Problems Buying Back Service Academy Time for Federal Retirement

[Old Enlisted Marine]

Following, as my city civil service position allows the purchase of military time towards city civil service retirement. The ability to combine enlisted time (prior to NAPS) with my USNA MIDN time and commissioned USMC service would be a nice windfall.

I can only speak to New Jersey Civil service time but we have many former officer and enlisted who have bought back time, DD -214 is all that is needed. In NJ it is beneficial to do it as soon as possible as the buy back is based on current pay so the sooner you buy it back the cheaper it is. There are no academy grads in my department so I can not comment on things like NAPS or Academy time. NJ has very good veterans benefits so if the academy / NAPS is active duty it should be counted. My department is made up of around 65% veterans so I deal with this during every few months during the hiring cycle.

GI Bill benefits are also available to be used during training like the police or fire academy as well as during field training.

 

[Flint41]

I have not bought back any annual training duty that I performed in 2000-2007. It should be worth 3-4 months, which would allow me to retire with 20 years civilian service in December 2025 instead of April 2026.

I served in the USAR for seven years (2000-2007, not concurrent with federal civilian service) with a 15-month deployment to Iraq, then served 7+ years in the Regular Army (2007-2014). When I discharged from the Active Army, I re-entered the USAR and began civilian work with the Department of the VA. I have bought back my 8+ years of active-duty time (Regular Army and Activation for Iraqi Freedom)

I do not have any regs to quote but pretty familiar with purchasing military time, national guard and reservist. Your 8 years purchased was title 10, which allowed you to purchase and count towards your federal retirement. Your 2-week annual training and drill weekends (muta 4) all count towards AD days for your military retirement, but fall under title 32 that would not be eligible for retirement purposes for federal service.

I would verify with your HR but I do not think when you buy military time it subtracts from your required federal service for retirement, you still have to perform your required federal service and military time purchased gets added after eligible to retire.Example: I am eligible to retire with 20 years of government service (due to a hazardous duty position and be at least 50 years old). My military time I purchased gets added to my 20. So if I retire at 50 with 20 years of service, my military time that I purchased (8 years) would be added to my retirement giving me 28 years of service. For my first 20 years of government service 1.75% x 20 = 35% of pay, each additional year (military time I purchased) is 1% for each year, giving me 43% pension at 50.

 

[excelsior99]

Hi all,
I need to know how to expedite the processing of a buy back form so I can get into early retirement (VERA). I am a federal employee (please don't sling mud) with 18 years of service. I never even knew about "buy back" of military time until last week. I have 12 years in the Navy (4 of which were USNA).

The upcoming Reduction in Force (RIF) is headed my way fast, although I don't have any written guidance on when/how, but I know that VERA will almost certainly be offered. To get early retirement, you need to be 50 with 20 years creditable service, or just 25 years of service. I can do it either way, but I have to buy that Navy time back to be eligible (so I can retire with health insurance). Step 1 is to submit the RI 20-97 form to the Navy in Indianapolis. I did that last week via Express Overnight mail. Then to be doubly sure, I submitted it online yesterday (I found a DFAS portal here).

Here is the nightmare: The Navy/DFAS says they take 60 days to process these requests. By the time they mail the form back to me, I may have already missed the VERA window. And I could be fired with no health insurance, no benefits. I already put in a request for help to my Congressman, but does anyone know a way to expedite the processing? This may sound crazy, but can I drive to Indianapolis to meet anyone? I am desperate, and I don't have much time to get this form processed. Thank you for any advice.

 

[SLHSD]

I understand your current situation as I also am a federal employee and while I don't have a specific answer for you as to expediting the administrative steps that need to occur to buy back your military service time towards federal retirement I did want to contribute some items that i think are relevant to making sure you are actively working this process in the fastest timeline you can.

1. For your USNA time, please ensure that you do this below step to get your statement of service/estimated earnings from the USNA registrars office.
For me when I bought back my military service time I needed the 2 items:
1. USNA statement of service/estimated earnings to account for those years AND
2. RI-20-97 for my active duty Navy years. You are essentially buying back 2 periods of time so I'm just trying to make sure you see the instructions below from USNA Registrars office. Making the request to USNA registrars office was super quick and I recall getting my letter back within a short timeframe, maybe even same day.

Enrollment and Degree Verifications

Enrollment and Degree Verifications page for Office of the Registrar at USNA.edu. Updated Thu Feb 06 12:46:25 EST 2025.

www.usna.edu

USNA Alumni
Alumni who need verifications of enrollment or graduation may email requests to webregistrar@usna.edu. In the requests, please include the name used when you attended, alpha code, and class year. If you are submitting the request for the civilian retirement buy-back purposes, please also indicate if you need us to provide estimated earnings.

If you have done that above step then disregard.

2. You didn't specify what federal agency you are at, but I did want to bring to your attention that for agencies serviced by DFAS there is an option to make payment via the website www.pay.gov. When you get to the step of making the payment this option would be the "fastest". But as to what timeframe that really means in today's current circumstances, I don't have any idea as to how fast the military deposit paperwork and then personnel action can really happen in real time.

If your agency is not serviced by DFAS then the payment option is to make payment via Check or Money Order - You can submit payment via check or money order as directed in the military service deposit payment request letter. Your deposit may be made in a single lump sum or installments.

Payment can be made via payroll deduction, but given the expedited timeframe, that option may not be the fastest option if you owe an amount that would cover several pay periods.

Pay.gov - This option is only available to employees of agencies with DFAS serviced payroll In general, if you have a MyPay account, you can use this option. Pay.gov cannot be utilized until after receipt of notification from your payroll office indicating the amount due. Specific information from the notification letter (database and employee ID) is required to complete the form. Payment options include debit cards, checking/saving accounts and PayPal (linked to checking and saving accounts). To quickly and securely submit a payment online, visit Pay.gov here.


3. Lastly, if you do make payment then you MUST make sure you get the letter from your payroll office that is a paid in full letter. The paid in full letter is more of a memo. There isnt a specific form, I have only ever heard it referenced as the Paid in Full Letter, so payroll offices should have a template they use.

Once payroll provided me the paid in full letter which specified the specific military timeframe paid (i.e. BOTH service academy time and the active duty time), its then that the Paid In Full Letter from payroll is provided to HR so that the personnel action is completed to update your SF-50 with a Retirement SCD (Service Computation Dates) and RIF SCD that accounts for the Buy back timeframe. Right now I am seeing people who are at this step, they made their military sevice deposit, but never received from payroll their Paid in Full Letter so then correspondingly they don't have the personnel action SF-50 generated to document their corrected SCD. All I am saying is that making the payment for your military service deposit isn't the end of tracking that the correct steps are then taken between payroll communicating the paid in full to HR then HR being able to document the new SCD date on an SF-50.

If any of the above is not helpful to your specific circumstances then I'm sorry I'm not of further assistance, but I wanted to at least write out some info that maybe others could benefit from.

 

[excelsior99]

Thank you to SLHSD who was exactly right with this prediction. I do indeed need to get that letter from USNA and I am waiting on the registrar's office to respond to me (hopefully soon). In the meanwhile, I got my Congressman to inquire about my status with DFAS for the buy-back estimate, and magically, I got the estimate for my officer and enlisted time emailed to me in 8 days (instead of 60 days). I was stunned that he got this processed so fast for me. The Navy didn't give me the USNA estimate because they didnt't have the official letter from USNA, but I can send that back in when I get it from USNA. But I do have the time from my officer and enlisted years (which is crucial because it puts me in the VERA eligibility window).

Here is where this gets more frustrating. Now that I have the buy-back estimate, I got HR to complete a 3108 form (application to pay military deposit). My HR (Dept. of Veterans Affairs) is telling me that DFAS takes 8 weeks to process this form! With the impending doom of a RIF, I am afraid I won't get the paperwork back from DFAS in time to apply for retirement and I could be fired with no insurance or benefits (my position is almost certainly getting eliminated). I would also note that the HR offices we have are under tremendous pressure and I am far from their priority list right now (most of these HR staff will be fired very soon in the RIF). Is there any way that I can submit this paperwork directly to DFAS so I know it actually gets sent? I don't trust my HR offices to get this done, and I want to engage my Congressman again to help me get across the finish line. Looking for any ideas on how to go directly to DFAS on this? Thank you all (and especialy to SLHSD).