Appendix C: Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) - Special Retirement (Retirement Coverage Code M)
Under the special retirement provisions for law enforcement officers and firefighters, retirement may begin at age 50 with 20 years of 6C-Retirement coverage or any any age with 25 years of special 6C-Retirement coverage. Once a firefighter has 20 years of special 6C-Retirement coverage, the employee is subject to mandatory retirement at age 55. Law Enforcement Officers with 20 years of special 6C-Retirement coverage are subject to mandatory retirement at age 57.
See Frozen-CSRS -Service on IRIS Program IR117 for length of frozen service. Frozen Service is the total number of years and months of civilian and military service that is creditable in a CSRS component of a FERS employee. The employee must have completed 5 years of creditable civilian service before becoming subject to CSRS offset or before the election date of FERS coverage.
Retirement Formulas Used:
If the employee has not transferred from CSRS to FERS or has transferred and has no frozen service:
- Compute [1.7% x first 20 years of Special Service].
- Compute [1% x Remaining Years of Service].
- Compute [Step 1 + Step 2].
- Compute [Retirement High-3 x Step 3].
- Compute [Step 4 / 12].
For part-time employees (Work Schedules P, Q, S, and T, the monthly annuity is then prorated by the employee's PP 01 tour of duty. This is done because the full tour-of-duty proration is not available.
- Compute [Step 5 x (PP 01 Tour-of-Duty Hours / 80)].
If the employee has transferred from CSRS to FERS and has frozen service:
- Follow CSRS (or CSRS -Offset) Special retirement formulas shown in Appendix D: Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and CSRS-Offset Retirement (Retirement Coverage Codes 1, C, and R) using Frozen - CSRS -Service as the employee's years of service. Refer to Appendix D: Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and CSRS-Offset Retirement (Retirement Coverage Codes 1, C, and R) for more information on CSRS retirement formulas.
- Follow FERS -Special retirement formula shown above using the employee's years of service after the transfer as the employee's years of service.
- Compute [Step 1 + Step 2].
For part-time employees (Work Schedules PP 01 tour of duty. This is done because the full tour-of-duty proration is not available.
, , , and ), the monthly annuity is then prorated by the employee's - Compute [Step 3 x (PP 01 Tour-of-Duty Hours / 80)].