Q. I am a FERS employee with 25 years of service (including military service) and 54 years old. I was told that our agency may be offering a buyout and wanted to know if I would be eligible to apply for it. I was going to apply for early retirement because of the health and age of my parents, but was told to hold off applying for it because of the rumored buyout.
A. If you are offered a buyout, you are free to accept it and take early retirement. If you aren’t offered a buyout, but instead only offered an opportunity to retire early, you could do that. If you aren’t offered either, you’re stuck.
