365 Days of Claims
Claim #261 of 365
Mostly True but Misattributed high confidence

The underlying facts are largely accurate, but the claimed cause or credit is wrong.

government-itmisattributionmodernizationopmretirement

The Claim

Developed “retire.opm.gov,” a reimagined website that automates federal retirements after decades of retirement records being stored in an underground mine.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Three things: (1) the Trump administration developed the retire.opm.gov website, (2) this website automates federal retirements, and (3) it replaces a system where retirement records were stored in an underground mine for decades.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That this is a Trump administration innovation — that decades of bureaucratic dysfunction were solved by this administration’s initiative. The word “developed” implies they conceived, designed, and built the system. The underground mine reference is deployed for dramatic effect: the implication is that the prior system was absurdly antiquated and only this administration had the vision to modernize it.

What is conspicuously absent?

The multi-administration history of OPM retirement modernization efforts. The fact that the Online Retirement Application was conceived, designed, piloted, and tested under the Biden administration. The massive retirement processing backlog that exploded in 2025 precisely because administration policies (the Deferred Resignation Program) drove unprecedented retirement volumes while simultaneously cutting HR staff. The distinction between digitizing a submission interface and actually automating the underlying retirement calculation and adjudication process.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

The retire.opm.gov website exists and is operational. OPM’s official website confirms that the Online Retirement Application (ORA) is accessible at retire.opm.gov. The portal allows federal employees to submit retirement applications digitally, with pre-filled data, real-time annuity estimates, digital document uploads, progress tracking, and collaborative access for applicants, HR specialists, and payroll providers. OPM issued multiple press releases in 2025 announcing progressive digitization milestones, beginning with an April 11 “digital breakthrough” announcement and culminating in a May 12 announcement of a “historic fully online retirement application system.” 1

The “underground mine” is real — OPM retirement records have been stored in the Boyers, Pennsylvania limestone mine for decades. The OPM Retirement Operations Center has long operated from Boyers, Pennsylvania (near Butler), where personnel records are stored in a converted limestone mine described as “bomb-proof” and “one of the largest offices in the world without windows.” As of 2011, the facility contained approximately 119,000 cabinet drawers of paper records. Federal employees’ entire career histories — promotions, job changes, agency transfers — were maintained on paper at this facility. The mine reference in the White House claim is factually accurate. 2

The ORA platform was conceived, developed, and piloted under the Biden administration, not the Trump administration. OPM’s IT modernization strategic plan (FY 2022-2026) detailed retirement modernization goals. In 2023, then-CIO Guy Cavallo shifted OPM’s strategy to a “small bite” approach after recognizing that previous “big bang” initiatives had repeatedly failed over 20+ years. By August 2024, the ORA platform was in pilot testing with “several hundred users” across agencies including the Agriculture Department’s National Finance Center. Cavallo stated: “We got it launched earlier this year and are having run it through the summer.” OPM completed its digital retirement pilot in December 2024, before Trump took office. The first fully digital retirement claim was processed in February 2025 — one month after inauguration, on infrastructure built under the prior administration. 3

The Trump administration accelerated the rollout timeline and expanded adoption. DOGE coordinated with OPM’s Retirement Services team for several months to finalize the transition to digital processing. OPM set aggressive deadlines: agencies using NFC or IBC had to submit electronically by June 2, 2025, and OPM ceased accepting paper submissions entirely by July 15, 2025. By December 2025, CFO Act agencies except the State Department were using ORA, with NFC, DFAS, and IBC fully onboarded. This acceleration, while built on prior work, represents a genuine contribution. 4

ORA does not “automate” federal retirements — it digitizes the submission interface. Digital applications process in approximately 38-40 days versus 90 days for paper-based submissions, representing a meaningful improvement. However, the underlying retirement adjudication still requires human review of career histories, benefit calculations, and eligibility verification. OPM acknowledged the system would initially be slower, not faster, with timelines of one month or more at HR, one to 1.5 months at payroll, plus additional months at OPM. The word “automates” significantly overstates what ORA does. 5

Retirement processing backlogs exploded in 2025, partly driven by administration policies. OPM’s retirement application inventory reached over 48,300 cases — nearly four times the agency’s target of 13,000 concurrent applications. OPM received approximately 139,000 applications in 2025, with October-November intake more than triple 2024 volumes. The Deferred Resignation Program — which over 154,000 federal employees participated in — drove roughly half of the September retirement surge (approximately 17,500 DRP-related ORA cases). Average processing time peaked at 79 days in October 2025. 6

OPM’s Retirement Services division lost 16% of its own workforce during the rollout. HR staffing declined approximately 5% government-wide (about 2,600 positions lost), but OPM’s Retirement Services division itself lost over 100 employees — roughly 16% of that workforce. Many HR professionals themselves participated in the DRP. This staffing loss occurred simultaneously with the largest retirement application surge in modern history and the rollout of a brand-new IT system. 7

Strong Inferences

The administration claimed credit for a system it inherited, then created the conditions that overwhelmed it. The DRP generated an unprecedented retirement surge while simultaneously gutting the HR workforce needed to process those retirements through the new system. Retirees reported months-long delays, missing payments, system errors, and being “stuck in limbo.” Representative James Walkinshaw characterized this as “a foreseeable and avoidable administrative failure.” OPM Director Kupor blamed “outdated technology and antiquated, cumbersome regulations” rather than staffing shortages — deflecting from the administration’s own role in creating both the surge and the staffing crisis. 8

OPM’s digitization has been a multi-administration challenge spanning at least 20 years. OPM began digitizing employee records in 2011 under the Obama administration. Retirement backlogs were a recognized problem as early as 2012, when 41,176 applications were pending. The OPM Inspector General’s 2024 report identified “insufficient staff capacity” and “incomplete retirement applications from federal agencies” as ongoing challenges, noting that “reducing improper payments from OPM’s retirement programs hinges on modernizing OPM’s retirement systems, which has been a longstanding challenge.” Multiple administrations contributed pieces to the puzzle that the current one now claims to have built. 9

What the Evidence Shows

The underlying facts of this claim are largely true: retire.opm.gov exists, it does improve the retirement process, and OPM retirement records were indeed stored in an underground limestone mine in Boyers, Pennsylvania for decades. The modernization of federal retirement processing is a genuine and long-overdue improvement that benefits millions of federal employees.

But the word “developed” is where the claim collapses. The Online Retirement Application was conceived under the Biden administration’s IT modernization strategic plan (FY 2022-2026). It was designed and built by OPM career staff under CIO Guy Cavallo’s “small bite” strategy. It was piloted with hundreds of users across multiple agencies in 2024. The first fully digital retirement was processed one month after inauguration, on infrastructure that existed before Trump took office.

What the Trump administration did do was accelerate the rollout — setting aggressive deadlines, mandating digital submission, and coordinating through DOGE. That is not nothing. In the federal IT context, where modernization projects routinely stall for decades, forcing agencies onto a new system within months represents a real, if politically motivated, achievement.

The irony is what happened next. The same administration that pushed rapid digitization also launched the Deferred Resignation Program, which generated the largest retirement surge in modern history — over 154,000 participants, triple the normal volume. It simultaneously cut the HR workforce needed to process those retirements through the new system by 5% government-wide and 16% within OPM’s own Retirement Services division. The result: a backlog of 48,300 cases (nearly 4x the target), processing times peaking at 79 days, retirees left without payments for months, and congressional investigations into what Democrats called “a foreseeable and avoidable administrative failure.”

The system works. Digital applications process roughly twice as fast as paper. But calling this “automation” misrepresents what ORA does — it digitizes the submission interface, not the underlying adjudication. And claiming to have “developed” a system that was built by the prior administration’s career staff is the kind of credit-claiming that erodes trust in government technology investment, where continuity across administrations is essential for success.

The Bottom Line

This claim contains a real accomplishment wrapped in misattribution. The retire.opm.gov portal is genuine, functional, and represents a meaningful improvement in federal retirement processing. The underground mine backstory is true. The Trump administration deserves credit for pushing the rollout forward with urgency — something that prior administrations, despite decades of effort, failed to achieve at this pace. But claiming to have “developed” a system that was conceived, designed, piloted, and tested under the Biden administration is misleading. And the word “automates” significantly overstates a system that digitizes submission but still requires extensive human processing. Most critically, the claim omits that the administration’s own policies — the DRP-driven retirement surge combined with HR workforce cuts — created a processing crisis that left tens of thousands of retirees in financial limbo, undermining the very modernization it takes credit for.

Footnotes

  1. OPM, Online Retirement Application page, https://www.opm.gov/retirement-center/apply/online-retirement-application/. OPM press releases, April-October 2025, https://www.opm.gov/news/news-releases/. ↩

  2. Federal News Network, “All feds wind up buried in limestone mine,” October 9, 2012, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/causey/2012/10/all-feds-wind-up-buried-in-limestone-mine/. Federal News Network, “OPM starts digitizing employee records,” July 5, 2011, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/technology-main/2011/07/opm-starts-digitizing-employee-records/. ↩

  3. Federal News Network, “OPM testing new platform for online retirement applications,” August 21, 2024, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2024/08/opm-testing-new-platform-for-online-retirement-applications/. Federal News Network, “OPM wants federal retirement processing fully digitized in three weeks’ time,” May 13, 2025, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2025/05/opm-wants-federal-retirement-processing-fully-digitized-in-three-weeks-time/. ↩

  4. Federal News Network, “OPM wants federal retirement processing fully digitized in three weeks’ time,” May 13, 2025. Federal News Network, “OPM touts digitization efforts, blames outdated tech for retirement delays,” December 30, 2025, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/retirement/2025/12/opm-touts-digitization-efforts-blames-outdated-tech-for-retirement-delays/. ↩

  5. Federal News Network, “‘In the dark:’ Retiring federal employees face major delays,” December 15, 2025, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/retirement/2025/12/in-the-dark-retiring-federal-employees-face-major-delays/. OPM, Retirement Processing Times (February 2026 data), https://www.opm.gov/retirement-center/apply/retirement-processing-times/. ↩

  6. Federal News Network, “‘In the dark:’ Retiring federal employees face major delays,” December 15, 2025. Federal News Network, “House Democrats question OPM on retirement processing delays,” December 22, 2025, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2025/12/house-democrats-question-opm-on-retirement-processing-delays/. ↩

  7. Federal News Network, “OPM touts digitization efforts, blames outdated tech for retirement delays,” December 30, 2025. Federal News Network, “‘In the dark:’ Retiring federal employees face major delays,” December 15, 2025. ↩

  8. Federal News Network, “A new retirement system promises modernization, but it’s creating more questions than answers,” November 4, 2025, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/retirement/2025/11/a-new-retirement-system-promises-modernization-but-its-creating-more-questions-than-answers/. Federal News Network, “House Democrats question OPM on retirement processing delays,” December 22, 2025. ↩

  9. Federal News Network, “OPM starts digitizing employee records,” July 5, 2011. Federal News Network, “All feds wind up buried in limestone mine,” October 9, 2012. Federal News Network, “OPM digitizes federal retirement booklets as part of longtime modernization effort,” April 9, 2025, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2025/04/opm-digitizes-federal-retirement-booklets-as-part-of-longtime-modernization-effort/. ↩