How You Earn Service Credit

Your service credit reflects the number of hours you have worked for a Michigan school that participates in the Public School Employees Retirement System. Participating schools are also known as reporting units, because they report your hours, compensation, and contributions to the Office of Retirement Services (ORS). In turn, we at ORS maintain these service records so that we can pay your pension when you are eligible. 

You receive credit for teaching or nonteaching, full-time or part-time work, and for permanent, temporary, intermittent, or substitute employment. You also receive credit for used vacation and sick leave, short-term disability payments which flow through your school's payroll system, and weekly workers' compensation payments you received after July 1, 1992. You do not earn credit while receiving long-term disability payments. 

Per pay period caps apply.

In general, you earn one year of service when you work 1,020 hours within the July 1 through June 30 school fiscal year. You can earn no more than one year of service credit in any given school fiscal year. For instance, administrative staff may work 2,080 hours a year, but will be limited to one year of service credit because the annual cap is 1,020 hours. 

As the chart below illustrates, if you are paid every week you cannot be credited with more than 30 hours, worth .0294 service credit. The cap is 60 hours or .0588 if you are on a biweekly pay cycle. 

If you work less than full-time.

If you don't work a full school year or if you're considered part-time because you don't work a typical school day, you will earn proportional credit. See the chart below to see how service credit is earned for a variety of school work schedules, after considering the caps.