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- The FECA provided for furnishing employing agencies with chargeback
statements before August 15 of each year, covering the fiscal year
recently completed. Public Law
94-273, the Fiscal Year Adjustment Act, approved April 21, 1976, changed
the fiscal year to encompass the period October 1 through September 30.
However, section 42 of this law amended 5 U.S.C. 8147(b) to (1) provide
for reports covering the period July 1 through June 30, and (2) require
agencies or instrumentalities not dependent on annual appropriations to
deposit the required payment in the Compensation Fund during the first
15 days of October each year. Thus, chargeback reporting will continue
to cover the period July 1 through June 30, although the official fiscal
year has been changed to cover the period October 1 through September
30.
- The FECA program is financed by the Employees' Compensation Fund, which
consists of monies appropriated by Congress or contributed from
operating revenues. The chargeback system is the mechanism by which the
costs of compensation for work-related injuries and deaths are assigned
to employing agencies annually at the end of the fiscal accounting
period, which runs from July 1to June 30 for chargeback purposes. Each year OWCP furnishes each agency
with a statement of payments made from the fund on account of injuries
suffered by its employees. The agencies include these amounts in their
budget requests to Congress. The resulting sums appropriated or obtained
from operating revenues are deposited in the fund.
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- A compensation claim is identified as belonging to a particular agency
based on the agency code that is entered into the OWCP data processing
system when the case is created. The agency should pre-code all initial
notices of injury, disease and death in order to reduce errors in the
chargeback system.
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- To prevent incorrect entries from appearing on the quarterly chargeback
report and yearly bill, agencies should review their quarterly report.
- Each agency receives a quarterly report, which provides a breakdown of
cases and costs for which charges will appear on the yearly chargeback
bill. This report can be used to identify and correct errors before the
agency is billed for them. When an agency believes that a case appearing
on its chargeback report does not belong on its account, it should check
current personnel and payroll records as well as search the service
record file and/or send an inquiry to the Federal Records Center.
- Requests for changes based on review of the quarterly chargeback report
should be addressed to the District Director of the district office
having jurisdiction over the case in question or the OWCP National
Office. The request should be made within 90 days of receipt of the
report, and it must be accompanied by appropriate documentation.
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- When an adjustment to the yearly chargeback bill is desired, the request
must be sent directly to the OWCP National Office in care of Duane A.
Ceasar. The request can be mailed
or faxed to Mr. Ceasar at (202) 693-1498 and must be accompanied by
documentation, which shows that the disputed charge did not involve an
employee of that agency, or by a complete explanation of the basis for
the agency's objection. The
request should include the case file number, employee’s name and the
appropriate 4-digit agency code and 2-digit suffix, if known, he or she
was incorrectly charged to. OWCP
will make a determination and correct verified errors by crediting the
subsequent year's billing statement.
- An agency will have one year from the date of the final chargeback bill
to request any appropriate credits to its account.
- Credits or debits will be made only for charges appearing on the
agency's most recent bill. Adjustments will be made only if there is an
effect on the total for the particular billing entity. Transfers of
charges from one organization to another on the same bill will not be
made.
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- SSN: where not available, field is filled with 1's, 2's, 9's or zeros;
- Medical: includes payments for medical treatment, prosthetic devices,
nurse services and rehabilitation costs;
- Compensation roll: payment roll from which last payment was made: D = Death; P = Periodic Nonfatal; S =
Supplementary (Death, Periodic Nonfatal or Daily Nonfatal);
- ·Case No. = the ID and case
serial number together provide the unique identification for each case;
- ·PD = pay district; the FECA
district where the last payment was made. This field indicates the DOL district
office;
- ·The asterisk, to the left of
the employee’s name, indicates the second time the case appears on the
listing during the fiscal chargeback year (July 1 to June 30);
- ·The Bldg. CODE column, to the
right of the SSN, indicates the alpha or numeric suffix added to the
four-digit account number (agency code) to identify mailing address for
agency correspondence. It can also be an identifier used by the agency
to represent a specific office, region, employee group, etc.;
- ·In the account summaries: The
number of payments and dollar costs under the medical and compensation
categories will add horizontally to the payment and cost totals. Not so with the case counts, however;
cases shown under the total column represent an unduplicated case count
and should correspond with the number of individual cases listed. When a single case is charged with
both medical and compensation payments it is counted in each payment
category and the horizontal summation of these cases represents a
"duplicate" case count; and
- ·If there are cases with
special adjustments this period, an asterisk will be noted under the
"adj" column in the compensation field next to “Roll Type”.
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Notes
