Military

Eligibility

As an active member of the State Police Retirement System, you can receive credit for time you spent 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 employment with the Michigan State Police.

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

Nonintervening service is active duty service that does not interrupt your service with the Michigan State Police.

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 for 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 https://myPay.dfas.mil, by phoning (800) 321-1080, or writing to the address below.
  
  Defense Finance and Accounting Service
  U.S. Military Retirement Pay
  P.O. Box 7130
  London KY 40742-7130
  .
• You may not use military service to satisfy your vesting requirement (10 years). However, if your intervening military leave of absence meets the criteria provided under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA)* this restriction may not apply.
• If your military leave of absence meets the criteria established under USERRA, you may be eligible to receive up to five years of service credit. You must report to work within the time limit provided under USERRA or you may lose your rights to these retirement benefits.

You will be granted service credit for the time you served in the military, plus any creditable decompression time allowed under the following guidelines for military service:

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 police service, you can purchase up to two years of credit.
• Nonintervening military service may be purchased in any fraction of a year increment.
• Nonintervening military service cannot be credited until you have 10 years of service with the Michigan State Police;  the last five years of service must be continuous service.
• If you purchased VISTA or Peace Corps service credit, your total military service credit available for purchase may be reduced by the amount of this service credit purchase. The law prohibits purchasing more than two years combined of these types of service credit. 
• If you have both intervening and nonintervening military service, you may be limited to two years.
• Intervening. If your military leave interrupted your state police service, you may receive up to two years of service credit at no cost.

Cost

Intervening service credit: No cost.

Nonintervening service credit: Your cost is 5 percent of your full-time compensation in the year you make the payment, multiplied by the number of years of military credit you purchase.

Application

Submit a Military Service Credit Application (R0081H) with a copy of your military discharge papers (DD214) showing entry and separation dates.

Even if your continuous hours total on account with your human resource office reflects your military time, you must submit your military discharge papers (DD214) to ORS to ensure your time is counted in your retirement credit.

For copies of your military papers, write to: National Personnel Records Center, Military Personnel Records, 9700 Page Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63132-5100. You can obtain the request form online by visiting www.archives.gov.