Q. A friend has run into some hard times, and I am trying to help him. He says he has worked here as a civil service employee for some time (I can get that info).
When he was hired, he was put into CSRS but was supposed to be in FERS. When that was discovered, he was put into CSRS offset. He says while he was looking at a statement of his retirement money, he noticed a difference of some $40,000 from one of his other statements. He is a WG-10 step 5.
Whom could we talk with to get answers? HR has no answers.
A. I suspect the difference is caused by his having been moved to CSRS offset. While a regular CSRS employee has 7 percent of his basic pay deducted to pay for his retirement benefit, a CSRS offset employee has only 0.8 percent deducted. The remaining 6.2 percent goes to Social Security. After he was placed in CSRS offset, the money that should have gone to Social Security would have been sent there through an interfund transfer. That would have reduced the amount of his retirement contributions. He should talk to someone in his personnel office to see if my suspicion is correct.
