Thread: FERS hired between 1984 and 1987

Originally Posted by kb9nvh

Humm, I've been kicking myself in the butt for 25 years for not starting work 2 weeks earlier so I could have been on CSRS. They offered to let us co-ops come in either Dec 20 something 1983 or Jan something 1984. We chose after the holidays but I often wondered if that was a mistake I would regret later. Are you saying that even if I had started Dec 1983 I would have ended up on FERS? Makes me feel better It guess....hahaa
BTW...I tried to call OPM and and get someone assigned to me and calculate my retirement and sat on hold for 45 minutes before I gave up.

If you didn't have 5 years in under your belt before 1984, you couldn't keep the csrs, no. So no it didn't matter about 2 weeks in 83. No need to kick yourself, no. And OPM doesn't take requests from individuals for retirement calcs. They rely on your agency HR, who transmits your retirement info to OPM after you've submitted your retirement paperwork and after your agency has done all the checking and rechecking of your personnel history at that point. OPM does the final final, but they won't talk to you directly ahead of time to give you a retirement estimate. that's your agency personnel's job. to give you an estimate, after you've submitted your retirement papers.

Check and see if your agency has an online retirement calculator somewhere that you can use to run your own estimates in the meantime.