Active, inactive, and vested members* receive an annual Statement of Account. The statement shows a high-level overview of your Defined Benefit (DB) and Defined Contribution (DC)** accounts (if applicable). This includes total contributions, interest, years of credited service, wages, hours and days worked in that fiscal year, a summary of debts against your account (if applicable), an estimate of your monthly retirement benefits (if eligible), and your vested and non-vested DC account balances. Any adjustments or purchases of service credit that are transacted after the statement generation date will appear on the following year's statement.
In the fall, PSERS will send your statement after all of your employer(s) report your wages, contributions, and annual service for that school year. Only one statement is sent to members who work for more than one school employer during the school year (July 1 through June 30). PSERS must first receive all the employer information (reports) to generate the statement. Because your statement is based on employer reporting, you should review it for accuracy and resolve any discrepancies in salary or service with your employer as soon as possible.
The statement will also list your primary beneficiary(ies), unless you requested to omit the beneficiary information. You may choose to omit your beneficiary information from your statement through the MSS Portal or by indicating your choice to omit that information from your statement on any Nomination of Beneficiaries form you submit to PSERS.
Members with an MSS account can opt to enroll in paperless delivery which means that they will receive their statements electronically. Members with Paperless Delivery are sent an email notifying them when their statement is generated and available on the "My Documents" page on MSS.
Information on the statement is as of June 30 of the previous school year. Sign into your Member Self-Service (MSS) account to view your most recent account information
*School employees who have not qualified for membership will not receive a statement.
**Members who participate in PSERS DC Plan will also receive a Quarterly Financial Statement from Voya Financial.
When you receive your statement, please take a moment to verify the information provided, such as your birth date, years of service, spelling of your first and last name, and mailing address.
You may change your mailing address through the Member Self-Service (MSS) Portal. If you are actively working, changes to your name, date of birth, and questions pertaining to service reported to PSERS by your employer during the referenced school year should initially be directed to your employer. If you are a vested member of PSERS or you have recently terminated all Pennsylvania public school employment, corrections or questions should be directed to PSERS.
Your primary beneficiary is listed unless you have requested confidentiality. Due to space limitation on the statement, the complete name of your beneficiary may not appear. If you named more than ten primary beneficiaries, only the names of the first ten will appear. There is no need for concern that the additional names do not appear. In the event of your death, PSERS will refer to the actual Nomination of Beneficiaries to determine the payment of any death benefit.
If you submitted a Nomination of Beneficiaries form before April 1975, your beneficiary does not appear on your annual Statement of Account. If you wish to have the name of your beneficiary appear on your statement, submit a new nomination of beneficiaries through the MSS Portal or a new Nomination of Beneficiaries (PSRS-187) form to PSERS.
Your contributions are determined by your contribution rate and the salary reported to PSERS by your employer. PSERS credits contributions to your account based on the salary information your employer reports to us.
Employee contributions fall into two categories - taxable and pre-taxed.
- Taxable contributions are tax-deferred. Taxable contributions include regular contributions made after December 31, 1982, and purchase of service payments made at any time via a rollover. You do not pay federal tax on this money until you withdraw these contributions. If you do not see contributions listed under Investment in Contract Pre-87 and/or Investment in Contract Post-86, all of your contributions are taxable. Anyone who became a contributing member of PSERS on or after January 1, 1983, will have contributed all taxable contributions, with one exception – payments made to purchase service credit.
- Pre-taxed contributions are your contributions where you already paid the federal tax due on the amount of the contributions. Pre-taxed contributions include Pre-87 Investment in Contract contributions and Post-86 Investment in Contract contributions.
Pre-87 Investment in Contract contributions consist of regular contributions made before January 1, 1983, and purchases of service payments made before January 1, 1987.
Post-86 Investment in Contract contributions include purchase of service payments made after December 31, 1986. You, however, cannot recover the total amount of the Post-86 pre-taxed money at one time, even though this money was previously taxed. It will be excluded as a portion of your taxable income (monthly benefit payments) and will be recovered by you over your anticipated lifetime. This is referred to as an exclusion ratio.
You earn 2% interest on your current year’s DB contributions. All prior DB contributions in your account earn four (4) percent interest annually. Your current year’s contributions earn two percent interest instead of four percent, because not all of your contributions are in your account for the full year.
You may not receive more than one year of service within a single school year (July 1 – June 30). There are two primary reasons why a partial year of credit may be reflected on your statement:
- You worked less than a full school year. The service calculation is based on the number of days or hours reported by your employer. For example, a full year of service credit is 180 days (if hired on a per diem basis) or 1,100 hours (if hired on an hourly basis). If you worked 170 days, PSERS calculates your service credit by dividing 170 by 180. You would receive .94 of a year or service credit.
- If you purchased service, the total service may have included a partial year of service.
If you do not agree with the service reported during the school year, contact your employer(s) to review the reported service. Any adjustments to your service would be made by your employer and then reported to PSERS by them.
In most cases, the FAS for Class T-C, Class T-D, Class T-E, and Class T-F members is an average of your three highest school years' salaries. The FAS for Class T-G and Class T-H members is generally the average of your five highest school years' salaries.
There may be several reasons a benefit calculation was not provided: data may be incomplete for the calculation of final average salary, your total service credit may not qualify you for a retirement benefit, or you may be a former PSERS retiree who has returned to service.
As the present computerized information used to generate your Statement of Account is generalized to cover a broad spectrum of employer reporting methods and employee information, the system does not project your contributions and interest for future retirement dates.
Your death benefit and/or monthly retirement benefit may drop due to the amount of contributions and interest available for you to withdraw. The amount of contributions and interest available for withdrawal at retirement reduces your monthly benefit payment. Because the previous information provided did not update the contributions and interest, the estimated figures were showing a smaller withdrawal of funds.
The two main reasons would not receiving a Statement of Account would be due to an incorrect address on file for you or your account is in an inactive status.
If you left employment and were not vested (Becoming Vested), you will not receive an annual statement. If you are still working in a Pennsylvania public school and you’re not receiving your statement, please contact PSERS to make sure that we have the correct address on file for you.
If you are no longer working in a Pennsylvania public school, it may be to your benefit to withdraw your contributions and interest from PSERS. By law, PSERS may not continue to pay interest to inactive accounts.
Also remember to check your MSS account. You can manage your paperless settings at any time in MSS.
You can obtain additional copies of your Statement of Account through the PSERS Member Self-Service (MSS) Portal. You must have established an MSS account to view or print a copy of your statement.
In some circumstances, the mortgage companies insist on more current information than what appears on your most recent Annual Statement of Account. This can be accomplished with the company submitting a Verification of Deposit along with the member's signed release. The approximate time frame for our response is 3 to 5 days.
