If you establish membership in more than one retirement system, you may qualify as a dual member, even if your membership in another system has been terminated.
You qualify for dual membership if you meet all the following criteria:
Suppose you are a 55-year old SERS Plan 2 member with 13 years of service credit. You also have seven years of membership in the Teachers’ Retirement System. That gives you a total of 20 years — enough to retire.
If you are a dual member and wish to restore service credit in a system other than SERS, you must repay the amount withdrawn, plus interest, within two years of first becoming a dual member or before you retire, whichever comes first. To determine how much you owe, contact DRS.
Please be ready to supply the following information:
Payment must be made by the deadline or your service cannot be restored by this method. It may still be possible to purchase service credit after the deadline; however, the cost is considerably more expensive. Read the DRS publication, Plan 2 Recovery of Withdrawn or Optional Service Credit.
Your future benefits are funded by contributions made by you and your employer during your period of membership and the interest from those contributions. These contributions are held in trust and invested by the Washington State Investment Board.
SERS Plan 2 is a 401(a) defined benefit plan. This means that at retirement you will receive a benefit based on your service credit and average final compensation. The amount of your contributions or your employer’s contributions will not be a factor in calculating your retirement benefit.
You are required to contribute a percentage of your earnable compensation to SERS. The member contribution rate is set by the Pension Funding Council and may be changed as necessary to reflect the cost of the plan.
Earnable compensation means all salaries and wages paid by an employer to a member for service. This includes overtime and tax-deferred wages as defined by the Internal Revenue Code.
Cash payments for unused sick leave, unused vacation leave, or any form of severance pay are excluded from earnable compensation. For questions regarding earnable compensation reported to SERS, contact your employer.
Employer contributions are based on a percentage of your salary and are not matching funds. These contributions go toward future retirement benefits, are not credited to your account, and cannot be withdrawn.