Author Reg Jones

Reg Jones was head of retirement and insurance policy at the Office of Personnel Management. Email your retirement-related questions to fedexperts@federaltimes.com.

Q. I’m a FERS employee who is getting ready to retire. I plan to elect a full survivor benefit annuity for my wife. Will it be increased by COLAs or change with age? A. If you elect a full survivor benefit, your basic annuity will be permanently reduced by 10 percent. If you die, your widow will receive a survivor annuity that equals 50 percent of your unreduced annuity; in other words, the annuity you would have received before you made the survivor election. That survivor annuity will be increased by any cost-of-living adjustments that were made to retiree annuities following your…

Q. My father retired from the federal government and elected a survivor benefit for my mother. She recently passed away. He was told by someone in the Office of Personnel Management that he couldn’t name me to receive that a survivor benefit. Is this right? A. Yes, it is. Only a spouse (or a former spouse under a court order) can receive a survivor benefit. When your mother passed away, he should have informed the Office of Personnel Management. At that point, the reduction in his annuity to provide for a survivor benefit would have been eliminated and his annuity…

Q. I’m a federal employee who was in leave-without-pay status during the three years I was on active duty. I’ll be retiring soon. If I make a deposit for that time, can I use my higher military base pay to calculate my high-3 when I retire? A. No. By law your high-3 is based solely on your highest three consecutive years of civilian basic pay.

Q. If I retire on Dec. 31, 2019, and start drawing Social Security on Jan. 1, 2020, would there be an offset if the amount of the final annual leave payout exceeded the Social Security earnings limit for 2020? A. Probably not. That’s because of the Social Security Administration’s “first-year rule,” which applies to earnings for one year, usually the first year of retirement. It allows SSA to pay a full Social Security benefit for any whole month in which it considers you to be retired and when your earnings from wages or self employment are less than the annual…

Q. I am a federal employee who is covered by Tricare. Is it true that I can enroll in the FEHB program during the next Open Season and then put it on “hold” when I retire, I can activate it again if I need it? A. Yes, it’s true. If you are enrolled in the FEHB program when you retire, you can suspend that coverage, then reactive it if you ever lose coverage under Tricare.

Q. If I get married after I retire and elect a survivor annuity for my husband, I understand that I would need to pay the difference of what I would have paid had we been married at retirement plus 6 percent interest. For example, if I retired in January and married in June, if I understand this correctly, I need to wait 9 months for it to be effective so 9 plus 5 (months I would be married) would equal 14 months. If, for example, the difference in the annuity would be $50, I would owe $50×14 = $700 plus…

Q. I’m a CSRS employee who will be retiring on Dec. 31. Over the years I worked odd jobs and earned 32 Social Security credits. When I retire I’ll be paid for a lot of unused annual leave. Can that time be used to buy additional Social Security credits? A. Your paid annual leave cannot be used to get Social Security credits. Only earnings from wages or self-employment that are subject to Social Security taxes can secure those credits.

Q. Is there a limit on how many hours of comp time you can get paid for when you retire? Does the balance of annual leave have any effect on your comp time balance? A. Compensatory time must be used within 26 pay periods. If you retire and have any compensatory time remaining, it will be paid at the hourly overtime rate in effect when you earned it.

Q. I have over 12 years of active duty service in the Army. I have accepted a job with a federal agency. I’ve been told that I can “buy back” my active duty time. How do I go about doing that? A. Yes, you can make a deposit for your active duty service and get credit for that time in determining your length of civilian service and have it used in your civilian annuity computation when you retire from the government. If you complete that deposit within two years after you come on board, you won’t be charged any interest on…

1 3 4 5 6 7 853