Opinion ID: 2546975
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: RIP credit

Text: RIP participants gain eligibility for three additional years of benefit, which are allocated as follows: (1) as years toward age or service requirements for normal retirement; (2) as years toward age and service requirements for early retirement; (3) as years reducing the actuarial adjustment for early retirement; then (4) as years of credited service for calculating retirement benefits. Sec. 2, ch. 65, SLA 1996. In the section of their brief protesting their denied eligibility for normal retirement, the Bartleys also assert that they were not properly granted the full benefit of the RIP program. They claim that the Division's March 19, 1998 letters demonstrate that they were not properly given RIP credit and that if the Division insisted on designating them as early retirees, it was required to consider them 58 years old instead of 55. The Division contends that the RIP credit was correctly applied. Since the Bartleys were first hired into the TRS in 1991, normal retirement would not be available to them until age 60. And since the Bartleys were only 55, adding an additional three years would not render them eligible for normal retirement. But under the Division's generous reading of AS 14.25.110(a)(3), the Bartleys did not need any additional years of age or service to be eligible for early retirement. The Division therefore properly used the three RIP years to lessen the actuarial reduction that would otherwise have been required under AS 14.25.110(j). That practice is in accordance with the priority system of the RIP.