The Retirement Agency's policy is to provide an estimate of retirement benefits to individuals having less than one year before they are eligible for early retirement. Employees who are within one year of their early retirement eligibility date may request an estimate of their retirement benefits using an "Estimate Request" form. School employee members of FCERS, please use the "Schools Specific" form.
Retirement benefit figures will be calculated using any sick leave balance or leave without pay balances within that employee's record. Individuals are limited to one request for an estimate in the calendar year. You may choose ONE date for us to calculate your benefit OR you may check the box for earliest eligibility for regular retirement. If you write down multiple dates, only the first date listed will be used to do your calculations.
Once your estimate request is received and your retirement eligibility date is verified, your estimate will be calculated and mailed to your home address within approximately three weeks.
Retirement Account - If you are not within one year of retirement eligibility, you can use our internet benefit estimator to get an approximate estimate of your retirement benefits.
The Retirement Account allows members to work up their own projections, based on individual assumptions of salary increases and variable retirement dates. Members can adjust their projected retirement date to account for sick leave balances and leave without pay balances. Please check PRISM or check with your payroll contact at your agency to verify your sick leave and leave without pay balances.
If you are using your current sick leave balance to determine when you can retire, remember that every 172 hours of sick leave equates to one month of service.
Full-time members of the County Retirement Systems receive an "Annual Benefit Statement" once per year (normally in late August). Statements are mailed to members who were active in one of the three Retirement Systems as of June 30 of that year. The Annual Benefit Statement program does not account for sick leave, leave without pay (LWOP) or breaks in service, all of which would have an impact on the actual retirement benefit, should a members' record reflect any of those items. To request a more detailed estimate from the Retirement Agency, that will take these factors into account and can also give information on a Joint and Last Survivor option, a written request is required. These requests are limited to once per calendar year and are only provided to those members who are determined to meet the "within one year" criteria.
If you have difficulty understanding your annual benefit statement or your retirement benefit estimate, please refer to your Fairfax County Retirement System Handbook.