Retirement Service Credit

To use this benefit estimator, you will need to know or approximate the length of your Vesting and Credited Service.

Vesting Service:

• Vesting Service is used to satisfy the various TIER II/IIA eligibility requirements
• Vesting Service Includes:
  • All periods of paid state employment, not succeeded by a permanent break
  • Periods of creditable workers’ compensation
  • Properly documented voluntary leave taken after 6/9/94
  • Periods of severance from state service of less than 12 months
  • Certain periods of additional service, which may include:
    • prior military service, or
    • qualifying and properly documented leaves of absence without pay for military service, educational leave, and family or personal medical leave.
• Vesting Service is not adjusted for part-time service.

Credited Service:

• Credited Service is used to calculate the amount of your Tier II/IIA benefit
• Credited Service Includes:
  • All of your vesting service except:
    • Periods of severance from state service of less than 12 months
    • Job related educational leaves
• If you have worked part-time, your Credited Service must be adjusted to reflect the percentage of a full-time schedule you actually worked.

• If you have been continuously employed with no part-time service, no leaves of absence, and no periods of purchased or additional service, your service credit total should be the same under both of these measurements.

Part-Time Service:

• If you have had part-time service, you should know that:
  • your part-time service will be treated as full-time service when determining your eligibility to retire (Vesting Service).
  • your retirement income will be calculated to produce a benefit which reflects the portion of a full-time schedule you worked throughout your state employment (Credited Service).
• Example:
  • Let’s assume a member worked part-time at 50% of a full-time schedule for 10 years:
    • For determining eligibility, we will use 10 years.
    • However, when calculating the benefit percentage, we will use 5 years (the full-time equivalent of working 50% of full-time for 10 years).

Further details can be found in the on-line Tier II / IIA Workshop and Summary Plan Description.