Portability
If you have ever worked for the State of Washington, Spokane County, other municipalities or agencies in Washington State, or the City of Seattle or Tacoma, you might be able to claim portability.The term “portability” is often misunderstood. In short, claiming portability allows you to combine certain pension benefits between the Spokane Employees' Retirement System (SERS) and the other portable pension systems. Portability does not mean that your contributions in the other pension system are transferred to SERS. With portability, you are only entitled to a pension from each respective system based on the number of years that you worked in each system; however, salary information is shared between the two pension systems. In addition, the number of years that you have worked in each system are combined to determine vesting rights.
If you withdrew your funds from a portable pension plan such as one of the portable State plans, the Department of Retirement Systems (DRS) may allow you to buy-back your service time within a specified time period if you become employed and join a portable plan such as SERS. Contact the DRS at 800.547.6657 to inquire whether or not you can buy-back time in their system, which could give you portability rights. Further DRS information can be found on the DRS website.
Portability is a complex topic. For further SERS portability information, please contact the Retirement Office at sers@spokanecity.org or 509.625.6330.