The Senate Appropriations Committee has restored funding to the Office of Personnel Management’s Retirement Systems Modernization (RSM) program.

It added $26.7 million for the program to the Transportation, Treasury, the Judiciary, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies appropriations bill for fiscal 2007.

The total amount appropriated to OPM for the coming fiscal year was $19.8 billion.

“This represents significant progress,” said OPM Director Linda Springer, in a press release. “We urge the House to follow the leadership of Sens. Thad Cochran, Robert Byrd, Christopher Bond and Patty Murray so that current and future federal employees will enjoy a smooth transition from their jobs to their golden years.”

OPM has done extensive work with RSM, including awarding contracts for two of the three major components of the modernization process. The first was to Hewitt Associates for RSM’s Defined Benefits Technology Solution, which creates an online service to manage finances and retirement benefits. The second contract, awarded to Accenture, is to establish a business transition model. The third, which will convert all 144,000 file drawers of paper data to electronic data, will be awarded early next month.

OPM is also looking to hire a project manager to oversee the transition.

-- David Hubler contributed to this report.