Additional Service Credit (ASC)

If you are an active employee, you can buy up to 3 years* of Additional Service Credit (ASC) to retire earlier than the date you are first eligible with age and service. It can also increase the amount of your annuity upon retirement. In order to purchase ASC, you must:

• have already purchased all other service credit available to you
• have 10 years of ERS service credit (not counting military service credit and unused sick/annual leave),
• purchase in blocks of 1 year unless you have already applied for retirement and only need months to reach retirement eligibility, and
• be actively contributing to ERS at the time of purchase.

You must purchase all other available service, such as withdrawn, waiting period, or military service, before you can purchase ASC. You may purchase ASC through:

• a lump sum check,
• rollovers from your Texa$aver 401(k) or 457 Plans, or
• rollovers from other qualified plans or IRAs.

ASC is a cost neutral transaction. The cost of Additional Service Credit (ASC) does not necessarily change with the start of a new fiscal year and can increase or decrease, depending on your age, salary and service credit (not including military and unused sick and annual leave).

*The maximum ASC purchase went from five years to three years on January 1, 2006. If you purchased three, four or five years of ASC by December 31, 2005, you can keep it all, but you cannot purchase more.