Creditable service in the Legislative Retirement System (LRS), the Consolidated Judicial Retirement System (CJRS) or the Local Governmental Employees’ Retirement System (LGERS) may be counted along with creditable service in TSERS in order to determine eligibility for benefits from each retirement system. However, only the creditable service in TSERS will be used in computing the amount of the retirement benefit payable from TSERS. 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.
In addition, any service credit the member may have in the Optional Retirement Program may be added to his or her creditable service in TSERS for the purpose of determining eligibility for TSERS benefits, unless first hired after January 1, 2021.
Reciprocal creditable service in all four retirement systems can be used to determine eligibility for the following benefits:
- unreduced retirement
- reduced retirement
- disability retirement
- survivor's alternate benefit
Reciprocal creditable membership service in the three state-supported retirement systems (i.e., TSERS, LRS, and CJRS) can be used to determine eligibility for benefits under the State Health Plan.
Reciprocal creditable service cannot be used to determine eligibility for the death benefit or for benefits under the Disability Income Plan. Any member with five or more years of reciprocal membership service may purchase withdrawn credit in the retirement system from which it was withdrawn, regardless of whether he or she has a currently active account in that retirement system.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.
A member is not required to begin retirement benefits from all retirement systems simultaneously. 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.
rec·i·proc·i·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