Military

Eligibility

You can receive credit for time you spend in active-duty military service with the United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, or Coast Guard. There may or may not be a cost to you, depending on whether your active-duty service occurred during (intervening) or outside of (nonintervening) your state employment.

Your service is considered intervening service if you leave state employment, directly enter active duty in the U.S. armed forces, including reserve components, and return to employment with the State of Michigan within six months of discharge.

Nonintervening service is active-duty service that does not interrupt your State of Michigan service.

Conditions

• You cannot receive credit for military service if you receive credit for the same service under another retirement system. However, this restriction doesn't apply if you will be eligible to retire from the federal government due to service in the reserve component.
• If you are receiving disability benefits from the Veterans Administration and are not eligible to receive a regular age and service retirement benefit now or in the future, you may be eligible to purchase your active-duty service. You will need to provide a copy of your most recent Retiree Account Statement (RAS). This can be obtained at myPay, by phoning 800-321-1080, or writing to the address below:
  
  Defense Finance and Accounting Service
  U.S. Military Retirement Pay
  PO Box 7130
  London, KY 40742-7130
• If you have both intervening and nonintervening military service, you may be limited to 5 years.

Intervening

• If your military leave interrupted your state service, you may receive up to 5 years of service credit at no cost.
• You may use intervening military service credit to satisfy your vesting requirements.
• If your military leave of absence meets the criteria established under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) of 1994* you will be granted service credit for the time you served in the military (subject to statutory limits) and any creditable decompression time allowed under the following guidelines:
  
  Less than 31 days. Your military service and travel time from the place of service to your residence, plus 8 hours.
  
  31 to 180 days. Your military service and up to 14 days of decompression time.
  
  181 or more. Your military service and up to 90 days of decompression time.
  
  *USERRA is a federal law that provides reemployment rights for individuals who have served in the military.

Nonintervening

• If your active-duty U.S. military service did not interrupt your state service, you can purchase up to 5 years of credit.
• Nonintervening military service may be purchased in any fraction of a year increment.
• Nonintervening military service cannot be used to satisfy vesting requirements.
• You must be a contributing member of the Defined Benefit Plan to initiate this application.

Cost

Intervening service credit: No cost.

Nonintervening service credit: Your cost will be 5% of your previous highest fiscal year (Oct. 1 through Sept. 30) income earned as a State of Michigan employee times the number of years of military credit you are buying. If you worked less than full time during the previous highest fiscal year, your part-time wages will be equated to full time to determine the cost of your service credit purchase.

Submit a Military Service Credit Application (R0081G) form with a copy of your military discharge papers (DD214) showing entry and separation dates to the Michigan Office of Retirement Services.

For copies of your military papers, write to:

National Personnel Records Center
Military Personnel Records
1 Archives Drive
St. Louis, MO 63138-1002

You can also request the papers online by visiting the National Archives website.