Q. I am a CSRS, 32-year, nine-month Postal Service retiree. I was told by USPS that upon retiring Jan. 31, I would not receive my first retirement check until April 1. Will I be paid back pay for March 1 to April 1, or does the Office of Personnel Management payment process disallow any back payments between March 1 and April 1? If so, what happens to the time gap between March 1 and April 1?
A. What your agency may have meant is that the time which would elapse between when they got your paperwork to OPM and OPM processed it would delay your initial annuity payment. While you would be on the annuity roll in February, your first annuity payment wouldn’t be due until March 1. If your case wasn’t processed in time to meet that schedule, when it was, you’d receive any underpayments as a result of the delay.
