Appendix A.docx

Appendix A

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) established Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) as a federal corporation to encourage the growth of defined benefit pension plans, provide timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits and keep pension insurance premiums at a minimum. Defined benefit pension plans promise to pay a specified monthly benefit at retirement, commonly based on salary and years on the job. PBGC, a wholly owned United States Government Corporation, administers the insurance program and termination process for most defined benefit pension plans that are tax-qualified under the Internal Revenue Code.

As reported in the 2023 Annual Report, the PBGC protects the pensions of nearly 31million workers and retirees in more than 24,000 private defined benefit pension plans.

The PBGC, or the Corporation, protects the retirement security of over 31 million of America’s workers, retirees, and beneficiaries in both single-employer and multiemployer private-sector pension plans. The Corporation’s two insurance programs are legally separate and operationally and financially independent.

The Single-Employer Program is financed by insurance premiums paid by companies that sponsor defined benefit pension plans, investment income from plan assets trusteed by PBGC and recoveries from companies formerly responsible for the plans.

The single-employer program protects 20.6 million workers and retirees in about 23,500 pension plans. Under this program, a company can voluntarily seek to terminate its plan using either a standard termination or a distress termination procedure. Additionally, PBGC may seek termination of a plan without the employer’s consent to protect the interest of the plan participants of the plan or of PBGC. PBGC must seek termination when a plan cannot pay current benefits. Ultimately, as a result of the termination of pension plans, PBGC pays benefits to participants and beneficiaries.

The Multiemployer Program is financed by premiums paid by insured plans and investment income. Congress sets PBGC premium rates. In addition, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021 established the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) Program for financially troubled multiemployer pension plans. The law addresses the solvency of the Multiemployer Program, which was projected to become insolvent in 2026. The SFA Program provides funding assistance to severely underfunded multiemployer defined benefit pension plans. The SFA program is funded entirely by an appropriation from the General Fund of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury). Upon approval of an SFA application, PBGC will make a payment to an eligible multiemployer defined benefit pension plan in the amount that is projected to enable the plan to pay all benefits through the last day of the plan year ending in 2051. The SFA Program also such plans by providing funds to reinstate previously suspended benefits, including back payments to retirees, and repaying financial assistance that was received from PBGC’s Multiemployer Program. About 11 million people are covered by about 1,360 multiemployer plans.

PBGC is headed by a Director who is appointed by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. The Director reports to a Board of Directors consisting of the Secretaries of Labor (Chair), Commerce, and Treasury. Information about PBGC can be found at: http://www.pbgc.gov/

Introduction/Background

To support the Office of Negotiations and Restructuring (ONR) and Office of the General Counsel (OGC) mission and contribution to PBGC Strategic Goal 1, the organizations have teamed with BISD to establish the RMEW IT Program. Within the RMEW-LMM Program, the Case and Legal Management System (CLMS, formerly RMEW) functions as a major system with direct management control and oversight provided by ONR with OGC acting as a major stakeholder of the system. CLMS, formerly RMEW, components or subsystems function individually or in conjunction with other systems to complete processing objectives. CLMS’ components generally reside within the PBGC Information Technology Infrastructure Services General Support System (ITISGSS), but the content and administration of the system/component is the responsibility of ONR and OGC. As such, most security controls are inherited from the ITISGSS. CLMS is composed of the following components that are hosted within PBGC’s ITISGSS:

· CLMS Microsoft (MS) Dynamics is a legal matter and case management system that gives the RMEW Program the ability to share common information and coordinate more closely on a wide range of cases and legal matters, including plan termination actions, bankruptcy matters, Special Financial Assistance (SFA) funding requests, and other types of reportable event filings. In addition, it provides for complex workflows to conduct business operations and activities depending on the event, activity or matter. It is built on MS Dynamics CRM and hosted in the MS Azure Government Cloud.

· Document Management is provided to CLMS using MS SharePoint with associated document sites, libraries and folders. In addition, functionality is built-out for document upload, automation of site/library creation, and modification of those libraries. In addition to document storage and management, document scanning, capture and OCR functionality is provided by Kofax Total Agility (KTA) allowing search capabilities via text.

· E-Filing Portal, based on MS Power Apps Portals, provides an external portal for practitioners and other filers to electronically submit filings to ONR/OGC as required by law. The e-Filing Portal integrates directly with the CLMS MS Dynamics components to kick off business process workflows and deliver documentation to SharePoint.

System Stakeholders

As stated earlier, the mission of the PBGC is to enhance retirement security by preserving and encouraging the continuation of private pension plans and protecting the benefits of workers and retirees in traditional pension plans. It does this through management of the single-employer and multi-employer programs referenced above with a focus on achieving the following three strategic goals:

Goal 1: Preserve Plans and Protect the Pension of Covered Workers and Retirees Goal 2: Pay pension benefits on time and accurately Goal 3: Maintain high standards of stewardship and accountability

Each organization within PBGC is held accountable for delivery against these strategic goals with that performance published annually in PBGC’s annual report.

Office of Negotiations and Restructuring (ONR) In order to carry out its mission, the PBGC relies on the Office of Negotiations and Restructuring (ONR) to manage its defined benefit plan insurance programs. ONR manages PBGC's single-employer and multiemployer plan insurance programs; administers financial assistance to insolvent multiemployer plans; provides financial and actuarial analyses regarding, and negotiates with, underfunded plans to properly address PBGC's and the insurance programs' risk exposure; reviews and acts on reportable events; and recommends involuntary or voluntary plan terminations under the single-employer program.

ONR’s work directly supports PBGC’s Strategic Goal 1 to: Preserve Plans and Protect the Pension of Covered Workers and Retirees. Under Strategic Goal 1, PBGC seeks to:

· Encourage plan sponsors to continue to maintain their defined benefit plans

· Protect workers and retirees when plans are at risk

· Create a regulatory environment that minimizes burden

· Unite more missing participants with their pensions

· Encourage flexibility to preserve plans through changes in legislation and regulations

· Manage the Special Financial Assistance Program

In 2022, ONR contributed to PBGC’s mission under Strategic Goal 1 by:

· Partnering with OGC to help protect people by taking action in bankruptcy cases to encourage companies to keep their plans when they emerged from bankruptcy.

· Provided $217 million in traditional financial assistance to 115 multiemployer plans covering 93,525 participants receiving guaranteed benefits and a final payment of $9 million in financial assistance as part of PBGC’s first facilitated merger of two multiemployer plans under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA).

· Paid $7.5 billion in SFA pursuant to applications approved under the interim final rule.

· Performing multiemployer plan audits to protect benefits.

· Using plan partition, mergers and other tools to protect participants’ benefits and support the financial position of the Multiemployer Program.

· Through its Early Warning Program, negotiating financial protection for people in plans put at risk by corporate events and transactions. These agreements are also negotiated to avoid placing an unnecessary burden on premium payers.

Completed 242 standard termination audits in FY 2022 to verify plan administrators’ calculation of benefits upon plan termination. These audits discovered errors that have since been corrected by the plan administrators, resulting in more than $1.03 million in additional benefits distributed to 663 participants and beneficiaries in these plans. ONR is staffed by actuaries, attorneys and financial analysts and includes the following three Departments and associated responsibilities that support PBGC’s mission.

1. Corporate Finance and Restructuring Department (CFRD): Monitors the corporate events and transactions of insured defined benefit pension plans sponsors and provides financial analysis, actuarial analysis, and negotiations support that enables PBGC to mitigate risk exposure to the defined benefit insurance program, the participants, and PBGC. CFRD is further divided into:

· Corporate Finance Actuarial Section (CFAS): Provides actuarial analysis of underfunded plans and the corporate events and transactions of plan sponsors and supports PBGC in mitigating risk exposure.

· Corporate Finance and Restructuring Group (CFRG): Monitors the corporate events and transactions of insured defined benefit pension plan sponsors and provides financial analysis and negotiations support to mitigate risk exposure.

2. Negotiations Restructuring Actuarial Department (NRAD): Supports the single-employer and multiemployer insurance programs by providing actuarial analysis of underfunded plans and the implications of changes to plans and their sponsors in pursuit of mitigating the risk exposure to the insurance programs, the participants and PBGC. This includes:

· At OGC’s request, providing declarations, depositions, and testimony in order to pursue recoveries for satisfaction of employer liability and unpaid employer contributions or to advance PBGC's case in other litigation with actuarial implications.

· Providing actuarial analyses for single-employer plans to determine underfunding under ERISA Sections 4044 and 4022, required contributions under Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 430, PBGC bankruptcy claims, and liens under IRC Section 430 (k) and assists in negotiations with plan sponsors based on these actuarial analyses.

· Providing ad hoc actuarial analysis to the PBGC Director and other departments in support of policy analysis.

· Providing support for the Standard Terminations Compliance Division (STCD) by interpreting provisions for complex and controversial plan benefits.

· Providing analyses and support to the Financial Operations Department (FOD), and the PBGC Working Groups for single-employer and multiemployer plans relative to the contingent liability included in PBGC's Financial Statement. For single-employer plans, provides actuarial certification and calculation of liabilities for plans included in the Contingency List. For multiemployer plans, provides analysis of the risk of insolvency needed to classify plans for contingent liability purposes.

· Providing actuarial data on overall plan funding trends to PBGC departments to inform policy development activities.

· Monitoring the financial condition of underfunded multiemployer plans for purposes of managing PBGC's exposure and planning for payment of financial assistance to insolvent plans.

· Providing actuarial analyses of proposed multiemployer plan mergers, spinoffs and partitions as well as proposed changes to withdrawal liability rules in order to maximize the support of contributing employers and affected labor unions for the multiemployer pension system and minimize the risk of plan insolvency.

3. Plan Compliance Department (PCD): Manages PBGC’s multiemployer insurance program, standard termination activities, and ensure plan compliance with PBGC regulations and ERISA. Makes determinations on plan coverage and classifications. Provides advice and technical assistance to plan administrators, service providers, the general public, and other stakeholders. Monitors, reviews, and takes action on required multiemployer and standard termination filings. Provides financial assistance to insolvent multiemployer plans. Conducts audits of terminated or insolvent multiemployer plans and a statistically significant number of standard terminations filings.

· Standard Termination Compliance Division (STCD): Administers PBGC’s standard termination activities, makes determinations on plan coverage and classification and responds to technical and general inquiries from the public. STCD currently uses the Office of Benefits Administration (OBA) case management system to conduct business. It is anticipated that STCD will migrate to RMEW starting in FY19. STCD includes:

· Processing and Technical Assistance Branch (PTAB): Processes to conclusion all standard termination filings; to enter initial case data and establish case files for all insurance program filings. Provides technical assistance to the public related to the standard termination program. Monitors plan administrator adherence to statutory filing requirements; perform administrative review of determinations subject to reconsideration under Subpart C of PBGC regulation Section 4003.

· Compliance and Audits Branch (CAB): Conducts the statistical audit program mandated by Section 4003(a) for standard terminations; to develop, implement and manage a program of compliance reviews, to identify and resolve individual or systemic compliance problems before final distribution of assets; and to enforce compliance through a variety of activities.

· Multiemployer Program Division (MEPD): Manages the PBGC’s Multiemployer Insurance Program. Provides advice and technical assistance to multiemployer plan administrators, service providers and other stakeholders. The division identifies risk in the multiemployer plan universe, works with plan stakeholders to minimize that risk, and serves as the contact point at PBGC for matters concerning PBGC’s administrative oversight of ongoing and terminated multiemployer plans, including: providing financial assistance to insolvent plans, reviewing plan termination filings and plan merger notices, and acting on plan requests for PBGC approval of various transactions under ERISA’s Title IV multiemployer provisions.

· Multiemployer Special Financial Assistance Division (MSFAD): Manages the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program at PBGC.

Office of the General Counsel (OGC):

In partnership with ONR, the OGC provides legal advice and counsel for the Director and the Corporation on all legal issues confronting the Corporation, including ERISA and/or bankruptcy related legal actions, decides administrative appeals of benefit coverage and other determinations, and administers the disclosure and other requirements of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy Act.

Enabling ONR and OGC’s RMEW systems is the Office of Information Technology (OIT). The mission of OIT, led by the Chief Information Officer (CIO), is to provide Information Technology (IT) leadership that advances the PBGC mission, improves management effectiveness, and delivers superior results to the Corporation employees and U.S. citizens. OIT accomplishes its mission through its four major offices:

· Enterprise Cybersecurity Division (ECD) focuses on Cybersecurity policy and oversight in partnership with the Privacy Office.

· Enterprise Governance Department (EGD) establishes the CIO’s governance functions such as the IT Strategic Plan, Enterprise Architecture and IT Capital Planning programs and leads governance boards such as the IT Portfolio Review Board and Technical Review Board.

· IT Infrastructure Operations Department (ITIOD) focuses on providing common office productivity tools for the Corporation, such as desktops, laptops, mobile devices, Office 365, database platforms, QA/test environments, development tools, production environments, Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP), security operations, network services, etc.

· BISD - The fourth major OIT office, BISD, focuses on providing IT program, project, and contract management for all PBGC’s business systems. BISD provides IT support to PBGC departments throughout the Corporation and leverages best practices and state of the art technology to deliver IT innovation to PBGC business operations and customer service. IT program managers also serve as division managers of BISD’s four service delivery divisions: Financial Management Services Division (FMSD), Participant Management Services Division (PMSD), Corporate Management Services Division (CMSD), and Shared Business Services Division (SBSD). BISD’s fifth division, the Program Management Innovation Division (PMID) supports FMSD through BISD’s Enabling Agile Transformation (EAT), a set of resources that will enable any potential future IT modernization orders to right-size and adapt proposed agile approaches by leveraging proven practices that work in PBGC’s environment and IT governance.

Within BISD, FMSD provides overall IT support for financial and Risk Management Early Warning Legal Matter Management systems and oversight of IT contracts which support those systems. FMSD, ONR and OGC work in partnership with the contractor team to achieve PBGC Strategic Goals and Business Drivers. The COR for this contract is in FMSD. FMSD’s IT Program Manager works shoulder-to-shoulder in partnership with counterpart business-area Business Program Managers in ONR and OGC. Together, the program managers lead Integrated Program Teams (IPT) in managing the full life cycle of IT programs. The IPTs include participation from project managers, Cybersecurity, Privacy, IT Infrastructure, EA, etc. IT systems and projects within the IT programs are overseen by IT Product Managers who work shoulder-to-shoulder in partnership with counterpart business-area Product Owners. CIO-CXO briefings (monthly or quarterly) inform executives of the status of systems, risks, and issues.

RMEW program governance begins with the Chief Information Office (CIO), Chief of Negotiations and Restructuring (CNR) and General Counsel (GC). As sponsors of the RMEW investment, these PBGC executives articulate the business goals and outcomes for the investment which directly contribute to PBGC’s strategic goal 1 referenced above. The FMSD IT program manager, in partnership with the ONR and OGC business program managers, work to identify IT priorities and direct IT and business resources to achieve business goals set forth by the executives. This responsibility includes management of the full life cycle of the program from planning to execution, monitoring, control and budgeting. FMSD and ONR program managers brief executives on the status of program efforts and progress towards achieving outcomes on a quarterly basis at an executive steering committee meeting.

In addition, the program managers partner with the Chief Enterprise Architect to conduct Business Needs Analysis (BNAs) for program components in accordance with Enterprise Architecture (EA) standards. A BNA for the ONR area was completed in FY19. The BNAs support OMB’s Architect-Invest-Implement paradigm and provides recommendations that drive performance improvements and IT investment planning and support RMEW-LMM Program funding and prioritizations. The outcomes of BNAs assist the program managers to establish a program roadmap for the RMEW-LMM Program and for planning budget formulations/prioritizations for outyears. These are presented to executives for approvals and reviewed by the PBGC IT Program Review Board (ITPRB) which is chaired by the CIO.

ITPRB approved roadmaps and associated projects and efforts are then set out for out-year planning. Individual efforts supporting the program are delegated to IT and business project managers who partner to manage operations/projects and are responsible for delivering successful project outcomes. Given the complexity of the RMEW-LMM Program stakeholders, projects and system changes must be approved by a Change Control Board (CCB) that meets as necessary to approve scope (i.e. requirements) and schedule of efforts.

For the RMEW-LMM Program, the business representatives making up the community include representatives from CFRD, OGC, MEPD, NRAD and STCD. In addition, RMEW Program maintains an integrated project team (IPT), led by the IT project manager, that meets at the frequency discussed below to review the operational status of RMEW-LMM Program systems (i.e. CLMS) and project health. This IPT includes all business representatives, the information systems owner (ISO), information system security officer (ISSO), IT infrastructure team members and other stakeholders of RMEW system (i.e. CLMS).

In some cases, the IPT will conduct an Alternatives Analysis under guidance from the IT/Business program managers and Chief Enterprise Architect. The AA process is used to identify, compare, assess viable information technology alternatives to address a given business need or performance gap, determine and recommend the best alternative and document the associated rationale for systems covered under the RMEW-LMM Program. The selected alternative if presented before the CIO, CNR and GC executives for approval. Once selected it is presented to the PBGC Technical Review Board (TRB) for review and approval to be added to EA’s Technical Reference Model (TRM).

PBGC expects the contractor project manager to partner with the IT and business project managers to successfully plan and execute all projects while supporting the above-mentioned BNA/AA activities along with providing efficient operations of all systems. The RMEW-LMM contract program leadership and executives are expected to work closely with PBGC’s program managers and executives to ensure success of the program and conduct monthly Program Management Reviews (PMRs) to provide a detailed snapshot of all program activities and status.

System Overview

2.3.1.1 Case/Matter Management and Case and Legal Management System (formerly RMEW) System

A significant portion of the ONR mission requires management of case/matter work and associated documentation. These business processes are currently supported by the Case and Legal Management System (CLMS) as of November 20, 2023. CLMS (formerly RMEW) supports approximately 375 PBGC users, provides case/legal matter management features, efficient document management capability, increased data quality, automated workflows, and enhanced search and reporting capabilities. At its core is MS Dynamics, a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) matter management product from Microsoft. MS Dynamics has been configured for ONR/OGC use and paired with Kofax Total Agility, KingswaySoft, MS SharePoint, MS Power Apps, and associated MS Azure Tools. There are approximately 70 reports developed for CLMS using MS PowerBI as well as Dynamics system views. In addition, CLMS has interfaces with the following:

· Premium Practitioner System (PPS) – Import of PPS filing and eFAST 5500 data

· Case Management System (CMS) – Import of case and termination information and creation of cases by RMEW in CMS and export of CLMS data to CMS

· Create trusteeship cases for CFRD utilizing CLMS CMS WEB Interface

· Export Case termination details created by STCD group in CLMS to CMS via CLMS – CMS interface. This data will be utilized by the PBGC Office of Benefits Administration (OBA) and other downstream applications.

Finally, the user community uses CLMS functionality in the following ways:

· Corporate Finance and Restructuring Department (CFRD)

· Tracking and monitoring Pension Plan health through Financial Statement (FS) Classification levels

· Processing of Reportable Events (received from the CLMS e-Filing Portal interface)

· Opening, processing, approving, and closing Cases and Case Issues

· Opening, approving, tracking compliance, and closing Settlement Agreements

· Opening Actuarial Work Requests

· Requesting Advice and Counsel

· Opening Lien Recommendation Records

· Opening, calculating, and completing Recovery Valuations

· Processing and initiating plan Terminations

· Initiating plan Termination cases in CLMS and sent to CMS through the CLMS-CMS interface

· Receiving Standard Termination and Coverage Determination cases entered by STCD in CLMS or via the eFiling Portal

· Sharing documents with OBA via SharePoint

· Analyzing single employer Form 5500 data (received from the CLMS-PPS interface)

· Multiemployer Program Division (MEPD)

· Processing of Multiemployer Events

· Processing of Financial Assistance requests

· Opening, conducting, approving, and closing plan Audits

· Standard Termination and Compliance Division

· Receiving filings for termination requests

· Initiating standard terminations

· Processing Coverage Determination Requests (received from CLMS e-Filing Portal or mail/email/fax from Filer)

· Processing Standard Terminations including Form 500, Form 501, and MP100 [“Missing Participant Task Referral”] (received from CLMS e-Filing Portal or mail/email/fax from Filer)

· Opening, processing, approving, and closing Cases (both Coverage Determination and Standard Termination) to track requests from the Filer

· Referring requests to OGC for legal analysis and advice (both Coverage Determination [Advice & Counsel] and Standard Termination [OGC Task Referral])

· Reviewing, tracking, approving or denying extension requests and 4071 late filing penalties for the receipt of Standard Termination filings (Form 500/501/MP100)

· Opening, processing, approving, and closing Single Employer (SE) Audits for previously closed Standard Termination

· Negotiations and Restructuring Actuarial Department (NRAD)

· Fulfilling Actuarial Work Requests

· Preparing and uploading Pension Information Profile (PIP) calculations

· Completing yearly Contingency List Calculations

· Analyzing Form 4010 data

· Analyzing single employer Premium Filing data

· Analyzing single employer Form 5500 data (through the CLMS-PPS interface)

· Office of the General Counsel (OGC)

· Opening, processing, monitoring, and closing Matters

· Opening and tracking Key Events

· Completing Advice and Counsel requests

· Opening, filing, and tracking Notices of Liens

· Opening, filing, and tracking Unsecured Creditor Committee (UCC) Claims

· Opening, filing, and tracking Mortgages

· Managing General Law and Operations (GLOD) legal matters

· Office of Benefits Administration (OBA)

· Viewing cases, matters, and plans and their documents for processing terminations

Filing Receipt and e-Filing Portal

To accomplish its mission, ONR must receive and process filings and documentation from external plans under PBGC oversight. This includes receipt of 4010 filings, 4043 reportable events,, required filings by multiemployer plans, and standard termination files. This process is currently supported by the e-Filing Portal being used by approximately 2000 internal and external users. The e-filing portal is integrated into CLMS using MS Power Apps Portals. For 4010 filers (those companies required to submit additional financial and actuarial data to PBGC on an annual basis), this web-based portal offers a secure method to submit confidential information, provides validation of filings to ensure they are complete prior to submission, and enables users to create new filings using data from the previous year’s filing. It also allows filers to create the filings and associated schedules, route it to their actuary for the necessary actuarial certification and electronically submit the validated filing to PBGC. Use of the e-Filing Portal is mandatory for companies that must file. Each filing contains information from five categories: (1) Schedule G – General Information, (2) Schedule FG – Filing Gateway, (3) Schedule I – Identifying Information, (4) Schedule F – Financial Information, (5) Schedule P – Plan Actuarial Information. The application has been updated to reflect changes required by the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and the amendments to PBGC 4010 regulation.

In December 2015, Practitioners were provided enhanced capabilities to help file 4043 reportable events for Single-Employer Plans (per Section 4043 of ERISA requiring notification to PBGC of the occurrence of certain events that may signal problems with a pension plan or business) and Multiemployer Plan notices (per 29 CFR Parts 4281, 4245, and 4041A), electronically via the one consolidated website. For more information regarding e-Filing Portal filing requirements, please visit the following site: https://www.pbgc.gov/prac/reporting-and-disclosure

It is anticipated that in 2025, practitioners initiating standard terminations or part of the termination process file forms Form 500, Form 501, and MP100 using the e-Filing portal. Additionally, to meet Executive Order requirements for multifactor authentication, the CLMS e-Filing portal interfaces with Login.gov to provide secure, multifactor authentication for external users.

The e-Filing Portal extended functionality includes:

· 4010 electronic filing along with supporting document attachments

· 4043 electronic filing along with supporting document attachments

· Multiemployer electronic notice filing along with supporting document attachments including applications for special financial assistance

· STCD form 500, Form 501, and MP100 (anticipated 2025)

Major features of the application include the ability to:

· Offer a secure website for submitting confidential information

· Review the filing and generate a list of omissions and inconsistencies prior to submission to ensure that a filing is complete

· Enable filers to create a new filing using data from a filing submitted for a prior year

· Enable filers to view documents after they are attached to the filing

· Walk the filer through various web panels, prompting the filer to answer questions and enter required information. The application identifies whether a question needs to be answered based on the answers to previous questions and skips any unnecessary questions.

· Useful features include:

· Save, print and edit information on partially or completed filings at any time.

· View form - To create a form filled out with whatever information has been entered into the system

· Validate - To generate a list of errors, omitted information, inconsistencies, etc. to ensure a filing is complete and consistent before submission

· Reassign filing - To allow a filing coordinator to reassign a filing to someone else

· Assign an actuary - To allow an actuary direct access to Schedule P (Plan Actuarial Information) for a particular plan or plans

· Amend filing - To allow filers to amend a previously submitted filing or to attach files to an already submitted filing (for example, if the valuation report is not available at the time the filing was submitted)

· Manage account” feature — To allow filers to update personal information (name, address, title, etc.) or to change the secret question and answer needed for forgotten user IDs or passwords

System Technology Stack

CLMS (formerly RMEW) requires skilled, technical services to resolve production issues, provide subject-matter expertise, and ensure that the CLMS system remains operational and effective in supporting ONR and OGC business processes.

The CLMS Support team shall be familiar with the following technologies that make up the system.

Microsoft Visio Professional

Documenting current business processes Modeling Entity Relationship Diagrams Designing Business Process Flows

· from TeamConnect to Dynamics and

· from LEW to Dynamics

CLMS System Components e-Filing Portal Networking Architecture (using Login.Gov for authentication) Scope of Services

The scope of services include end-to-end Information Technology (IT) systems engineering and technical support services (i.e., enhancements, operations, maintenance, and modernization) for PBGC’s current Risk Management Early Warning Legal Matter Management (RMEW) and additional systems added to the RMEW inventory or developed to replace RMEW IT systems supporting the business areas. Examples of the types of services to be provided are listed below:

Project Management

The contractor will conduct project management activities to actively plan and manage ongoing projects. The contractor will:

· Develop project management plans and project baselines for identified projects to include releases or any activity where resources are deployed to make changes to or support the RMEW systems.

· Conduct scope management to ensure project scope is baselined and changes to scope are managed through the project lifecycle. Establish and follow procedures for release scope management and change control, including an impact assessment.

· Conduct schedule management to include establishing a resource-loaded and baselined schedule in PBGC’s approved project management system (currently Microsoft Project, a.k.a. P3M).

· Conduct cost management to ensure baselined costs are maintained and managed throughout the project lifecycle to include reporting on burn rates and associated cost measures.

· Conduct earned-value-management to identify earned value metrics and status for projects to including Schedule Performance Indicators (SPI) and Cost Performance Indicators (CPI) metrics.

· Maintain relationship and partnership with all integrated system leadership for systems both internal and external to PBGC.

· Support and facilitate PBGC IT change management process for active releases.

· Comply with all PBGC change and release management processes and represent RMEW at the Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings to present Requests for Changes (RFCs).

· Provide updates to the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) and RMEW Integrated Product Team (IPT)s on upcoming changes that may impact RMEW systems.

· Support release planning efforts to include prioritization and categorization of release items.

· Conduct activities to coordinate and/or de-conflict system releases with other integrated systems.

· Associate release items with a given release.

· Utilize PBGC’s approved release and change management tracking tools, currently Service Now and Azure Dev Ops.

· Establishing baselines

· Formal methods of initiating changes to the configuration baseline

· Standards and procedures to ensure current configuration documentation is current and accurate.

· Assistance with software reviews to ensure that newly developed software conforms to approved functional and physical specifications.

· Procedures to assess proposed changes on the operation of the systems.

· Procedures to implement approved hardware and software modifications and technology upgrades.

· Identity of all software, hardware, and documentation components of an automated information system

· Procedures for storing, accessing, and releasing newly developed software releases.

· Develop and maintain system configuration and code in accordance with Configuration management plan.

· Ensure development activities are conducted in the development environments and code is promoted through Azure Repos and the CICD for software change control within the enterprise-wide IT environment or the current PBGC-approved code repository. The contractor will conduct configuration management activities using this tool and/or other PBGC approved configuration management tools as identified.

· Establish configuration management baseline for new systems and maintain configuration management baseline for existing systems.

· Ensure that all configuration management policies are followed so that configuration of RMEW systems and all their environments are accurately reflected in their documentation and code libraries and tools supporting RMEW systems.

· Establish risk management plan based on PBGC Risk Management Policy.

· Identify and track risks that may impact RMEW systems and identify mitigation strategies.

· Identify and track issues and work to resolve to ensure system operations and release remain on-schedule.

Provide regular status and ad hoc reporting to COR, IPT, executive sponsors for all contractor activities.

· Respond to and resolve technical and operational issues encountered by users interacting with the system. This includes conducting incident and problem management such as:

· Research, analysis, and resolution of system technical issues

· Problem ticket and system enhancement tracking

· Responding to requests to resolve user, eFiling Portal filer request or issues.

Track and record incident and problem tickets in Service Now and Azure Boards. The Contractor will track and resolve software problems related to the RMEW systems. Reports of system problems are to be tracked using Azure Dev Ops and the status updated and reported until the problem report is closed. Weekly status reports for progress made on open Production tickets are to be delivered to the PBGC COR. For Problem Reports that require code changes, those will become Product Backlog Items (PBI) and will be discussed and prioritized for the appropriate release.

· Review and analyze RMEW application processing problems, including error messages, and provide for timely correction.

· Coordinate with Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) vendors (i.e., Microsoft, Kofax, etc.)) for system issue and problem resolution.

· Coordination with cloud or managed service providers (e.g., Microsoft Azure) for issue resolution.

· Provide pro-active system monitoring to identify system faults prior to impacts to end-users.

· Monitor web and system statistics in coordination with web and system administration teams.

· Respond to user requests regarding system usage or issues.

· Perform root cause analysis of system issues and open PBIss as appropriate to address root causes.

· Provide support to system administrators in regard to complex system function either through support of their duties or responding to tickets as Tier 2 support.

· Provide assistance to the PBGC help desk (Tier 1 Support), PBGC Infrastructure Database Administrator (DBA)s and System Administrator (SA)s, and users in understanding system functionality, technical components, or resolution of system issues.

· Provide pro-active monitoring of system status and performance through the use of performance monitoring tools.

· Minimally ensure that “end-to-end” testing is completed once per year validating that RMEW systems are able to perform under peak volume.

· Provide a system status dashboard to describe the condition of the system’s stability, availability, and operational conditions over time.

· Establish a system sustainability roadmap that identifies the technical components of all RMEW systems, the versions of those components and then maps those technology components to vendor roadmaps to ensure PBGC minimizes technical obsolescence and maintains supportabilities for all systems.

· Conduct development, testing and implementation of maintenance release items (patching, defect/bug fixes, vendor-supported version upgrades and other maintenance changes).

· Conduct development, testing and implementation of emergency release items to restore production functionality or resolve critical system defect.

· Use development activities as defined in Section 2.2 above as may be tailored given the size and nature of the maintenance/emergency release.

· Conduct analysis, testing and implementation support for COTS configuration changes.

· Maintain and update the software applications to keep current with required operating system or changes to web services consumed. As part of this process, the Contractor will:

· Develop a patch management strategy in order to assess, propose, and keep the COTS current (for COTS functional patches) and to support PBGC’s periodic rollout of Security and Operating System (OS) patching, and

· Implement version control and release management procedures integrated with the overall configuration management approach. Before implementation of a bug-fix or patch, the Contractor will assess the impact of any hardware and software upgrades to system infrastructure, performance, security, and version compatibility, and will test all new software releases.

· Support the deployment of the patch or new release. PBGC staff will perform the roll-out of system upgrades or enhancements in all PBGC hosted environments.