The Office of Personnel Management is months behind schedule in eliminating the retirement claims backlog because of mandatory budget cuts and an influx of new applications from the Postal Service earlier this year, according to an update released on Monday.

The agency hopes to clear up the backlog, which now stands at 25,601 claims, by March 2014 — roughly seven months later than the original target date of July 2013.

But the new schedule is contingent upon the budget situation in October when the new fiscal year starts, and that is up in the air right now. Congress has not passed any spending bills yet and is in recess. Sequestration, which began in March, forced OPM in April to stop all overtime on retirement processing for the remainder of fiscal 2013 and reduce its retirement call center hours, affecting customer service.

More than 20,000 early retirements and buyouts at the Postal Service earlier this year also slowed the agency’s momentum, said OPM’s Ken Zawodny in an interview with Government Executive, but “the sequester and loss of overtime is what derailed it.” Zawodny, associate director for retirement services, said that OPM would have been “very close if not on target with the deadline” if the agency had been able to keep employees on overtime. “Unfortunately, that’s something we will never know.

via OPM: Retirement Backlog Gone by March 2014 – Pay & Benefits – GovExec.com.