Q. My spouse is covered under my FEHB family plan. We are both covered by Medicare Part A. When I retire, I do not plan to add Medicare Part B to my Medicare Part A. Can husband elect to take Medicare Part C and still be eligible to remain on my FEHB family plan? Also, if I changed to a FEHB self-only plan after he enrolls in Medicare Part C, could I include him later in an FEHB family plan or would he lose his eligibility forever? A. Your husband would continue to be covered by the self and family…
Monthly Archives: August, 2012
Q. I am a new employee and have both service computation date (April 29, 2011) and date of hire (May 7, 2012). When calculating step increases (going from 7 to 8, for example) or vacation accrual (going from four to six hours per pay period) or similar, which date do I use for the calculations? For example, it’s three years between a step 7 and 8, so for me, will that happen April 29, 2014, or May 7, 2015? I don’t know the standard time period before I go from four to six hours’ sick accrual, but is that based…
Q. I am 63 and a FERS employee, and I plan to retire this summer, but I want to reach 20 years of service to get 22 percent of my high-3 salary for my pension. I have 19 years and eight months of service and 1,600 hours of sick leave. My calculations indicate my sick leave will add four months to my service, so that I would have 20 years of service and could receive the higher multiplier (1.1 percent versus 1 percent). I have found regulations that indicate you cannot use sick leave for retirement eligibility, but I cannot find anything that…
Q. Suppose a person does 23 years of active duty (enlisted) regular Army service and then gets a federal job under FERS. If he retires after 10 years, can he still receive his military retirement pay, military disability check, Social Security and federal retirement checks? A. Yes. However, because he’d be retiring under the MRA+10 provision (minimum retirement age with at least 10 and no more that 29 years of service), his FERS annuity would be reduced by 5 percent for every year he is younger than 62. He could, of course, retire and postpone the receipt of his annuity until…
Q. I am going to retire when I am 62, in roughly 2½ years. I will be receiving my FERS retirement, a small retirement from the state of North Carolina that is similar to FERS and my TSP annuity. Will any of these payments affect my Social Security benefit, which I plan on applying for at 62? A. None of the other benefits will affect your FERS annuity or Social Security benefit unless the North Carolina benefit came from a retirement system where you didn’t pay Social Security taxes. If it did, and you had fewer than 30 years of substantial…
Q. I am a CSRS employee and am planning to retire at the end of this year (2012). I wanted to bank my annual leave and have it paid out in 2013. Is this possible? Which is the better date: Dec. 29 or Jan. 2, 2013? A. If you retire on either date, you won’t receive your lump-sum annual leave payment until 2013. However, it’s hard to understand why you would even consider retiring Jan. 3. Dec. 29 is the end of a pay period; if you retired then, you’d receive credit for any annual and sick leave you’d accrued…
Q. I am a CSRS employee, and my husband is a FERS employee. My husband has been covered under my FEHB policy for the past 27 years. We are approaching retirement and do not wish to elect survivor benefits. After retirement, in the event of my death, will my husband be eligible to continue FEHB coverage? If I must elect a survivor benefit for him to continue coverage upon my death, what is the least amount I can elect? A. You must elect a full survivor annuity for him unless he agrees to a lesser amount or none at all. If you both agree to no survivor…
Q. I have seven years’ Postal Service time, plus two years’ military, which I bought back. I turn 65 this year. Gathering from OPM guidelines, I am not eligible for a voluntary early retirement because I lack the years, correct? Or, might they want to get rid of those of us who are older than 62, even though we lack 25 years? A. To accept an offer of voluntary early retirement, you’d have to be either age 50 with 20 years of service or any age with 25, but there are other options for retiring on an immediate annuity. You could retire…
Q. When I was employed by the post office, I got my veterans preference points. Now I receive 40 percent disability from VA. Is there any benefit in notifying my personnel office of this? A. It makes sense to have that information in your official personnel file; however, it won’t affect your benefits.
Q. I’m a FERS employee who recently resigned my commission in the Navy Reserve. I have combined active duty and reserve time. After I received my Statement of Service, I submitted that and my DD 214 to Defense Finance and Accounting Services for military buyback consideration. If I buy back my military time, I’ll have 20 years combined. What happens to that military retirement if I don’t convert that time? Can I request that military retirement amount be transferred into my TSP or a private 401(k) account? If I don’t convert that military retirement balance, what happens to it? A.…