Federal Employees Retirement

[England]

Does anyone know if the FERS allows you to "buy back" years served in the military?

I currently work for a state agency and when I came in they offered to let me "buy back" 3 years of my prior military service. Meaning I pay some money in the system and then I only had to work 22 years to retire instead of the full 25.

[jimdvs]

You can buy back your military time but it is tacked on at the end of the retirement thus it does not reduce the time needed to be eligible to retire under FERS. You buy back by paying 3 percent of the military time base salary you received during your military service. An example would be if you served 3 years in the military you would deposit the sum equal to 3 percent of the military base pay you earned during the 3 years you served in the military. Then when you retire from FERS those 3 years are added on to your FERS retirement. So if you retire from FERS after serving 25 years then you retire with 28 years service as opposed to 25 (25 with FERS + 3 years military bought back = 28). You can either buy back the military time with a lump sum payment or do payroll deduction over a period of time.

[Ali G]

Does anyone know if the FERS allows you to "buy back" years served in the military?

I currently work for a state agency and when I came in they offered to let me "buy back" 3 years of my prior military service. Meaning I pay some money in the system and then I only had to work 22 years to retire instead of the full 25.

I'm pretty sure that if you buy back your military time with another agency, you can no longer buy it back with the fed. So, if you are trying to decide to buy it back with your current agency, you might want to be sure that you are sticking with them before you buy it back from them. That time can't be in two places at once.

[usmcgunnerm4]

With FERS you can buy back military time, regardless of whether or not you have done it before. It only adds to your final retirement. Unless you are looking at a covered (LEO) federal retirement, you have to wait until your minimum retirement age to retire. That is based on how old you are when you join federal service. For me the minimum retirement age is 57. For LEO retirement covered guys it is different. I can't remember the formula off the top of my head. So....here's me

30 Years of Federal service at age 57
+4 Years of Military time
_____
34 Years computed. Which, in FERS, amounts to 34% of my high-three average. In FED LEO retirement, 61.2%......
I'm getting screwed, I know. Of course, I am not buying back my military time, because I plan on retiring from the reserves. If I ever get into a position that requires me to resign from the reserves, then I will buy it back.

[SHU]

30 Years of Federal service at age 57
+4 Years of Military time
_____
34 Years computed. Which, in FERS, amounts to 34% of my high-three average. In FED LEO retirement, 61.2%......
I'm getting screwed, I know. Of course, I am not buying back my military time, because I plan on retiring from the reserves. If I ever get into a position that requires me to resign from the reserves, then I will buy it back.

Negative on those numbers for fed LE retirement. It is 1.70% per yr for the first 20 yrs. After 20 yrs it becomes 1% per yr for fed le retirement. With 34 yrs of service under 6c/FedLE (FERS NOT CSRS) retirement you would be getting
1.70 *20= 34% of your 3 highest yrs of service + 14 * 1%=14 %. That gives you a total of 34%+14%=48% of your highest 3 yrs of income under Fed LE retirement with FERS. Kind of crappy huh? I wish CSRS was still around. It was 3% per yr if I recall.:(