Q. I’m a federal civilian FERS employee. I’m 54 years old and will be 55 in March. Now that I’m almost at the 30-year mark and with my minimum retirement age around the corner, I recently sat down with my retirement adviser to figure out my annuity computation numbers for retirement. My service computation date is Jan. 28, 1984. While there, I found out that I was on a not-to-exceed appointment until June 10, 1984. I filled out a request for civilian deposit/redeposit application. I found out that I had owed $48 during that time and now I owe $287 with the interest. Since I will have the 30 years this month, and by June it will be 30 years at a permanent civilian position, what would be the advantage to paying that off? If I don’t get that paid, what is the penalty when I retire either in March 2015 or in an event of an early-out?
A. If you don’t make that deposit, the time won’t be included when determining your total years of service or used in the computation of your annuity. You’ll need to do the math to see if making a deposit would be worth the cost.
