite surgery, physical therapy, medication regimens; psychotropic medications; psychotherapeutic intervention; and multiple other reasonable modalities of treatments – all of which have been merely temporary and palliative in nature; but work is and has been suffering; and the individual cannot perform one or more of the essential elements of the job, and the medical condition is expected to last for a minimum of 12 months. The time has come to file. Work and career have been a major part of one’s life, and it is difficult to come to acknowledge the reality that such work cannot be performed anymore, and the years invested with an Agency must come to an end. This is where “quality of life” issues become important: Am I coming home each day just to recuperate to make it to work for another day? Am I using up so much LWOP that my performance is suffering? Am I in danger of being placed on a PIP? Is my Agency thinking about terminating me? Before it reaches a critical point, it is important to begin planning; and the first step in planning is to acknowledge bluntly and forthrightly, that the time has come to file for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS.
2. The Agency for which the applicant works. Agencies are strange organic entities. They reflect, on a microcosmic scale, the people at all levels who work for the Agency. Don’t ever expect that loyalty is a bilateral avenue – it is not. Your loyalty for twenty years to an Agency will not be remembered on the day you start to impede the mission of the Agency. An employee’s loyalty to an Agency is rewarded only to the extent that the level of performance reflects positively upon the immediate Supervisor. Once the performance level begins to falter, the true avenue of loyalty reveals itself: it is a unilateral avenue. Your years of loyalty are forgotten. Is there a solution to this problem? To some extent; by persuading those who are open to persuasion, that the applicant for Federal Disability Retirement benefits and the Agency have a common goal: the Agency wants the vacant position which the applicant presently fills; the applicant wants to secure his or her financial security by obtaining Federal Disability Retirement benefits. Thus, the emphasis upon the commonality of goals can result in a positive result which is beneficial to both parties.
3. The Doctor who is treating the applicant. He or she is the critical linchpin of the case, and to garner the support of the most valuable resource in a Federal Disability Retirement case is essential. By his or her very nature, the doctor hates such administrative details of the job. To be asked to write a medical narrative report is anathema to the very essence of who a doctor is. A doctor is trained to treat patients. The administrative headaches of writing a convincing, excellent narrative report is the last thing that a doctor wants to do. It is therefore critically important to explain to the doctor, in clear and concise terms, the nature of Federal Disability Retirement; how it differs from Social Security or Worker’s Comp; what elements and issues need to be addressed in the narrative report; and why helping to obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits is in the best interests of the patient.
4. The Office of Personnel Management. This is the toughest out of the four. This is the Agency which receives and reviews all Federal Disability Retirement applications under FERS or CSRS. They apply the legal criteria in determining whether or not the applicant qualifies. Not everyone who makes a decision is fully informed of the governing laws, and so it is imperative that an Application for Federal Disability Retirement is well-formulated, concisely written, descriptively delineated, and supported by credible medical documentation. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will never meet you; you are a faceless entity with merely a paper trail. As such, the paper submission must be convincing, persuasive, and meet the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence.
A successful Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, submitted to the Office of Personnel Management, must take into account all of the four (4) interests described above, and coordinate them, taking into account the differing perspectives which will often involve seemingly opposing interests. It is the ability to garner the support of each, to coordinate and extrapolate the advantages from each, and to compile, formulate, and prepare an excellent presentation which will have a high chance of being approved by the Office of Personnel Management. This is where one might consider the “5th” entity – that of an Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement laws. It is a consideration worth pursuing, especially because it concerns the future financial security of a Federal or Postal employee which we are speaking about – you.
Attorney Robert R. McGill specializes in federal disability retirement cases helping Federal and Postal workers secure their disability retirement benefits under both FERS and CSRS.
Burrus: Postal Decision-Makers Are Off the Mark
Saying that he has long been “skeptical” about whether the increased use of electronic communication is to blame for the Postal Service’s economic woes, APWU President William Burrus told lawmakers July 29 that “It is imperative that postal decision-makers correctly identify the cause of the reduction in volume and the trends that will drive future communication.”
“Too often,” Burrus told members of the House subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia, “decisions are being made with scant appreciation of what will cause volume to increase or decrease.”
The USPS must respond to the troubled economy, the union president testified [PDF], but the cost-reduction programs the Postal Service is pursuing, such as closing facilities and reducing the number of days of delivery, will leave the Postal Service unable to compete when the economy recovers and mail volume returns. Postal executives are making decisions based on an analysis that mail volume will never again reach previous levels, he said.
“It is important to note,” Burrus said, “that our nation’s mail volume was highest in 2006,” when the economy was strong and the use of electronic communication was already widespread. Of the 213 billion items mailed that year, 190 billion pieces involved business communication, and only 2.9 percent, or 19.4 billion pieces, was sent from one household to another, he noted.
The union president cautioned that strategies based “on the premise that the conversion of hard-copy mail to electronic communication was the cause of declining volume” don’t take into consideration the impact of the economy. “We must keep in mind that the mail stream is — and will continue to be — dominated by business-related communication, which is especially sensitive to the economic environment.”
“The diversion of hard-copy communication has been less affected by electronic conversion than by corporate marketing strategies that focus on the nation’s economic downturn,” he said.
full article: http://www.apwu.org/news/webart/2009/09-087-testimony-090730.htm
USPS FERS Annuity Estimates Fall Short
It came as no surprise to me that few postal employees accepted the latest voluntary early retirement offer, especially those under the new retirement system, FERS. The annuity estimates given to FERS eligibles between minimum retirement age (MRA) and age 62 omitted their FERS Special Retirement Supplement. It was a substantial amount to leave out–$1,000 per month in some cases! (see attached example)
The USPS VER website since July 2008 has been blunt: “HR Shared Service Center cannot verify whether employees are on the eligibility listing or discuss individual questions/concerns until application for early retirement is submitted and approved.” This contradicts OPM’s instructions on SF 3107, Application for Immediate Retirement: “If you have any questions, ask your employing office for assistance.” See also CSRS and FERS Handbook for Personnel and Payroll Offices, Chapter 40, Section 40A2; Chapter 1, Section 1C3.1-1.C; and Chapter 83, Part 2.II.F.
The USPS does not have an automated system to easily calculate the FERS Special Retirement Supplement. With 150,000 potential retirements this year, it was too time-consuming for the staff at HRSSC to calculate it manually for those eligible. The USPS should ask themselves, why aren’t they using modern computer techniques to estimate the FERS Special Retirement Supplement for each eligible in FERS between MRA and 62? Is it because they would prefer to do a RIF? If the FERS Special Retirement Supplement is too difficult for staff at HRSSC to calculate, what hope does the prospective FERS retiree have of estimating it themselves?
Don Cheney
Auburn WA
See previous blog entry: USPS FERS Annuity Estimates Are Too Low Between MRA and age 62
http://www.postalreporter.com/news/2009/06/14/usps-fers-annuity-estimates-are-too-low-between-mra-and-age-62/
CSRS and FERS Handbook for Personnel and Payroll Offices
http://www.opm.gov/retire/pubs/handbook/hod.htm
VER Offering for July 31, 2009 – “HRSSC Assistance”
https://liteblue.usps.gov/news/ver2008/effective_retirement_date_073109.htm
Union Battles USPS Over Ergonomic Hazards
According to Greg Bell, APWU Director Industrial Relations
Locally Filed Osha Complaints and a National Unfair Labor Practice Charge are among the actions taken by the APWU in our ongoing battle with the Postal Service over ergonomic hazards on the Delivery Bar Code Sorter (DBCS). In a March 25, 2009, letter to local presidents [PDF], the national union urged locals to file individual complaints with the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) for each facility that has a DBCS within the installation
In addition, we filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board on Dec. 22, 2008, and an amended charge on March 9, 2009, protesting the Postal Service’s refusal to meet and bargain in good faith about ergonomic issues revealed in an OSHA report.We also protested the Postal Service’s failure to provide information that we repeatedly have requested.
In late October 2007, OSHA conducted an assessment of the DBCS operations at the Denver P&DC. OSHA’s review documented that ergonomic risks associated with the DBCS operations are still present, and that some of the findings are similar to the findings of two prior National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Health Hazard Evaluations.
Despite the OSHA reports, the Postal Service has refused every attempt by the APWU to discuss the hazards, and continues to willfully expose postal employees to risks associated with the operation of the DBCS.
In addition to ignoring OSHA and NIOSH reports, the Postal Service ignores its own handbooks, manuals, and training programs, as well as the DBCS manufacturer’s manuals for the safe and healthful operation of the equipment. The Postal Service insists that it is making progress in reducing injuries, and that the DBCS is not a cause of Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD).
OSHA and NIOSH, on the other hand, have documented that employees are exposed to hazards and are at risk for injuries due to improper equipment installation, including foot-print allocation; support equipment placement and organization; improper allocation of heavy volumes of mail to higher-risk sorting bins; ergonomically unsound loading- and sweeping-procedures; and are subject to various administrative deficiencies such as inadequate work-rest cycles/rotation; insufficient training (both initial and refresher), and questionable equipment-maintenance practices.
On May 1, 2009, the NLRB issued a formal Complaint and Notice of Hearing for the Postal Service’s continued failure and refusal to provide the union with requested documents pertaining to the DBCS-7, the latest version of the machine, as well as information regarding internal reviews of OSHA’s assessment of the DBCS.
In addition to asking the Board to force the Postal Service to provide the requested documentation, the union sought injunctive relief that would require the USPS to meet to discuss these ergonomic issues. The NLRB Regional Director agreed and was prepared to go to court to force the Postal Service to meet. Faced with the threat of an injunction, the Postal Service backed down.
Since then, the Postal Service has met once, but the NRLB Regional Director issued a complaint, nonetheless, because of the “unreasonable delay” in giving the union relevant information. The Regional Director has scheduled a hearing on July 20, 2009, on the allegations in the complaint.
In the meantime, any local with a DBCS that has not yet filed an OSHA complaint should do so as soon as possible. The form necessary for filing a complaint, as well as a packet of information that must be submitted with it, is available on the Industrial Relations pages at http://www.apwu.org/.
Related link: PMG Potter Responds To Inquiry Sent By Lawmaker Regarding DBCS Machines
USPS FERS Annuity Estimates Are Too Low Between MRA and age 62
The USPS is failing to follow OPM’s instructions to include the FERS annuity supplement when offering VER to employees between MRA (55-57) and age 62. (see attached documents) This is something new that didn’t exist under CSRS. HRSSC is hopelessly inept these days due to inadequate trained staff. The USPS is starting to get substantial numbers of VER-eligible FERS employees as FERS began 25 years ago. The result of this oversight is their annuity estimates are too low for this age group–by $1,000 per month in the case of one person in my office. OPM eventually awarded her the full amount, but her temporary annuity payments were way too low initially as they were based on the agency’s inaccurate estimate. I would like to hear from others with a similar experience as I have a grievance held in abeyance on this.
Don Cheney
Auburn WA
doncheney [at] live.com
Editorial: Abusive Postal Supervisors Plague the Workplace
by Jim Burke, APWU Eastern Region Coordinator
A problem that continues to be a plague on the Postal Service workplace is abusive supervisors.
There are certain supervisors who simply cannot manage to treat employees with dignity and respect. And there are other supervisors — including many good ones — who are victims of the system: They serve abusive higher-level managers, and are prevented from treating employees decently.
A number of programs have been created to address this matter, some effective, and some not. APWU President William Burrus instituted a system in which members identify abusive supervisors, and the regional coordinators do the follow-up. Most of the time, however, management turns the complaint over to an internal, management-only process. Read more
Editorial: Why Are We Raising Postage Rates?
By Ronald Williams, Jr., Mail Handler, United States Postal Service
As a young retired military leader currently employed with the United States Postal Service working in a Processing & Distribution Center (P&DC), I get a daily panoramic view from inside the mail giant working behind the scenes in an industrial environment. I love the work I do processing, distributing and handling U.S. Mail and using some of the state-of- the-art technology available to get the job done. I can tell all the readers that from my own perspective that we could put our “two cents” in for the next few years like I’m doing right now and our U.S. postage would still be the most affordable rate around the globe. At the same time I am frustrated with the unprofessional and inappropriate behaviors on the part of the front line leaders I am exposed to in this super-sized government agency. Read more
APWU President Vows to End Non-Union Members “Free Ride”
In an article that appeared in the March/April 2007 issue of The American Postal Worker Magazine, National President William Burrus stated that despite successes, nothing that the APWU has done has significantly reduced the unacceptable high percentage of workers who continue to receive the benefits of union efforts but refuse to join the organization. He also stated that one solution would be to make non-members pay their fare share . Burrus stated further:
But because 21 states have laws banning agency shops, postal unions and the U.S. Postal Service — which employs workers in every state — are prohibited from negotiating such an agreement.
These prohibitions against charging fees to non–members or denying them our services require that we try to find other ways to get them to pay their fair share. It is morally wrong for postal employees or workers in any industry to receive all of the benefits of union activity without contributing to the cost of representation.
I have not surrendered to the view that “free-riders” have an inalienable right to receive union services, and I intend to continue our efforts at outreach, to continue to try to convince non-members to voluntarily make a fair contribution.
President Burrus made a solemn pledge that if there is a way to require that non-members share in the financial burden of improving condition for postal employees, he would find it.
In December 2003, Fredric Jacobs, President of the Oakland (California) Local APWU # 78, believed he had found a way for non-members to pay their “fare share.” During an invitation-only gathering in Oakland, President Jacobs received a commitment from Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) to sponsor a bill that would require Postal Service bargaining unit employees to pay fare-share fees negotiated by the unions .
In March 2004, President Jacobs submitted a proposed bill for Congresswoman Lee to sponsor.
According to a letter written to Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Ca), the Oakland CA. APWU Local #78 is requesting that she sponsor a bill, “to provide negotiated fees to labor organizations that represent Postal Service employees.” Oakland Local President Fred Jacobs said, “No other bargaining unit employees in the country receive the kind of free ride non-union members in the Postal Service have been enjoying.” Jacobs added that “this is the kind of measure Republicans should love : it’s about paying your way and not getting something for nothing. (via PostalReporter.com March 19,2004)
However, according to the April 2004 edition of the Oakland Postal Worker newspaper, Ms. Lee’s office could not sponsor the bill without approval from National APWU.
Perhaps now is a good time for Mr. Jacobs to make a second request to Ms. Lee to sponsor this bill.
Read full article from President Burrus
Related link: Divided and On the Fast Track to Being Conquered - We Are Our Own Worst Enemies