Backlogs and delays continue to plague the federal government's pension system. Retirees wait an average of five months to receive their first full pension check -- but delays of a year or more are common. The Office of Personnel Management says it has plan to hire more people to process a backlog of 64,000 paper records, but it could take 18 months or more to solve the problem.

That's not good enough for Senator Warner. Virginia is home to a lot of federal retirees, and our office hears from dozens of them each day looking for help to navigate the inefficient and slow OPM process so they can begin receiving the full monthly pensions they've earned – and get on with their lives.

At a hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Senator Warner questioned why OPM is still using paper records. He challenged the agency to examine the technology that's used effectively by other government agencies and private companies, and he wants monthly reports on their progress in tackling the backlog, and he wants a list of the agencies that are the worst at getting retirement paperwork to OPM in the first place.

"The Virginia Democrat is not a member of the subcommittee, but he asked to participate in the hearing because his office has been hit with a load of complaints from some of the 130,000 federal retirees that he said live in the state," the Washington Post reported this morning. 'You’ve got some pretty upset folks' in Virginia, Warner told the OPM director. The senator mentioned a case that his staff was working on before the hearing began, in which a federal retiree waited 17 months to get the full annuity due. Of the plan to get things right in 18 months, Warner said: 'I just don’t think that’s acceptable. That should not be the level of service we expect from our government.'”

Virginia is home to 130,000 federal retirees. Another 120,000 live in Maryland, and about 35,000 reside in the District.