FERS Retirement

We are Federal Civilian Employees. We fall under the FERS (Federal Employees Retirement System) retirement with Law Enforcement Special Coverage (6c). That means that we can retire at age 57 with 20 years and collect full retirement. We can also retire at any age before 57 if we have 25 years service. If you are under 57 and have twenty years but less than 25 years, you must meet S.S. MRA's (Minimum Retirment Age), which is, for most, going to be age 50.

The next logical question that you are going to ask is, how does the retirement system work?

Under 6c coverage, we get 1.7% of our highest three years of base pay for each year of service up to twenty years. This means that, at twenty years, you get 34% of your highest three years of base pay. After twenty years, you get 1% for each additional year of service. If you have prior military service and "buy it back" you can then get 1% for each of those years as well.

An example for an agent retiring today under FERS could be like this:

high three = $75K
twenty yrs BP = 34%
four yrs mil = 4%
five addn'l BP yrs = 5%

total = twenty-nine yrs = $75k x 43% = $32,250/year in retirement

Add to this your FERS 401k plan, called TSP(Thrift Savings Plan), which could be significant IF you contribute(it is recommended that you contribute at least 7% per pay check to max out Govt. matching contributions).

Add to this your S.S. which will be........???????

Of course this is in today's dollars. If you adjust for inflation over the next twenty years or so, you can get a better picture of what your retirement might be like.

Regular FERS employees, not LEO 6c, only get 1% for each year of service. They also must work all the way to retirement age under S.S. before they can collect (67 and going up).

One other note on this; if you quit, transfer to a non 6c coverage job, medically retire out, or whatever, BEFORE you get twenty 6c years, you then revert back to the REGULAR FERS retirement.

Another note; age 57 retirement is mandatory, hence the age 37 hiring cutoff. This is so that you can get twenty years service. If you get an age waiver at hiring, then you are gone when you hit twenty years of service (I can't imagine being 60 something and STILL being out in the brush....).