Q. I’m a CSRS Offset employee. Is it better to retire on the last day of the month, or on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd?
A. You’ve asked a question that only you can answer after you’ve considered all of the possibilities. I can start you off with what I know. If you retire on the last day of a month, you’ll be on the annuity roll in the following month. If you retire on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd day of a month, you’ll still be on the annuity roll in that month; however, your first month’s annuity will be 1/30th, 1/15th or 1/10th less because you weren’t on the annuity roll for a full 30 days.
Now here are a few things you need to consider on your way to an answer: If you don’t retire at the conclusion of a pay period, you won’t get credit for any annual and sick leave you would have earned had you stayed to the end of that period. And if you are thinking of retiring at the end of a year, you need to check to see when the old leave year ends. If you retire after that point and have more than 240 hours of annual leave, any leave you have above that carryover amount will be lost.
