Q: Can you confirm that a FERS employee who retires from air traffic control, law enforcement, or fire fighting at their minimum retirement age with 30 years of service in the covered position will have their retirement calculated with all (30 years at 1.7 percent) as opposed to (20 years at 1.7 percent and 10 years at 1 percent)? In addition, lets assume only 15 years in the covered position and 15 years in a non-covered position that the calculation will be (15 years at 1.7 percent) and (15 years at 1 percent)? Lots of people believe that they need at least 20 years in a covered position or none of those years will be counted at 1.7 percent. I believe that is true if they retire without having 30 years of government service, but anyone that retires under the MRA+30 option gets all covered service at 1.7 percent as long as they have at least five years of covered time. Is that a correct interpretation of the law?
A: This special provision above only applies to air traffic controllers. The basis for it is 5 USC 8412(a). Check with your personnel office to be sure that that provision applies to you.
5 Comments
The 1.7 percent will only be for ATC good time, not all time. If you do 30 or more years ATC only, it will be 1.7 for all years. Any other government time will be 1 percent. Some ATC may not be able to reach the required time of 30 years plus mimimum MRA because (ATC maximum retirement age 56) they were born after 1964. The FERS MRA increases past age 56 for those individuals.
NATHANIEL I HAVE A QUESTION IF I EXCEPT A MSS 3 JOB WHICH TAKES ME OUT OF THE FORCED 56YR OLD RETIREMENT TO I STILL GET MY 1.7 WHEN I RETIRE AT 59
If you are a law enforcement officer, firefighter or air traffic controller and have at least 20 years of covered service, you can take a non-covered job and, when you retire, have the enhanced formula used to compute 20 years of your service and the rest computed at the standard rate.
I am eligable for MRA + 30.. iF i TAKE A STAFF JOB AND CONTINUE TO WORK PAST 56 WILL i STILL GET 1.7 FOR ALL GOOD TIME AND 1 % FOR YEARS AFTER OR WILL IT BE CALCULATED LIKE 20 x 1.7 THEN 1% FOR ALL YEARS AFTER EVEN THOUGH i HAVE 30 GOOD YEARS.
31 YRS x 1.7 = 52.7 %
(20 YRS x 1.7 = 34%) + (11 YRS @ 1% = 11%) TOTAL 45% i WOULD HAVE TO WORK 8 MORE YEARS JUST TO GET TO 53% TOTAL
wHAT AM i MISSING?
Are you talking about retiring and then returning to work for the government or simply continuing to work until you are age 60 or older?