AMS wins contract to track federal employees' nest eggs

American Management Systems Inc. last week announced an estimated $30 million contract to develop and install a record-keeping system that will track the more than $47 billion that federal employees have invested in the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).

The system will help manage TSP a retirement savings plan for federal employees similar to the 401(k) plan offered in the private sector. As of February 2.3 million federal employees including postal workers had invested in TSP.

Thomas J. Trabucco a spokesman for the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board which manages the plan said the AMS pact is among the largest computer-related contracts the organization has let.

Thrifty Choice

The Thrift Investment Board tapped AMS in March to negotiate the contract selecting the company out of a field of five bidders which the investment board declined to identify. The contract was signed late last month.

AMS will build a record-keeping system that will replace the Thrift Investment Board's current IBM Corp. mainframe-based system.

Harry Barschdorf vice president of AMS' Federal Financial Management and Administration practice said some elements of the new system are likely to remain mainframe-based while other components will be installed in a client/server environment.

AMS plans to use two software packages to provide the core record-keeping functions: AMS' Federal Financial System and SunGard Employee Benefits Systems' OmniPlus.

AMS also will create a customer care application that will integrate core record-keeping functions with an integrated voice response system. AMS expects to develop a World Wide Web-based application that will allow TSP participants to review their investments and conduct transactions via the Internet.