Benefit estimates

When you are within 24 months of the earliest date you are eligible to retire, you can request a Tier One/Tier Two or Oregon Public Service Retirement Plan (OPSRP) written benefit estimate.

To create your estimate, PERS will use the most current information provided by your employer(s). Employers report data to PERS monthly, so there could be a slight lag.

Account balances are current as of December 31 of the previous year.

A written estimate from PERS only includes information about your Tier One/Tier Two or Oregon Public Service Retirement Plan (OPSRP) pension benefit. You can use the IAP Balance and Installment Calculator to estimate your Individual Account Program (IAP) distribution at retirement.

• This tool generates estimates assuming that all members have a 6% salary contribution to their IAP accounts. The calculator does not factor in Senate Bill 1049 (2019) contribution changes, such as the redirect to Employee Pension Stability Account (EPSA). The tool may overestimate your IAP monthly benefits in retirement.

If you are a Tier One or Tier Two member whose account involves a divorce, you must use a divorce-related account form to request an estimate.

OPRSP members do not need to use a special divorce-related form for written estimates. Use the Oregon Public Service Retirement Plan (OPSRP) Estimate Request form.

Read more about divorce and your PERS benefits.

If you are a Tier One or Tier Two member, read the Tier One/Tier Two benefit estimate FAQs for information about purchases, vacation hours and other details you need to know regarding your benefit estimate.

By law, PERS is required to pay out the benefit that you earned. Estimates rely on information reported by your PERS-participating employer(s) from throughout your career. This information includes service credit, hours worked, and salary history. However, your final vacation and sick leave information may not be reported until you end all PERS-qualifying employment.

When you apply to retire, PERS will thoroughly review and verify all of your member information. If errors or discrepancies are found, your benefit will be adjusted accordingly. As such, this review process may produce a final benefit amount that differs from what appeared in your estimates.

Examples of what can cause errors or discrepancies:

• Under- or over-reporting by your employer(s).
• Technical issues, such as double-posting of contributions or earnings.
• Divorce.
• Any legally required corrections.

It's important to remember that a benefit estimate is just that — an estimate. It is not the final determination of your benefit.

You can review your PERS pension information in Online Member Services (OMS) and your Individual Account Program (IAP) details via the IAP website.

Some members may wish to request a data verification from PERS before obtaining a benefit estimate. Data verifications are not required to retire but can be helpful if you think your PERS account information could be wrong.

Reasons you may wish to request data verification include:

• Working for multiple PERS-participating employers during your career.
• Working for multiple PERS-participating employers at the same time.
• Working many part-time hours in your PERS-qualifying employment.

Members who have data verifications completed have their account information locked for the time period the data verification covers. PERS cannot go back and change the locked data. If you wish to request a data verification, consider doing so when you are within two years of your earliest retirement eligibility. The data verification process is extensive and can take several months to complete, including resolving any disputes that may arise over the data. This could delay your retirement. For this reason, it is advised that you submit any data verification requests a year before your desired retirement date.

You don’t need to wait to request a written estimate to explore what your benefits might look like when you retire. You can create online estimates at any point in your career by logging in to your Online Member Services (OMS) account.

Take note:

• Estimates created through OMS do not yet reflect the changes created by Senate Bill (SB) 1049 (2019) and may not be accurate for members earning more than the SB 1049 salary limit.
• OMS cannot correctly calculate a benefit estimate on an account that involves a divorce. You will still need to request a written benefit estimate.
• You can create as many online estimates as you would like, but the system will only store the six most recent. These estimates will remain available until your benefits are processed for retirement.