A growing number of federal agencies are offering employees early retirement, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
As of last week, OPM has approved nearly 20 agencies' plans to offer early outs, up from nine agencies at the beginning of October.
Early outs are a means of enticing employees to retire during agency reorganizations or budget reductions.
Under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), early outs are fairly straightforward. Once an agency offers its employees early outs, CSRS employees need only check to make sure that they have at least 25 years of service, or that they are at least 50 years old if they have 20 years of service. Then they're eligible for an immediate pension, reduced by two percent for each year they are under age 55. An early out under the Federal Employees Retirement System follows the same basic eligibility rule as the CSRS early out: An employee must have at least 25 years of service, or be at least 50 years old if they have 20 years of service. With an early out, a FERS employee's pension is not reduced at all. (Remember that Social Security and Thrift Savings Plan investments are a substantial portion of the FERS retirement benefit.)
Here are the agencies with early out authority. The authority expires Sept. 30, 2000, unless otherwise noted.
- Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
- Agriculture Department
- Foreign Agricultural Service
- National Finance Center, Chief Financial Officer (exp. date N/A)
- Food and Nutrition Service (exp. date N/A)
- Defense Department
- Energy Department:
- Office of Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs (1/1/00)
- Office of Assistant Secretaray for Defense Programs
- Environment/Safety/Health components
- Hearings and Appeals office
- Western Power Administration
- Nine field/operations offices
- Bonneville Power Administration
- Federal Housing Finance Board
- Federal Maritime Commission
- General Services Administration
- Housing and Urban Development Department
- Interior Department, Bureau of Reclamation
- NASA - 3 components and Ames Research Center
- National Gallery of Art
- Office of Personnel Management, excluding information technology positions until after February 2000
- Railroad Retirement Board
- Small Business Administration, excluding the Office of Inspector General and disaster area offices
- Transportation Department
- Federal Highway Administration
- Office of the Secretary
- Treasury Department:
- Inspector General for Tax Administration
- Bureau of Engraving and Printing
- Veterans Affairs Department
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