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Military Service Time & Your Employees
There are two ways your employees can apply their military service time to their TCDRS account.
Military Service Time
Once an employee is vested with your plan, they can count up to five years of military service toward your retirement eligibility requirements. (This applies to TCDRS time only. Proportionate Service time doesn’t count toward vesting for military service.) Using this time does not increase the employee’s retirement benefit or allow the employee to make additional deposits into their TCDRS account. It simply allows the employee to qualify for retirement earlier.
To request military service time, an employee can sign into their online account or call TCDRS Member Services at 800-823-7782.
The employee can upload all their military service forms and documents directly to TCDRS by using the Document Upload feature when they sign into TCDRS.org.
USERRA
The Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act (USERRA) gives employees who are called away from work to active military duty the right to regain their lost service time upon their return to work. USERRA also allows returning soldiers to make up the deposits they would have made into their TCDRS accounts had they not been called away to active duty. This is a federal law and all employers are required to follow it.
Upon rehiring an employee who is returning to employment under USERRA, you should fill out the Application for Service Credit Under USERRA (TCDRS-90), then ask that the employee sign the form. Once the application is complete, upload the form as well as the employee’s DD-214 to TCDRS via the Employer Portal. Employees can also upload these documents themselves when they sign into their account at TCDRS.org.
For more information, please direct employees to the Military Service article on our website.
Learn More
TCDRS Handbook for AdministratorsService Time & Employee Milestones
Service Time & the Proportionate Retirement Program
Resources for Employees
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