Creditable service in the Legislative Retirement System (LRS), the Consolidated Judicial Retirement System (CJRS) or the Teachersā€™ and State Employeesā€™ Retirement System (TSERS) may be counted along with creditable service in LGERS in order to determine eligibility for benefits from each retirement system. However, only the creditable service in LGERS will be used in computing the amount of the retirement benefit payable from LGERS. Creditable service in any other system will be used in computing benefits from that system. This is referred to as reciprocity or reciprocal creditable service.

Reciprocal creditable service in all four retirement systems can be used to determine eligibility for the following benefits: 

  • unreduced retirement 
  • reduced retirement 
  • disability retirement 
  • survivorā€™s alternate benefit

Any member with five or more years of reciprocal creditable service before LGERS service and/or membership service may purchase withdrawn credit in the retirement system from which it was withdrawn, regardless of whether he or she has a currently active account in that retirement system. The purchased creditable service may then be counted as reciprocal creditable service.

Reciprocal creditable service cannot be used to determine eligibility for the death benefit.

A member is not required to simultaneously begin retirement benefits from all retirement systems. The member does not have to terminate employment in order to begin retirement benefits from a retirement system that he or she no longer contributes to monthly, except in cases where the reciprocity is between TSERS and CJRS.

If a member had previous membership in two retirement systems and has used reciprocity to begin receiving a monthly benefit from one retirement system, the member may withdraw contributions and creditable service from the other system. The member cannot withdraw from the retirement system that pays the monthly benefit.

recĀ·iĀ·procĀ·iĀ·ty (noun)

Counting combined creditable service in more than one State-administered retirement system to determine eligibility only for retirement benefits and certain other benefits

This page was last modified on 07/16/2024