What you should do:
- Call PERS for an audit ( recommended to start 2-3 years out). You’ll need to provide them with your years of service and the number of sick/personal leave days that you currently have. Please remember that audits are not official, and any leave you use after an audit will change the numbers on any future audits.
- Visit the PERS website and view the Focus Session Videos - or sign up for a focus session (these fill up quickly, so the videos are helpful). Be sure to watch ALL the videos. Link to the PERS Focus Session Videos.
- Talk to your financial representative about your options (take the information from your audit with you).
- Choose a retirement date – you need at least 3 months’ time between turning in paperwork and your retirement date for paperwork processing.
- Visit your HR department and ask for a retirement packet (if they offer one).
- Talk to your supervisor about retirement.
- Complete all forms and submit them to your HR department; HR will send the forms to PERS.
- PERS will review your information and if you’re fully eligible to retire, they will send you forms to complete.
- Feel free to call PERS if you have questions or to check up on your status.
- If you keep your state insurance, you have to pay the premium up front for the first month of retirement (or two, depending on how quickly your paperwork processes) until your pension is paid (at that point, it will come out of your check). Be prepared for that. The state insurance office is in the Woolfolk Building.
- Your first pension payment will be a check; future payments should be direct deposit. If your paperwork was submitted late, you will be back-paid once your retirement has been fully processed.
Special Notes
- You will receive your first COLA payment the December AFTER your first July 1 being retired; in other words, if you retire in the fall, it will be at least one year before you receive your first COLA payment.
- There is a Friends of PERS Facebook group that can help you stay up-to-date on things that are PERS-related; however, please remember that if you want accurate answers about retirement issues (i.e., how COLA works, etc), PERS will always give you the right answer. Don’t simply go by what someone else tells you.
- Link to the PERS Member Handbook.