Thread: FERS hired between 1984 and 1987

Originally Posted by kb9nvh

During the 3 year offset you paid into CSRS some reduced amount so if they exclude those years from FERS then they would have to make it up with CSRS some how.
All I know is that my Service comp date is April of 1984 and they better count my years from there since I was paying in the entire time.

Originally Posted by shovelhead

so what did you get for t hose 3 years as a CSRS offset? do you get those years of service to calculate the pension? Its still unclear for me if I retire with 35 years of SERVICE, will they use 32X or 35X the high three avg and 1.1%?

I feel certain you will be given fers service credit those years as well as those years counting toward fers supplement and social security. It as if you were fers the whole time

Originally Posted by clester

I feel certain you will be given fers service credit those years as well as those years counting toward fers supplement and social security. It as if you were fers the whole time

I'm with Clester...without digging into it too deep, I went back and looked at my Agency's written "Estimate" for my retirement benefit, shortly before I submitted my retirement paperwork. It was pretty darn close to my final OPM number !

I started in 6/84...don't remember what kind of deductions, etc, were taken out of my paycheck back then, but my retirement calcs made no mention of CSRS offset, CSRS payback, etc etc. Military time buy-back, yes...which I had done years ago....everything was calculated as if I was FERS the whole time.

If you haven't done it already, I'd recommend you get your Agency HR to give you a written estimate of your "Retirement Benefit"...I think most Agencies have a procedure to request one, usually with some strings attached (like, you gotta be within 5 years of retiring, or only request 1 every 2 years, etc). It also may take a month or 2 to get it...HRs have been consolidated, and are way overworked !!!

Good luck !


Stoplight...

Yes, you will get credit for those years as if they were FERS. they will show on an estimate as CSRS Offset. FERS folks hired between 1984 and 1987 had no choice and had to fall under the FERS program. I started in April of 1984 and hav 3 yrs and a couple of months CSRS Offset. but the calculation for FERS includes all the time. Yes, I am going to retire the day after my 56 Birthday.

Aaaannnd yes again. I got picked up as career-conditional in mid-1986. My record shows one whopping month of CSRS-offset in 1986, but in reality that month will really be covered by FERS, as will all the rest of my time prior to 1987 when FERS officially started. rules are that you had to have 5 years of CSRS before 1984 to be covered by CSRS-offset between 1984 and 1987, otherwise all time during those years got rolled into FERS and counts under FERS. CSRS-offset people paid a small amount into CSRS but also paid into SS at the same time, during that 1984-1987 timeframe. the contributions to CSRS get rolled into FERS annuity in actuality.

I bought back 5 months of temp time that I accumulated prior to 1984, so that added to my time towards FERS retirement as well. I mainly bought it back (GS-2 and GS-4 time) because it added to my seniority in case of RIF, in addition to allowing me to retire that much sooner if I choose.

I joined late Sept 1986, so I am full FERS but do need credit for 3 months. It's all FERS. Less than 5 years until retirement. Will check it outs.

Originally Posted by DreamboatAnnie

I joined late Sept 1986, so I am full FERS but do need credit for 3 months. It's all FERS. Less than 5 years until retirement. Will check it outs.

You might want to crunch those numbers before you decide. The more time passes before buying back the time, the more it'll cost you to buy it back. they charge interest. OPM will tell you how much.

Originally Posted by alevin

You might want to crunch those numbers before you decide. The more time passes before buying back the time, the more it'll cost you to buy it back. they charge interest. OPM will tell you how much.

Im hearing you all say I'm covered for those 3 years, but everything I have read, or heard from HR people, who don't know much, is that I have a SCD and a Retirement (RCD) that aren't the same. and even the OPM calculator won't let me enter JUL 84 as my service entry date and very clearly posts a note that "there was no FERS prior to 1987...so you can't put any date between 84 and 87 in there" essentially.

Sorry to hear your HR people are messed up. whoever is assigned your retirement computation file when you decide to pull the plug, will have to go over every single SF-50 you ever got. Hardcopies should have been in your permanent personnel folder and been converted to electronic at some point. You should be able to look at your electronic records history also and see if there is something missing. Never throw away a hardcopy anything til you know its in the official file.

Whoever is assigned to handle your retirement paperwork will have to get all the discrepancies ironed out before you can officially be retired. I had a date discrepancy for awhile also, between SCD and RCD, but I decided to get it squared away before it got to crunch time, so I started rattling cages on that one last year and got HR to get it straightened out way ahead of time, to where the dates are now the same, as they should be. I assure all my time in 86 counts towards FERS retirement. no question in anyone's minds, including the system's. If your HR people are that unaware of the craziness during those transition years that they don't understand how it worked, I'd start looking for some outside help from a retired HR who's working as a consultant on those kinds of cases at this point. lot of corporate HR retirement expertise went through early retirement about 10 years ago in my agency due to national reorganization and downsizing.

What did the OPM person assigned to you say about it? When I went to use the web tools to determine mine it said I would need to call and have it calculated due to the unusual circumstance. Are you saying your opm person doesn't know what to do either?

Originally Posted by kb9nvh

What did the OPM person assigned to you say about it? When I went to use the web tools to determine mine it said I would need to call and have it calculated due to the unusual circumstance. Are you saying your opm person doesn't know what to do either?

No. OPM doesn't look at your records until your agency finalizes your retirement records, which isn't until after you submit retirement papers. sorry I wasn't clear. It's your own agency HR who keep track of your personnel records in the meantime. My agency has a retirement (estimate) calculator I review on a regular basis, I can play various retirement scenarios to help me decide when to pull the plug, but it's still based on what HR has entered into the program for SCD/RCD dates. error in/error out. I spotted a discrepancy, figured there had been a miscalc due to my Leave Without Pay times off during the 1984-1987 period when I was in grad school and working intermittently after getting picked up in mid-1986. So I decided to get the miscalc cleared up last year for my own peace of mind-well before I get to the point of submitting retirement papers. The cleaner the recordkeeping is beforehand, the smoother the paperwork will go at actual retirement time.

When I submitted a ticket to get the records cleaned up and get RCD/SCD consistent with each other, an HR person was assigned to my "case". Once someone was assigned to focus on the issue, it was cleaned up, no problem. I don't enter the RCD/SCD dates in the retirement calculator program myself, they do.

I can look at the same official records that HR has, and can verify that everything is there that should be there. that's the basis for the RCD/SCD, doesn't eliminate human HR errors in calculating complicated records from that error. Not all HR people understood the transition era. Your HR people are technically correct that FERS didn't officially start until 1987. However. CSRS officially ended in 1984. You had to have 5 years in already to be allowed to stay CSRS before that date. They had to have a plan for people picked up between 1984 and 1987, but they already intended for those people to be covered (eventually) by FERS and SS. CSRS-Offset was the solution. Read up on CSRS-Offset. People who came in during 1984-1987 were placed in CSRS-Offset for the interim. They paid a smaller portion into CSRS but also paid into SS at the same time. Your HR people need to talk to you about CSRS-Offset and how they are handling your time under that transition system back then. Your HR may or may not understand how to handle those records. HR people during that time sort-of did, but not entirely. My records show one month of CSRS-Offset from 1986, but it really makes no difference to my RCD/SCD dates discrepancies.

They had me sign a form in Dec 1986 where I was officially asked to choose between CSRS or FERS. It's in my electronic HR file, and I do remember signing it. I "chose" FERS, but back then was told technically I never really had that choice in the first place because I didn't have 5 years in prior to 1984 and all my time would end up ultimately in FERS system regardless. The one month of CSRS-Offset that still shows up is probably a minor error, but not one that especially concerns me.

Unfortunately, most HR dept's these days are not fully versed in the rules and laws as they pertain to upcoming retirees who started thier career between 1984 and 1987. That said, as stated in the replies to this thread, the time does indeed count for FERS retirement credit. If a person was hired in a status other than Career-conditional or Excepted Civil service such as Temp Indefinate, part time, or temporary etc. and then was transferred to one of the first two categories, there may be a buy-back requirement for the time. These questions and others like it can cause ulcers, but with this and other sites, answers can be found and stress relieved. Good luck to all.