Civil Service Federal Employees Federal Employees Federal Employees

Retirement Group Life Health Benefits Retirement

System Insurance Program System

United States

Office of

Personnel Management

The Federal Government’s Human Resources Agency

Retirement and Insurance Service

Financial Management Letter 

Number: F-00-08 Date : November 15, 2000

SUBJECT: FISCAL YEAR 2000 CONFIRMATION OF INTRAGOVERNMENTAL

ACCOUNT BALANCES

We would like to bring to your attention the availability of the FY 2000

Intragovernmental Fiduciary Transaction Accounting Guide. It is important that you

carefully review the section of the Guide pertaining to the reconciliation of your

intragovernmental account balances with OPM because there are a few changes this

year of which you need to be aware; these are summarized below. You can download

the Guide from the Financial Management Service (FMS) website at

www.fms.treas.gov/cfs/dev; select the “Federal Intragovernmental Accounting Policies

and Procedures Guide” for the full text.

By November 17, 2000, we will provide you with our Benefit Program Revenue (5400G)

and Employment Benefit Contributions Receivable (1320G) balances via a Financial

Management Letter. Our balances in these accounts will also be available on our

website as well as FMS’s. We will require that you report your corresponding balances

in Benefit Expense (6400G) and Employer Contributions and Payroll Taxes Payable

(2213G) to us on your Confirmation of Intragovernmental Account Balances no later

than December 15, 2000. The “Confirmation” has been extensively revised for 2000

and we have attached a copy of it, for your convenience; please ensure you use the

revised FY 2000 version.

Our 5400G balance for the Retirement Program will include amounts in addition to

employer contributions to the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal

Employees Retirement System, principally the Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment

(VSIP) contributions we received from you during FY 2000. Please ensure that VSIPrelated expense is reflected on the correct Confirmation lines [7b, 8b, and 9b]. As we

will be recording a VSIP-related receivable based on your reporting on line 8b, please
take extra time to ensure that the amount reported accurately reflects the amount you

owe us for this purpose.

You also need to be aware of a change for FY 2000 to the SGL account for amounts

due OPM for contributions to the Retirement, Health Benefits and Life Insurance

Programs. For FY 2000, you must use account 2213G - Employer Contributions and

Payroll Taxes Payable - to reflect your September 30, 2000 balance for employer

contributions owed to the benefit programs. You will continue to use account 2210G to

report your September 30, 1999 balance.

Please also disclose on an attachment to your Confirmation, the amount by which your

balance in account 6400G has been affected by your capitalization policies for

construction projects. In previous years, some agencies have capitalized certain

benefit costs for employees working on construction projects by recording the following

entry:

1720G Construction-in-Progress

6400G.24 Benefit Expense

Although perhaps acceptable from an accounting standpoint, this practice creates

differences when reconciling your balance in account 6400G to ours in 5400G. Please

consider instead a credit to account 6600 -- Applied Overhead. For 2002, the SGL

Issues Resolution Committee is proposing a new account 6610 - Applied Direct Cost.

If you have any questions about this letter, we would prefer that you email us at

finance@opm.gov. You may of course call us on 202-606-0606.

Robert A. Yuran, Chief

Financial Policy Staff

Retirement and Insurance Service

Attachment