4.25.25: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
Welcome back to the federal retirement Show. I'm your host Val Majewski with American Benefits Exchange. As always, really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to view our content. There are a ton of episodes, a ton of information that we have for you, the federal employee looking for accurate and honest information when it comes to your benefits and retirement situation. There are questions you have. There are situations that you're going through. There are things going on that you want to find the right answers. And why? Because these were things that you were not properly taught, not properly reviewed on when you first got hired. Not the government's fault. You have a job to do. You have, uh, you know, things you need to take care of. So do they. So do your boss, the people that hired you, your HR, all of that. And you're kind of left, though to go to Opengov or do Google searches and try to learn this stuff on your own. And I give benefits presentations all the time across the country with different groups, different agencies. Um, and I hear that same thing. You know, I wish I would have talked to you ten years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. I wish I would have found this information out when I first got hired. And the story is always the same, but I'm glad I get a chance to talk to you guys and share this with you.
Speaker1:
So that's what this show is all about. The Federal retirement show. If you like it, make sure you subscribe. Make sure you let other people know about it. Get notified when we come out with a new episode. You can visit the website Federal Retirement Show.com or listen in whether it's on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you listen to these things, tune in and check out this information because there's something in here for everybody. I'm not saying that every episode pertains to you, but there's going to be something in here for everybody. And that's where we get to today's topic, because this was somebody's topic, uh, one of the viewers out there and appreciate you all that are, uh, diligent and dedicated, uh, to listening to the podcast. It means that we're doing what we're meant to do, or what we were set out to do is get you this information that we believe is going to be valuable. But we had a listener call in email in and say, hey, I need some information on discontinued service, retirement, DSR. Can you do an episode or have you done an episode for DSR? Can you point me towards that? And if not, maybe it's going to be a topic for a future episode on the federal retirement show. That's why we're talking about it today. So thank you to to those that continue to send us emails, call in and say, hey, uh, you don't have an episode on this, can you do one on that? Or here's a new topic that might be of interest to your viewers.
Speaker1:
Do you want to do an episode on that? So we had a chance to chat with this, this viewer, this listener go over their situation when it came to discontinued service retirement. But there's going to be others out there that are going through a similar thing. So today's episode again on DSR discontinued service retirement. Let's dive in to today's topic. So what is it? Um, well, there's a lot of stuff going on, right? We've talked about the fork in the road. We've talked about the, uh, deferred resignation. We talked about Vera that's out there. Voluntary early retirement authority. And these are different ways that you can retire. Obviously, you can retire on your own accord if you satisfy any of the minimum retirement requirements that we've gone over when we talk about CSRs or Fers, but this is a slightly different segment. These are, uh, folks that are retiring involuntarily. Right. So discontinued service retirement. What does that say? Discontinued service. You are being retired involuntarily due to a reduction in force, a riff, uh, your department, your job is being eliminated or for a variety of other reasons, you are being retired involuntarily or separated from service involuntarily, and you might be eligible for discontinued service retirement in that regard.
Speaker1:
So separate involuntarily. And I go to the bottom here. You must not decline a reasonable offer. And what that is, if you're being reduced or your, uh, your reduction in force is happening and you're being riffed out and, uh, you know, maybe there's an entire department that's being let go or an entire job that's being discontinued. They the government can offer you a reasonable offer, right? They can give you a comparable position. And there's a lot of different criteria that go along with that. It's a similar type of commute or it's within the same agency. And there's a couple other things that are considered a reasonable offer. If they give you that, did you decline it? You probably then would not be eligible for discontinued service retirement. But we're going to go on with DSR today. We're going to assume that you're retired involuntarily, that you were not given a reasonable offer, another position within the agency or something comparable. So you didn't decline anything? Then when would you be eligible for discontinued service? Retirement? Well, this works kind of like a Vera because you'd be eligible for a full immediate annuity unreduced pension. In this situation, if you were age 50 and had at least 20 years of service, or any age with at least 25 years of service, this sounds a lot like Vera.
Speaker1:
Actually, it kind of is, except Vera is voluntary. Early retirement. This is involuntary retirement, right? So let's say Avera is not offered. Or maybe it was offered. You didn't take it, but now you got ripped out. You could be part of this DSR eligible for DSR if you are age 50, with at least 20 years of service, and any age with at least 25 years of service, you can get credited for, or you can get a unreduced full immediate pension based on those requirements. Now, let's say you didn't hit those requirements right. Let's say you did not hit the uh, 50 with 20 years of service and me with at least 25 years of service. What happens then? Well, then you're not part of DSR, right? You might be eligible for what they call the severance pay or the severance package, if you will. Um, I'll talk about that here on the next slide. Or you'd have to file for down the road, uh, deferred retirement if you didn't satisfy any of these requirements. But let's say again, you hit these requirements, you're involuntarily retired, and you do not decline any kind of reasonable offer. You're now eligible for or could be eligible for the discontinued service retirement. So let's talk about the next slide. How does this work when it comes to benefits. Well good news. If you're under DSR or fall under DSR you're going to be eligible for DSR.
Speaker1:
You can keep your federal employee health benefits through Fhlbb if you had them for at least five consecutive years prior to now retirement. Same thing with Phegley. You can keep your phegley in retirement if you've had it at least five consecutive years prior to this retirement. So DSR again, immediate pension unreduced. That's good news. You can keep your fhlbb. That's good news. You can keep your fegli. That's good news. You just have to keep paying for those things. But you can keep them in the other sense, if you were not eligible for DSR and you didn't have the years of service and you're just going to be out. You would not be able to keep those benefits. Your federal employee health benefits or your Fegli. You're also eligible for the Fers retirement supplement, just as if it were offered in the VRA, or if you retired with full benefits. But you cannot collect that, or you will not collect it until you have hit your MRA, your minimum retirement age, which you're familiar with, that that's based upon your birth year, and it's anywhere between age 55 and 57. So you can keep the health insurance, can keep the life insurance. If you had each of those for at least five consecutive years prior to retirement, Got to keep paying for it. And you're eligible for the first retirement supplement, which is that Social Security gap, that bridge.
Speaker1:
But you wouldn't be able to collect it until your minimum retirement age. Now, severance is not available for DSR. Now what does that mean? I said before on the previous slide that there are some federal employees out there that get ripped out, right? They're retired involuntarily, and through that process, they may not be eligible to retire. Right. They don't have the years or they don't have the age, or they don't have this, or they don't have that and they don't fall under any of the retirement requirements. Right. They're they're eliminated. And they didn't have any of their requirements for full retirement. They're eliminated involuntarily. And they don't qualify for DSR based on those reduced retirement requirements. So what happens then? They could be eligible for severance. Now severance is again for those that that don't fall under this with DSR. And they can get up to Two up to 52 weeks of their regular pay going forward. So it's kind of they could call it severance because you're going to get some sort of benefit. How long that lasts for depends on your years of service that you have and in age. But the max that they'll give you is 52 weeks or generally 52 weeks. So there is a way that if somebody's separated involuntarily, they can get this severance pay, which could be up to a year's salary of your current salary going forward, but you're not eligible for retirement after that.
Speaker1:
So if you get the severance pay, you're not eligible for DSR. So that's kind of the thing. You're not going to get both. You're not going to get discontinued service retirement. And that severance if you were thinking it right. Severance is not available for those that fall under DSR. The good news about DSR, though discontinued service retirement, is that you can collect that immediate pension. It's unreduced for not based on your age, things like that. And you get it immediately. Now you can still buy back or get back your sick leave time, your annual leave lump sum. You can still get those as well as you would as if you were retiring. Normally we've done episodes and we've talked about annual leave and sick leave when it comes to your pension and how that all factors in. Go back and view our previous content if you want more on those topics. When it comes to annual leave or sick leave and how that factors in but again for discontinued service retirement just to review involuntarily separated. Okay. You hit the minimum requirements when it comes to age and years of service 50 with at least 20. Any age at 25 years of service, you have not declined a reasonable offer from the government to maintain your employment there. You can be eligible for discontinued service retirement.
Speaker1:
Keep the health insurance, you can keep the life insurance. And you're just you're not going to get the severance pay with it. And you'll be eligible for the supplement once you hit your minimum retirement age. If you do have questions, comments, uh, concerns other topics that you want to hear us talk about. Uh, issues that you're coming across, you know, whatever it might be, reach out to us. You can go to our website, Federal Retirement Show.com fill out the form. One of our experts across the country. If it's not me personally, we'll be reaching out to you to go over a number of things within your benefit structure. Answer your questions. Well, as always, I really do appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to view our content. Uh, we have a pleasure to bring this to you. It is. It is our honor to help you out. Again, federal employees that are working for us and doing the things that need to be done to keep our country running. Thank you for that. But if you do have questions comments, I encourage you go to our website, reach out to us, talk to an expert, get your questions answered so you can make the best decisions both today and as you move forward. Going towards retirement when it's all said and done. So again, thank you for joining us today and look forward to seeing you on a future episode.
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