Q. I have been having trouble finding an answer to this question: I served four years on active duty (1987-1991) and was hired at the Postal Service in 1995. In 2000 I joined the Marine reserves and plan on retiring from both the reserves and the Postal Service. The post office says I can buy back those four years and apply it to my postal retirement and it not affect my reserve retirement. My question is: Can I use it for both? I have found nothing in writing that says I cannot do this and the Postal Service says I…
Monthly Archives: September, 2010
Q. My brother in law, who was a senior arbitrator with the IRS, advises my wife that I should arrange for health plan coverage into retirement, which is about six years from now, God willing. He is in the CSRS program and I am in the FERS. He tells my wife, his sister, that I have to apply for payroll deductions for three years to be eligible for “survivorship” forever with no premium payments. Unfortunately, I find no such language when reviewing our plan, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, in Conn. I do find language referring to a TCC for…
Q. I am currently a 29+ year federal employee with the Department of Transportation who worked for the Department of the Navy, Military Sealift Command in Washington, D.C., from May 1980 until November 1984. I then left the government for 14 months and returned to a different agency within the Department of the Navy in January 1986. I was under the CSRS during the 4 1/2 years I worked for Military Sealift Command. Because I had less than five years under CSRS, and had a break in service over one year, I requested and received a refund of excess CSRS…
Q. I took the USPS retirement buyout last October. When will we receive the final payment ($5,000)? A. That’s a question that can only be answered by your former agency.
Q. I am a FERS participant and my wife is CSRS. Are survivor benefits reduced for either participant because of their earned pension, as is done with GPO? Also, my understanding is my Social Security survivor benefits to my CSRS wife would be reduced/eliminated because of the GPO. For example, if her CSRS pension is $40,000/year, and my Social Security survivor benefit is $12,000/year, there would be no Social Security survivor benefits. A. Either of you would be entitled to an unreduced survivor annuity in addition to your own earned annuity. Because your wife is covered by CSRS, a retirement…
Q. I’ve read in your recent column “Laid-off workers should….” about annuities. I’m 65 years old and 22 years of service in federal government under FERS systems. In your write-up, you say, “The FERS annuity is 1 percent of your high three, multiplied by your years and full months of service.” Can you clarify full months of service? A. For annuity calculation purposes, a month is considered to be 30 days long. Any days or hours that don’t add up to a full month are dropped. To see how that works, go to http://opm.gov/pubs/handbook/C050.pdf and scroll down to Section 50A2.1-2B.
Q. Is it true that in 2012 retirees will not be able to receive Blue Cross federal coverage? A. No
Q. In your article of 9/21/10, you stated: “Your annuity will be based on you highest three consecutive years of average basic pay. Basic pay is the amount of your salary from which retirement deductions are taken.” OPM states, “Unlike COLA payments, locality pay is included in calculating your “high 3″ average salary.” Can you please clarify? A. Locality pay is considered to be a part of basic pay for annuity calculations purposes.
Q. There is word from co-workers attending current CSRS/FERS retirement seminars that in the near future OPM will be implementing a high-5 calculation in annuity calculations. Will this effect all retiring workers when it becomes law or will older workers be grandfathered to the older high-3 calculation? A. OPM won’t be doing anything unless a law is passed that would require that a high-5 be used instead of a high-3. To date, only a few members of Congress have suggested such a change. If it were to become law, past experience says that it would only apply to those retiring after a…
Q. We are getting feedback from fellow retiring co-workers that there is now an option passed by OPM approximately a year ago to either use unused sick leave for added annuity calculations or cash unused sick leave in for a cash buyout the same as a buyout for unused annual leave.Any truth to this? A. While unused sick leave can be added to actual service after an employee qualifies for retirement and used in the computation of his annuity, it has no cash value. Note: For the present, FERS employees only get credit for one-half of their unused sick leave.