Im a current federal cop FERS 3 years vestment. What if I move to a different agency?

[OrdiOrdi]

Kind of a 2 part question... Im a little over 2 years in, but I have 2 offers from other federal agencies. Both are FERS....

If I take a job, will I lose my vestment? Quick math puts at at over $15000 right now.

Also, I was thinking about going TSA until my academy date... Right now my lease is up in about a month... so Id have to move 2x, plus lose my deposit on a new place (moving, taking out a 1 year lease, then leaving in a few months).... I was kind of thinking it would be nice to go TSA in my hometown, drop all my stuff at my parents house, wait for my academy (TSA keeps my federal time going as well)... and have no rent... plus it would be nice to be home for a few months. Its still DHS....

Anyone have any knowledge?

[wildstar82]

As long as you stay in the Fed you are good. It doesn't matter which agency.

[Jumpywolf]

***Deleted***

[merlin436]

If you are currently 12D covered and you take a non-covered job you'd end up screwing with your retirement a bit. Might not be such a game-breaker, depending on circumstances.

[headphones1225]

Reverse question. How about if I worked regular FERS for a few years before getting hired for a law enforcement 12d position? Do the years before count towards the 1.0 percent after the 20 years at 1.7?

[9L81]

Yes. I've done that.

[Exbpa340]

Any FERS time (and military time if purchased) in a non covered position is credited toward retirement at 1 percent per year. The same goes for any covered time (12D/6C) over 20 years.

Any contributions you make toward retirement will remain even if you separate from service unless you cash them out (don’t do this). You can jump between regular FERS positions and nothing will be affected (date wise) unless you have a break in service. Jumping in and out of a covered position will complicate (a bit) your 12D date.

[nonotnow]

Military time purchased does NOT count toward your retirement ie you still have to work your required number of years 25 years or to age 50. It only gives you added years on the retirement equation.

[Exbpa340]

It goes without saying that the 50/20 or 25/any age requirements for the covered retirement must be met to qualify for the enhanced retirement (hence the rule). Any regular FERS and/or military time will be added after meeting the aforementioned requirement. Military time and regular FERS DO count toward retirement but do not satisfy the covered time requirement. At no point did I say that military time counted as covered time so I’m not sure the purpose of your comment.

[DiverB72]

I just attended a retirement seminar yesterday for people with less than 5yrs to retire and I was surprised when it was mentioned about leaving before retirement and cashing out your contributions. On a funny note, my office is only 24 people, and management was a little taken a back when they found out there are 7 of us with less than 3 yrs to go until we are eligible with 2 guys eligible this fall. They gonna be scrambling to find bodies in a few years, lol

[battlewagon]

Kind of a 2 part question... Im a little over 2 years in, but I have 2 offers from other federal agencies. Both are FERS....

If I take a job, will I lose my vestment? Quick math puts at at over $15000 right now.

Also, I was thinking about going TSA until my academy date... Right now my lease is up in about a month... so Id have to move 2x, plus lose my deposit on a new place (moving, taking out a 1 year lease, then leaving in a few months).... I was kind of thinking it would be nice to go TSA in my hometown, drop all my stuff at my parents house, wait for my academy (TSA keeps my federal time going as well)... and have no rent... plus it would be nice to be home for a few months. Its still DHS....

Anyone have any knowledge?

This post is all over the place with not much info given to help answer.

Both are FERS because all are FERS. FERS is the current federal retirement system that is the same across all federal civilian jobs and occupations, whether TSA, DEA, Mission Support Specialist, Nuclear Courier, Special Agent, etc.

Not sure if you mean a covered position when you talk about being a cop and then comparing it to TSA. Are you currently a 0083 in a covered position or another job series that is covered?

It does not matter how many agencies you go to, if you don't have a break in service, you don't risk losing any vested contributions, stopping your federal retirement calculations, losing your status as an employee, etc. It also doesn't matter if you move between departments, such as DHS, DOJ, etc. The only variable is that is coming and going out of a covered position, and even then, you don't 'lose' covered time coming in and out, but it can complicate retirement date calculations when trying to retire early in a 6c/12d position.

Also, how far out is your academy date with whatever new agency that you are willing to get hired by TSA (which isn't instant), and then go to the two week or however long TSA academy, graduate, report for duty, just to do it all over again for whatever new agency. Just go month to month on your current lease or airBnB it.

Have you already received a firm offer from another agency with an academy date but you haven't EOD there? I don't know how else you could have an academy date already without having gotten a firm offer at your new place. If so, going to ANOTHER agency between your current and future job will only complicate things on the admin backend for your new agency, potentially delaying your EOD or messing it up. When you switch between agencies, there is a decent amount of admin work between MSSs or whatever each agency calls them. If you have a pending EOD, changing jobs will restart the process, and now any admin work done between your current and future agency will be null and void.

I have more questions but that's as far as I can get with the limited info provided.

[fedcop64]

Kind of a 2 part question... Im a little over 2 years in, but I have 2 offers from other federal agencies. Both are FERS....

If I take a job, will I lose my vestment? Quick math puts at at over $15000 right now.

Also, I was thinking about going TSA until my academy date... Right now my lease is up in about a month... so Id have to move 2x, plus lose my deposit on a new place (moving, taking out a 1 year lease, then leaving in a few months).... I was kind of thinking it would be nice to go TSA in my hometown, drop all my stuff at my parents house, wait for my academy (TSA keeps my federal time going as well)... and have no rent... plus it would be nice to be home for a few months. Its still DHS....

Anyone have any knowledge?

In a nut shell everything follows you, now if your under a special pay rate or retirement and the agency you want go doesn't have that then you will lose it. There is also a few other minor things like are you leaving an Executive branch agency. That could maybe cause some other changes.. Check with the agency HR. GOOD LUCK

[UCLA1998]

Make sure you don’t resign. When you put in your two weeks, you will be notifying or requesting an inter-agency transfer to your new agency. If you resign, there could be a break in your service and you can lose your leave and sick time. This is rare, but I’ve seen guys have to fight for 6-12 months for their old agency to transfer leave and sick leave balances.

[5149.5]

This is rare, but I’ve seen guys have to fight for 6-12 months for their old agency to transfer leave and sick leave balances.

This happened to me when I transferred from DOD to DHS.

Did all my paperwork for HR for a Fed transfer. Listed my last day with DOD as the end of the pay period and a day before my new EOD date with DHS so there was no break-in-service. Provided forwarding/contact info for DHS HR. Kept checking my WebTA and EPP for months and still no transfer of leave. Called my old HR and found out the guy that processed my paperwork retired and the new lady would need time to look into it. After multiple phone calls and emails over almost a year, she finally figured out what happened, fixed it, and got my 100+hrs AL and 500+hrs SL transferred over. Turns out when "Mr short-timer HR guy" at DOD filed my paperwork, he inputed the wrong transfer date by one digit and gave me a break-in-service.

One wrong digit on HR paperwork costed me and the new HR lady countless hours of phone calls, emails, and research. Also made me loose out on access to all my earned leave for almost a year.

[9L81]

This happened to me when I transferred from DOD to DHS.

Did all my paperwork for HR for a Fed transfer. Listed my last day with DOD as the end of the pay period and a day before my new EOD date with DHS so there was no break-in-service. Provided forwarding/contact info for DHS HR. Kept checking my WebTA and EPP for months and still no transfer of leave. Called my old HR and found out the guy that processed my paperwork retired and the new lady would need time to look into it. After multiple phone calls and emails over almost a year, she finally figured out what happened, fixed it, and got my 100+hrs AL and 500+hrs SL transferred over. Turns out when "Mr short-timer HR guy" at DOD filed my paperwork, he inputed the wrong transfer date by one digit and gave me a break-in-service.

One wrong digit on HR paperwork costed me and the new HR lady countless hours of phone calls, emails, and research. Also made me loose out on access to all my earned leave for almost a year.

When I went from my previous agency to the current it was a non LEO position to a LEO position. New agency was starting me off at FLETC on the 2nd Sunday in the pay period. That meant my losing agency had to split my pay period up too or risk a break in service. Both sides made a big deal of this. The losing agency ultimately did the right thing and split it up which had to go well past the local HR people and my west coast regional director who was SES level ultimately had to get involved to make it happen. Had they not liked me I would have been told to do a one week break in service and to deal with whatever repercussions followed that.

I asked if I could just join the gaining agency a week early and use leave for a week and that was a no go for them for some reason. Anyway these types of things will often take far to much leg work for what is actually occurring. In my case it was smoother and easier processing out of the military than going from one exec dept to another mid pay period. My class had about 10 other new hires that were already federal but only 2 of us were from a diff department so they didn't give much consideration to kinds of problems that created for losing agency HR folks. All the other hires were non-feds so there was no issue with mid pay period transfer.

My leave also took a while to be properly transferred but it was about 7 months before I could burn any of it anyway and by then it was sorted out.

[battlewagon]

Sounds a lot like US Marshals with the mid PP transfer