Vesting Definition

[co_mtns]

Greetings everyone,

This is my first post in the TSP Talk forums . . . hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me can answer the following question.

TSP's vesting requirement of 3 years in federal service must be satisfied before 1% matching funds are actually received, but can vesting be achieved with total time served with a prior federal agency that I worked for 9 years ago?

I recently separated from the BLM (FERS participant), and was surprised to find my 1% matching funds contribution were deducted when I rolled my TSP account over to an IRA after having worked with the BLM for almost 2 years 11 months time. Before this, I worked with the Department of Energy for 7 ½ years (also FERS) from 1991 through 1998.

For some reason, I believed the vesting requirement could be met with 3 years total federal service, and my 7 ½ years with DOE (or my nearly 10 ½ years total service with both DOE and BLM) would have satisfied the TSP vesting requirement. Am I mistaken in my assumption?

I’ve tried talking to both TSP and the BLM HR about this and I'm not getting anywhere, and I hate to forego the 1% matching contribution if I have a valid basis in challenging their decision. I also wonder if BLM didn’t enter the correct service computational date (SCD) in my file initially to recognize the time I worked with DOE, but haven't yet confirmed this.

Hopefully this makes sense. Can someone tell me if I'm on the right track (given my situation) before I approach BLM and TSP again?

Many thanks in advance,
Marvin

 

[Guest2]

I'm not qualified (as some on this board) to answer your specific question.
However, you made the comment about "giving up the 1%". You must try
everything at your disposal and not give up a penny. This question must
be answered for you (by someone). Don't give up hope, until your sure
there is nothing more you can do. Best of Luck !

 

[co_mtns]

Thanks squalebear for the moral support . . . seems everyone I've talked to about this has an opinion, but haven't seen any hard facts as of yet.

 

[nnuut]

Welcome to the Board co_mtns, I'm sorry, but I can't help you, I'm CSRS and we don't get matching contributions. Your logic seems to have merit to me, with that many total years it should count.
BUT, this link might answer your question?
https://www.opm.gov/fers_election/html/more_4.htm
"Your own contributions and your Agency Matching Contributions as well as the earnings attributed to these contributions belong to you right away. There is no waiting (vesting) period."
Norman

 

[co_mtns]

Appreciate the welcome nnuut, and the link you provided! The sentence "You are vested in the Agency Automatic (1%) Contributions and attributable earnings after you have completed 3 years of Federal (generally, civilian) service . . . " is the language (or similar) that I've seen during my research. This leads me to think that I'm already vested to receive the 1% matching contributions from my prior 7 1/2 years if service with DOE, even though I didn't make it 3 years with BLM.

The TSP & BLM folks I've discussed this with interpret the above sentence to mean Agency Automatic (1%) contributions are "BLM associated or BLM related contributions" (or agency specific to BLM), and that I failed to meet the 3 year minimum service requirment of being employed with BLM. They believe my prior service with DOE doesn't have any bearing in getting the 1% matching contributions as a result of my recent time spent with BLM.

 

[co_mtns]

DManos, What you wrote seems to be good news and gives me hope to pursue this further! One of the thoughts in the back of my mind is the fact that when I left DOE in 1998, there was a period of almost 7 years when I wasn't employed with the federal government, until I hired back on with BLM in early 2005. Would this somehow negatively impact my vesting status?

 

[co_mtns]

Be persistant!

Boy, you got that right Scout333! Not only did I get messed up on my TSP withdrawal, BLM also forgot to pay me 40 1/2 hrs of comp time on my final check that I had on the books (another issue I'm currently in the process of trying to resolve). Thanks for the support.