Q: During the late 1960s, I worked part-time as an intermittent for a federal agency while in college. After graduation, I have worked as a full-time federal employee and under CSRS with only one break in service for a few years during the early 1970s. My SCD for retirement purposes has in the past been calculated as if the part-time/intermittent work during the late 1960s was full time. Recently, I discovered that about a year ago someone associated with my agency, I don’t know who, recalculated my retirement SCD and reduced the amount of credit I received for the part-time work. As a consequence, my SCD was “moved” to about five months later than what it was previously. At this point, I have no record of how many hours I worked during my part-time employment, nor does it appear there is any record in my OPF. I have been unsuccessful in finding out from my agency Human Resources office how whoever recalculated the SCD came up with the number of hours that they credited for the part-time work. Based on law and regulation, how should my part-time work be credited for purposes of determining my retirement SCD?
A: Since your part-time service was correctly recalculated, the law changed for CSRS employees. Under Section 1903 of Public Law 111-84, you will now get full credit for the time and the annuity value for that period of service will be prorated. To see how that’s done, go to www.opm.gov/retire/pubs/handbook/C055.pdf and scroll down to the section of FERS computations. CSRS and FERS part-time service is now treated the same way.
