E-Payroll is one part of the e-Government initiative contained in the President's Management Agenda. Coordinated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and managed by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the initiative employed an extensive selection process to reduce the number of federal civilian payroll providers from its current number of 22 down to only 4. The winning providers, the Department of the Interior's NBC, the Department of Defense's Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), the Department of Agriculture's National Finance Center (NFC), and the General Services Administration (GSA) were tasked with accomplishing new client migration by October 2004.

At the NBC, migration is in full swing and we are well on our way to achieving that October goal. In November 2003, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Surface Transportation Board (STB), a mode of the Department of Transportation (DOT), marked the first of our new "e-Payroll" clients to go live on the Federal Personnel and Payroll System (FPPS). Although four agencies were earmarked to migrate to the NBC, there are actually 7 pay systems (the DOT operated 4) from which to migrate. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is scheduled to come up on FPPS in February 2004; the DOT's core modes and Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (SLSC) in May and July 2004, repectively; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in August 2004; and the DOT's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the largest migration, in October 2004. While accomplishing 7 concurrent migrations in a customer-centric manner is fraught with challenges, the biggest struggle for clients has been making the necessary cultural changes.

Simultaneous with consolidation is the effort to standardize pay policies and procedures. A team consisting of customer agencies, providers and the OPM have identified opportunities to standardize and are in the process of implementing what is termed as "early wins" - improvements that don't require legislation or extensive changes. Examples include developing one set of universal federal time and attendance codes and a single federal payroll web site with news and updates, a regulation repository, and frequently asked questions.

Additionally, the OPM has partnered the NBC with the NFC, and the DFAS with the GSA to consolidate further in the future. Both the NBC and her partner, the NFC, see good things in our combined future. A few of the many advantages of this partnership are the sharing of best practices, acquiring new business, achieving expansion opportunities, and supporting each others' business recovery plans. Look for improved services, elimination of redundancies, and economies of scale that will lead to a reduction in price for all of the NBC's payroll customers.

The final task of the payroll initiative is to design and implement a pay system that will take advantage of commercial technology, save taxpayer dollars, and streamline government payroll operations. The first step in this process is already complete. Capitalizing on input from providers, the OPM has contracted for and received the Federal Enterprise Architecture for payroll. Look for updates as this initiative progresses.

What does all of this change mean to the NBC's clients? It means that, while day-to-day payroll operations and support remain the same now, once e-Payroll clients are fully implemented, all NBC clients will benefit from enhanced services and economies of scale made possible by consolidation, standardization, and partnering. The end result is quality payroll service and cost savings to be shared by all.

For more information

Dennis Locke

Dennis_R_Locke@nbc.gov