Q. I plan to retire in June 2015, at which time I’ll be age 62 and have 38 years of government service. I was covered by CSRS for the first 21 years and switched to FERS in 1998. I will have both CSRS and FERS components to my pension. The FERS portion is calculated at 1 percent per year on the high-3 salary, with an additional 0.1 percent per year for those age 62 with 20 years of service. I already have well over 20 years of service, but only 17 years will be in the FERS portion. Will the FERS portion of my pension be calculated at 1 percent because I’ll have only 17 years in FERS (for a total of 17 percent)? Or will the FERS portion be calculated at 1.1 percent for the 17 years in FERS because I have over 20 years of federal service (for a total of 18.7 percent)?
A. Because you will be retiring at age 62 and have at least 20 years of service (CSRS and FERS combined), the FERS component of your annuity will be computed using the higher .011 multiplier.
