SPTRFA Pension Facts - Combined Service

SPTRFA Pension Facts - Coordinated Plan

Combined Service

In 1975, the Combined Service Law was passed by the Minnesota Legislature. This law was a great stride forward in pension benefits, since it allows a member to combine his or her service within all of the Minnesota public funds. In other words, at the time of your retirement, you can count on all of your years of service within specific funds being used for your retirement.

In order to be a Combined Service member, you must have service in one or more of the other Minnesota public funds. This means that if you have withdrawn your contributions from the other funds, you will not receive credit for that service. You may repay any refunds you have received from the public funds, which would allow you to use that service credit for your retirement. Contact the fund you took a refund of your contributions from to learn about repaying the refund.

To be a vested member using Combined Service, all of the following must be true:

	You must have at least three years of unrefunded service within the Minnesota public funds.
	You must have at least six months of service credit within each fund you have service with. Credit less than half a year is not eligible for combined service.
	You must notify each fund that you have service in another Minnesota public fund, so that they may verify the information.

Being “vested” means that you are eligible to receive a benefit when you reach retirement age. For SPTRFA, you may start to receive a retirement benefit at any time after the age of 55 with at least three years of service credit.

When you retire, you will get benefits from each of the public funds for the service you have with them, as long as the service is at least six months of service credit with each retirement fund.

The public funds will effectively “combine” their information about you. If you qualify for the Rule of 90 (you were hired before July 1, 1989), your total number of years of service from all of the funds will be added to your age to see if you can retire under Tier I without a discount. If you were hired after July 1, 1989, or if your Tier II benefits are higher, you will simply receive a Tier II pension from each of the retirement funds.

Your final average salary (High-5) will be calculated using your highest five successive salaries from whatever fund they occur in, even if it is not your last retirement fund. The retirement funds will all use the same final average salary to calculate your benefit.

The included Minnesota retirement funds are:

St. Paul Teachers’ Retirement Fund Association (SPTRFA)

Minnesota Teachers Retirement Association (TRA)

Minneapolis Teachers’ Retirement Fund Association (MTRFA)

Duluth Teachers’ Retirement Fund Association (DTRFA)

Public Employees’ Retirement Association (PERA)

Minnesota State Retirement System (MSRS)

Minneapolis Employees’ Retirement Fund (MERF)