GSA takes over paycheck processing for OPM

The General Services Administration has begun performing payroll services for the Office of Personnel Management under an agreement signed earlier this year, and in January it will take over the processing of OPM's travel vouchers. The collaboration is part of a move to overhaul OPM's financial management structure, said the agency's chief financial officer, Kathleen McGettigan. "We determined that we really needed to modernize financial management at OPM," McGettigan explained. "There were several things that we could be doing at the same time, [such as] reengineer or outsource our payroll and travel functions." According to McGettigan, OPM looked at several vendors before settling on GSA, which won out based on reviews from current GSA customers. "There is a movement within government to do competitive sourcing, and we feel that we have positioned ourselves with GSA to fulfill that," she said. The payroll processing system came online on Oct. 7, the first full pay period of the new fiscal year. It took GSA eight months to set up the new system, just in time to meet OPM's goal of switching at the start of the new fiscal year. "We had to visit major operations centers for OPM, identify conversion requirements, resolve some policy and operation problems with OPM, do system testing and train the timekeepers," said Bill Early, GSA's chief financial officer. The new system puts payroll and, eventually, travel processing services, online. "Employees can put in travel vouchers from their telecommuting location or from their homes, and it will be timely," Early said. "The system also routes the information to the approving official, and then [it] goes straight to the finance center." No new employees were brought on to manage the new system, and any savings from the project will be used to help OPM modernize other financial management systems.

GSA's payroll system is not equipped to handle large staffs, leaving much of that business to the Agriculture Department's National Finance Center. But GSA has made inroads in the small agency market, with 34 agencies using GSA for payroll services. "If the Department of Treasury came to us and said we want you to service 150,000 clients, we would have to say we couldn't do it," Early said. "Our customers are smaller, which allows us to give hands-on customer support to clients."