Q. 1. I am a FERS employee with seven years service with the VA (and three years bought back from active duty 1973-1976) totaling 10 years of federal government time. I started at the VA in Tampa on Feb. 21, 2006, at age 54. I was born on Feb. 6, 1952. Is my calculated retirement date Feb. 21, 2003? I had worked six months with the VA until the Army activated me from Aug. 29, 2006, to Aug. 28, 2007. I returned to the VA for six to seven months until March 30, 2008, when I was activated again with the Army for three years with no break in military service until I officially retired from Army Reserve on March 22, 2011. All of my active-duty time has been bought back while on military leave without pay; all SF-50s were coded correctly. I am now 61 and was looking to leave the federal government for a civilian job.
HR is telling me I do not qualify for MRA+10 because I have not worked a “total of five years with the VA in a ‘civilian’ status.” Is this correct? I thought that buying back the time counted toward retirement.
I am being told by HR that I need to wait until February 2015 to officially retire and begin drawing on my retirement. If I chose to leave the VA before then, I am being told that I would not be eligible for retirement pay but rather be paid a “lump sum payout or annuity”? Is this correct? What does the annuity look like? Is it only what I have contributed over the past seven years? Does it include what the federal government provides in the matching 5 percent?
2. How can I see what is in my retirement bucket? The VA does not have the EBIS system to keep eyes on retirement monies, etc.
A. Your HR is mistaken. Tell it to go to www.opm.gov/retirement-services/publications-forms/csrsfers-handbook/c022.pdf and scroll to Section 22A6.1-2, which applies equally to CSRS and FERS employees.
