BENEFEDS Judgment Deficit

So yesterday I got two letters from BENEFEDS (the company that administers the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Programs, also known as FEDVIP). Each letter explained that I had an "outstanding balance" on my insurance programs (I have both Dental and Vision) and that my monthly annuity would be adjusted to cover the deficit.

Reasonable enough, until you learn that one balance was 2 cents and the other was 7 cents!

Now it cost BENEFEDS something to print and mail each of those letters, and it cost the Office of Personnel and Management something to send me two letters explaining that my annuity would be adjusted downward by 9 cents. (They will send me two more next month giving me the good news that my annuity has skyrocketed 9 cents.)

Surely, it would make more sense for someone in there simply to write off the amount (or wait until an account was out of balance by more than the cost of collecting it).

Or do you think auditors would identify such reasonableness as inadequately circumspect?