5 Years of Service
You’ve reached the five-year mark at OCERS — congratulations! Hopefully by now you have registered for your myOCERS portal, where you can view your OCERS retirement plan, estimate your benefit, and designate your beneficiaries. Here are some more ways you can start preparing for your retirement.
Get acquainted with your myOCERS portal:
In the mail, you should have received a letter when you first started your OCERS-covered employment with a pin number. You need this to register for your myOCERS portal. If you haven’t registered and need a new pin number, contact our Member Services team at 714-558-6200 and they will assist you.
Your myOCERS portal is a one-stop shop for your retirement benefit information:
- Participant Account: This tab shows you your plan type, and contributions to date.
- Benefit Estimator: Get a sense of what your retirement benefit will look like when the time comes — look at different retirement dates with varying years of service, estimate your salary, and see what your payments could be.
- Designate Beneficiaries: Make sure your beneficiaries are always accurate and up to date. Check this information regularly to ensure your beneficiaries are correct when it’s time to retire.
- Upload Documents: Submit documentation for any qualifying life event as they happen to avoid last minute changes when you are nearing retirement. Staying on track with documents now will make the retirement process much simpler.
- Establish “Reciprocity”: If you have just started OCERS-covered employment but have prior years of service at another California public agency, make sure to establish reciprocity with us within 180 days to maximize your retirement benefit.
After you’ve determined if you have previous public service credit (or if you are not eligible):
Read through your Summary Plan Description (SPD) to learn more about your plan benefits. The SPD is a comprehensive guide for understanding your OCERS membership and benefits, as well as a resource for learning OCERS’ processes.
See if you qualify for a Service Credit Purchase (SCP):
You can explore the different types of Service Credit you can purchase in your SPD. If you find that you’re eligible to make an SCP, submit your request to OCERS as soon as possible. The sooner you start this process, the lower your SCP will cost. With an eligible SCP, you will likely receive a higher retirement benefit and may be able to retire a bit earlier.
If you don’t have any Service Credit to purchase now, it’s good to know what qualifies for an SCP for the future. That way, if you become eligible later on, you’re already familiar with the process and won’t delay your request.