Civil Service Retirement System; Present Value Factors

AGENCY:

Office of Personnel Management.

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is providing notice of adjusted present value factors applicable to retirees who elect to provide survivor annuity benefits to a spouse based on post-retirement marriage and to retiring employees who elect the alternative form of annuity, owe certain redeposits based on refunds of contributions for service before October 1, 1990, or elect to credit certain service with nonappropriated fund instrumentalities. This notice is necessary to conform the present value factors to changes in economic assumptions and demographic factors adopted by the Board of Actuaries of the Civil Service Retirement System.

EFFECTIVE DATES:

The revised present value factors apply to survivor reductions or employee annuities that commence on or after October 1, 2004.

ADDRESSES:

Send requests for actuarial assumptions and data to the Actuaries Group, Room 4307 STOP, Office of Personnel Management, Washington, DC 20415.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Patrick Jennings, (202) 606-0299.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

On September 24, 2003, OPM published (68 FR 55296) a notice in the Federal Register to revise the normal cost percentage under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) Act of 1986, Public Law 99-335, based on changed economic assumptions and demographic factors adopted by the Board of Actuaries of the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). Those changed economic assumptions (principally the change in expected investment return from 6.75 percent to 6.25 percent) require corresponding changes in factors used to produce actuarially equivalent benefits when required by the CSRS Act.

Several provisions of CSRS require reduction of annuities on an actuarial basis. Under each of these provisions, OPM is required to issue regulations on the method of determining the reduction to ensure that the present value of the reduced annuity plus a lump-sum equals, to the extent practicable, the present value of the unreduced benefit. The regulations for each of these benefits provide that OPM will publish a notice in the Federal Register whenever it changes the factors used to compute the present values of these benefits.

Section 831.2205(a) of Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations, prescribes the method for computing the reduction in the beginning rate of annuity payable to a retiree who elects an alternative form of annuity under 5 U.S.C. 8343a. That reduction is required to produce an annuity that is the actuarial equivalent of the annuity of a retiree who does not elect an alternative form of annuity. The present value factors listed below are used to compute the annuity reduction under section 831.2205(a) of Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations.

Section 831.303(c) of Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations, prescribes the use of these factors for computing the reduction to complete payment of certain redeposits of refunded deductions based on periods of service that ended before October 1, 1990, under section 8334(d)(2) of title 5, United States Code.

Section 831.663 of Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations, prescribes the use of similar factors for computing the reduction required for certain elections to provide survivor annuity benefits based on a post-retirement marriage under section 8339(j)(5)(C) or (k)(2) of title 5, United States Code. Under section 11004 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, Public Law 103-66, effective October 1, 1993, OPM ceased collection of these survivor election deposits by means of either a lump sum payment or by installments. Instead, OPM is required to establish a permanent actuarial reduction in the annuity of the retiree. This means that OPM must take the amount of the deposit computed under the old law, and “translate” it into a lifetime reduction in the retiree's benefit. The reduction is based on actuarial tables, similar to those used for alternative forms of annuity under section 8343a of title 5, United States Code.

Subpart F of part 847 of Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations, prescribes the use of similar factors for computing the deficiency the retiree must pay to receive credit for certain service with nonappropriated fund instrumentalities made creditable by an election under section 1043 of Public Law 104-106.

The present value factors currently in effect were published by OPM (67 FR 31708) on May 9, 2002. The revised factors will become effective in October 2004 to correspond with the changes in FERS normal cost percentages. For alternative forms of annuity and redeposits of employee contributions, the new factors will apply to annuities that commence on or after October 1, 2004. See 5 CFR 831.2205 and 831.303(c). For survivor election deposits, the new factors will apply to survivor reductions that commence on or after October 1, 2004. See 5 CFR 831.663(c) and (d). For obtaining credit for service with certain nonappropriated fund instrumentalities, the new factors will apply to cases in which the date of computation under section 847.603 of Title 5, Code of Federal Regulations, is on or after October 1, 2004. See 5 CFR 847.602(c) and 847.603.

OPM is, therefore, revising the tables of present value factors to read as follows: