AI-assisted research summary: Members may buy creditable service for certain prior work, and employers may pay all or part of the cost in some cases.
Any member may purchase creditable service for service as a State teacher or employee, as defined under G.S. 135-1(10) and (25), and for service as an employee of local government, as defined under G.S. 128-21(10). A member, upon the completion of 10 years of membership service, may also purchase creditable service for periods of federal employment, provided that the member is not receiving any retirement benefits resulting from this federal employment, and provided that the member is not vested in the particular federal retirement system to which the member may have belonged while a federal employee. The member, after the transfer of any accumulated contributions from the Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System or Local Governmental Employees’ Retirement System, shall purchase this service by paying a lump sum amount to the annuity savings fund equal to the full liability increase due to the additional service credits on the basis of the assumptions used for the purposes of the actuarial valuation of the liabilities of the Retirement System, except for the following assumptions specific to this calculation: (i) the allowance shall be assumed to commence at the earliest age at which the member could retire on an unreduced retirement allowance and (ii) assumed annual postretirement allowance increases as set by the Board of Trustees upon the advice of the consulting actuary. Subject to the requirements of this subsection, an employer may pay all or part of the cost of a service purchase of a member in service. To the extent that the purchase is paid by the employer, the cost paid by the employer shall be credited to the pension accumulation fund. As an alternative to transferring any accumulated contributions from the Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System or the Local Governmental Employees’ Retirement System to the Consolidated Judicial Retirement System, a member may irrevocably elect to transfer these contributions to the Supplemental Retirement Income Plan of North Carolina as determined by the Plan’s Board of Trustees and the Department of State Treasurer in accordance with the provisions of G.S. 135-94(a)(4). Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this section that provide for the purchase of service credits, the terms “full cost”, “full liability”, and “full actuarial cost” include assumed annual post-retirement allowance increases, as determined by the Board of Trustees, from the earliest age at which a member could retire on an unreduced service allowance. History: History.1983 (Reg. Sess., 1984), c. 1041; 1985, c. 348, s. 1; c. 749, s. 2; 1989, c. 255, s. 21(b); 2021-57, s. 3.3.