OPM and Hewitt Make Nice on RetirEZ

From Brittany Ballenstedt:

The Office of Personnel Management has settled its dispute with Hewitt Associates over a faulty retirement calculator for the agency's RetireEZ modernization project. According to a Hewitt statement issued earlier today:

"OPM and Hewitt have settled their dispute and OPM has rescinded its October 16, 2008 termination of the contract for default. The contract has been terminated by mutual agreement."

OPM originally cancelled the 10-year, $290 million contract with Hewitt in October because the company could not demonstrate that the retirement calculator and modeling portal worked. The contract required testing of the portal to have a 95 percent pass rate, but Hewitt's calculator passed only 33 percent of the time.

Amy Wulfestieg, a Hewitt spokeswoman, said Monday that the agreement means Hewitt is no longer considered in default of the contract. "The dispute is now settled, so we expect no further action by either party," she said. "The specific terms of the settlement are confidential."

OPM spokesman Michael Orenstein said Monday that other components of RetireEZ, such as cleansing and converting retirement data to an electronic format, are continuing as planned. "We're looking at our options in terms of moving forward with the calculator," he said.