Q: I’m a FERS employee who has worked part time for part of my federal career. How does this affect my length of service and the way my FERS annuity is computed?
A: First, the good news. Your part time schedule will not affect your length of service at all. If you’ve worked 10 years on a part time schedule, it’s 10 years of service; it will not change your service computation date or require you to work any longer in order to retire.
Second, the less good news. Your annuity will be computed as if you had worked a full time schedule, but will be prorated based on a factor derived by dividing the number of hours you actually worked by the number of hours that you could have worked if you had been a full time employee for your entire career.
The example in the following table can be found in the retirement coursebooks used by Federal Career Experts in the retirement classes that they deliver to federal agencies as well as in FERSGUIDE. I use it with permission of FERSGUIDE and Dan Jamison.
| Period | # of years | Hours worked per week | Annual hours possible | Annual hours worked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990-2002 | 12 | 40 | 25,044 | 25,044 |
| 2003-2015 | 13 | 24 | 27,131 | 16,224 |
| 2016 | 1 | 16 | 2,087 | 832 |
| Total Hours → | 54,262 | 42,100 |
The proration factor in this example is 77.59%, so if the individual was entitled to a FERS pension of $40,000, the proration would reduce it to $31,036.
