Q: Can an offer be made and accepted on a federal position prior to an effective retirement date? A: There’s no prohibition against accepting another federal position prior to retiring from your current position, as long as the reporting date is after you retire. However, you need to consider the potential consequences of becoming a re-employed annuitant. For example, if you retired on an immediate unreduced annuity, the salary of your new position would be reduced by the amount of that annuity, unless you were being hired into one of those rare positions where you are allowed to keep both.…
Q: I may be transitioning to nonappropriated-funds employment. I would be keeping my Federal Employees Retirement System status. There is no provision for me to stay enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program while I am a NAF employee. When I retire (under FERS), can I re-enroll in FEHB and have the premiums deducted from my pension? This is a make-or-break issue for me. A: No, you won’t be able to re-enroll.
Q: I am covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System. I have six years of part-time service in and want to carry Federal Employee Health Benefits coverage for the last six years of federal service, which will give me a total of 12 years of federal employment. If I resign from federal employment after the 12 years, will I be able to pick up my FEHB coverage as well as collect my annuity at age 62? A: No, you won’t. No one who applies for a deferred annuity is eligible to re-enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program.
Q: I would like to retire at the end of 2011. When this time arrives, my annual pay over the previous four years should be as follows: 2008, $90,000; 2009, $93,000; 2010, $80,000; 2011, $106,000. I will have had a stateside job with locality pay in all of those years except 2010, which would have been an overseas federal job without locality pay (a job in South Korea). I am concerned about the $80,000 that I’ll be earning in 2010, which is substantially less than the other years shown. Will the retirement system use the $80,000 that I will earn…
Q: I understand that active-duty time counts, but do weekend drills and the two-weeks-a-year tour also count toward retirement? A: No, they don’t. You are already receiving credit for your two-week periods of active-duty training, which are treated for accounting purposes as if you were still on the job. Weekend drills are generally on your own time. If one were to fall on what would otherwise be a work day, it would be treated in the same way. Simply stated, you can’t get credit twice for the same period of time.
Q: I began working in the federal government in August 2008. I am currently buying back 13 years of military service: nine years in the Marine Corps and four years at the Naval Academy. I understand once I complete the military service buy-back I will have 13 years added to my creditable service date for retirement purposes. My leave service computation date currently reflects the nine years of Marine Corps service plus my 1.5 years as civilian employee. As a result, I am earning six hours of leave per pay period. I questioned my human resources department as to why…
Q: I work for the Air Force. One of our retired military members was told that if he waived his retired military pay to combine the military and the civilian service, he would lose his Tricare benefit. What exactly are people waiving when they waive retired military pay? A: He was misinformed. Waiving his military retired pay and making a deposit to the civilian retirement fund would allow him to get credit for his active-duty service in determining his eligibility to retire from his civilian job and in his annuity computation. It will have no affect on any military benefits…
Q: I am a federal employee with 10 years active-duty time that I have almost finished buying back. I am also in the National Guard and I have just been offered a full-time Active Guard reserve position. Since I will leave federal service to return to active duty (Guard), can I get the money back that I have contributed to buying back my active-duty time? A: You can get a refund of your military deposit only if you: 1) resign from the government before you are eligible to retire and 2) receive a refund of all your contributions to the…
Q: My husband worked for 13 years in the civil service and then left. He was a meat cutter WG-8 with the commissary system and that position was being phased out as well as the nearest bases to us being closed. He left the system in 1987 and applied at that time to receive his retirement contributions to use for retraining for another line of work. Since that time, he has worked as a tile contractor. Some years were good some were not. He will be 62 in a few months and went to the Social Security office to inquire…
Q: I recently read that the GPO/WEP repeal issue was tabled for 2010 and somehow attached to the health care bill. Do you have any current information on this? A: No action has been taken on that bill. And no, it didn’t get attached to the health care bill.