Q. Will I lose my federal years of service for retirement if I get out of the military after nine years and continue my education, then decide to join the U.S. Marshals or a federal agency after a three-year break. Does my 20 years of service have to be continuous? A. You would only be able to get credit for your period of active-duty service if you made a deposit to the civilian retirement fund after being hired. Even then, those years would not qualify as covered service under the enhanced benefit provision for law enforcement officers. To retire under…
Browsing: Special category employee retirement
Q. I retired from the U.S Forest Service on 7/03/05 at age 52 under CSRS Firefighter retirement. I retired out of a secondary firefighter position that I went into from a primary firefighter position with no break in service. If I am rehired by the U.S Forest Service now, after 4.5 years retired, into a secondary firefighter position, will I still have to take mandatory retirement at age 57 or will the break in service mean that no firefighter retirement will be in effect for any “supplemental” or separate annuity I may acquire? Basically, in this scenario, can I work…
Q: I am a federal law enforcement officer covered by FERS with more than 20 years of service under FERS, but I have not reached the minimum retirement age of 50. Due to plans to transfer me, I must either separate myself from my family, find another job or retire early. My question concerns the viability of the early retirement option. If I retire at 47 with more than 20 years as a federal LEO, what happens? Do my benefits get deferred and, if so, to when? Is there also a financial penalty and, if so, how much? A: You…
Q: As a federal firefighter retiring under FRES at the mandatory age of 57, can I continue working in another agency? For instant, transferring into fire prevention, which does not apply to the mandatory retirement or to another federal agency outside of the federal fire service. If so, would I still receive the firefighter retirement computation? A: Once you have 20 years of covered service, you have locked in your eligibility to retire under the more generous computation formula for firefighters. You can continue working where you are in any job or work for another federal agency without affecting that…
Q: I am hoping to retire with 20 years as a 6c law enforcement officer. I have approximately 10 additional years of federal service (noncovered). Will the annuity for these noncovered 10 years be computed at a 2 percent rate? Will the rate be the high-3 of those 10 years (noncovered) or the high-3 of the covered service? A: If you have 20 years of covered service as a law enforcement officer, the special, more generous annuity computation will be used to compute that part of your annuity (0.025 x your high-3 x 20 years). Any years of service over 20, whether covered or not, will…
Q: I am a firefighter under the Federal Employees Retirement System holding a secondary position with a service computation date of 2003. I retired from the Air Force after 20 years of military service. I have a number of questions. Would it be prudent for me to buy back my military time, which would allow me to retire early from civil service? If I do buy back my military time and retire, would I lose my military retirement check? Part of my retirement is a 40 percent service-connected disability from the Veterans Affairs Department. The other half is from the…
Q: As a federal firefighter covered under the Federal Employees Retirement System, I have to retire at age 57. I have been told that that under FERS, we get a Social Security supplement and as such we are limited in what we can earn after retirement. Is this true? I know that when one retires and draws Social Security, one is limited to $14,160 per year in earnings from other sources. Is this the case when we are forced to retire at 57? A: Yes, it is. In 2010, if you were to earn more than $14,160 from wages or…
Q: I have six years of military service before I entered government service, and I have six years under FERS. I am 6C law enforcement with cover of 1.7 percent a year. Can I retire with 20 years of service, combining all those years, and defer my retirement without reaching my MRA? Can I retire with 20 years of service, combining all those years, and defer my retirement without reaching my MRA? Can I take a deferred retirement after 20 years plus a day and start collecting when I am 60 without been penalized 5 percent for every year that…
Q: I am a federal firefighter who works a 72-hour workweek. This is the required hours that I work. As a GS-8, Step 9, I make $83,658 per year. However, my “High Three” would be based off of the firefighter base pay of $73,906. I know that the difference is overtime. However, the overtime is part of the required hours for a firefighter’s tour of duty. My question is, why is our retirement not based on the higher pay? Seeing that this is what we are really paid and not the so-called base pay of 73,906. If a federal employee…
Q: I’m 48 years old, with prior active-duty military service of six years, as well as 7.5 years of prior FLES Federal Employees Retirement System service. I have been out of the federal workforce for several years and have a recent offer to return to the federal government. The personnel specialist at the VA facility, where the job offer has been extended, could not tell me if my prior 7.5 years of federal LE retirement service would be credited at the special LE calculation rate (1.7%) per year (x high 3) in the event of my future retirement from said…