Civil Service 

Retirement 

System 

Federal Employees’ 

Group Life 

Insurance Program 

Federal Employees 

Health Benefits 

Program 

Federal Employees 

Retirement 

System 

Federal 

Long Term 

Care Insurance 

Program 

United States 

Office of 

Personnel Management 

The Federal Government’s Human Resources Agency

Retirement and Insurance Service 

Benefits Administration Letter 

Number: 01-330 Date: December 17, 2001 

Subject: Access to CLER by Agency Human Resource Officers 

Several agency payroll officials have advised us that, based on their business process, they 

believe that the FEHB Enrollment Reconciliation Clearinghouse System (CLER) reconciliation 

process will be more effective if human resource (HR) offices have access to it. In response, we 

have decided to modify CLER to provide HR offices direct access to the CLER database at the 

discretion of the agency payroll officer. Once implemented, those HR offices will have the 

capability to both research and enter corrective action into the CLER database. 

To provide time to develop this new functionality, we will delay the implementation of CLER by 

a currently anticipated three months. Thus, the full implementation of CLER will now be 

scheduled for June 1, 2002. In addition, we will delay the CLER pilot test, involving the 

National Finance Center and its client agencies, which was scheduled to begin on 

December 1, 2001, to March 1, 2002. This will allow the agencies additional time to prepare and 

test their enrollment data transmission capabilities and to verify the availability and validity of 

the required data. 

We believe many agencies may find it advantageous to provide their HR office(s) access the 

capability to research and enter corrective action into the CLER database. 

. 

The electronic SF 2809 and SF 2810 corrective action files may be more effectively and 

easily completed at their HR office(s). If so, this would ensure that the carriers receive the 

corrective action information more timely and efficiently. 

We will provide a listing of HR office contacts online. This will provide information and 

direct access to the locations that are best suited to assist the carriers and agency payroll 

offices in resolving reconciliation issues. 
2

 

All agency payroll officers must decide upon the level of access to the CLER database that their 

agency’s HR office(s) will have. Some agency payroll officer will likely decide to afford HR 

offices the ability to enter corrective actions into the CLER database, while others may decide to 

afford their HR office colleagues only the ability to research enrollment discrepancies. 

Regardless of this decision, it is important to understand that OPM will continue to hold agency 

payroll offices, not HR offices, responsible for resolving FEHB enrollment issues. 

Those agencies who want their HR office(s) to be able to enter corrective actions into the CLER 

database must make arrangements with NFC to connect them to the CLER web site. NFC will 

charge those agencies a fee for connecting each individual user with update capability, whether in 

a payroll office or an HR office, to cover the cost of security arrangements.

If you have any questions about the matters discussed in this letter, please email us at 

finance@opm.gov. You may also call us on (202) 606-0606. 

 

 Robert A. Yuran, Chief 

Financial Policy Staff 

Retirement and Insurance Service