5 U.S.C. § 8468 — Annuities and pay on reemployment

(a) If you retire and get an annuity, then take an appointive or elective government job, the government normally subtracts, from your new pay, an amount equal to the annuity you earned during that work period. This doesn't apply to lump-sum leave payments under section 5551. This offset does not apply if you were a disability annuitant whose annuity ended because you recovered or got your earning capacity back. Unless your new job is intermittent, or you become a judge (as defined in section 451 of title 28), or you're covered by another government retirement system, or you're serving as President, retirement deductions must still be withheld from your pay under section 8422(a) and contributions must still be made under section 8423. Those withheld amounts go into the U.S. Treasury for the Fund. Your lump-sum credit can't be reduced by the annuity you were paid while reemployed. (b) This subsection explains what happens to your annuity once your reemployment ends, if you were subject to the withholding described in (a). (1)(A) If you worked full-time for at least 1 year (or part-time equal to at least 1 year full-time), your annuity goes up when the reemployment ends. The increase is calculated under section 8415(a) through (i), based on your reemployment period and the average pay you earned (before deductions) during that time. (B)(i) If you're getting a reduced annuity under section 8419 (because you chose to give a survivor a benefit), the increase described above is cut by 10%, and the survivor annuity goes up by 50% of that increase — unless you tell the Office in writing, when you claim the increase, that you don't want the survivor annuity increased. (ii) If you die while still reemployed, after working full-time for at least 1 year (or the part-time equivalent), the survivor annuity is increased as if your reemployment had simply ended instead. (2)(A) If you worked full-time for at least 5 years (or the part-time equivalent), you can choose — instead of the increase in (1) — to have your retirement rights fully recalculated under this chapter. (B) If you die while reemployed, after at least 5 years full-time (or equivalent part-time), whoever is entitled to a survivor annuity under section 8442 or 8445 based on your service can choose, following Office regulations, to have their rights under subchapter IV recalculated instead of getting the increase in (1)(B)(ii). (3) If you worked full-time less than 1 year (or the part-time equivalent), you can apply in writing to get back everything withheld from your pay under section 8422(a) during that period — paid to you, or if you've died, to your survivor(s) in the order set out in section 8424(d). (c) None of this section applies to someone appointed as a Governor of the Postal Service's Board of Governors. (d) If you become a federal judge (as defined in section 451 of title 28), you can apply anytime before resigning or retiring from active judicial service to be paid — under section 8424(a) — the amount by which your lump-sum credit exceeds the total annuity already paid to you. The usual filing deadline for that application doesn't apply to you. (e) When this section says "annuity," it doesn't include money paid from anywhere except the Fund. (f)(1) The Director of the Office of Personnel Management may, at an agency head's request: (A) waive this section's rules case-by-case for jobs that are exceptionally hard to recruit or retain qualified employees for; or (B) let an agency head do that same case-by-case waiving for a temporary employee, but only while — and only if — it's needed because of an emergency directly threatening life or property, or other unusual circumstances. (2) The Office must write regulations for using this waiver power, including standards for using it and how to end a delegation made under (1)(B). (g)(1) Under the same circumstances as (f)(1)(A) or (B), the Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has the same waiver power for judicial-branch employees that the Office's Director (or an authorized agency head) has for executive-branch employees. (2) This waiver power can never be used for a federal judge as defined in section 451 of title 28. (h)(1) Under the same circumstances as (f)(1)(A) or (B), certain legislative-branch officials listed in (2) get that same waiver power over the employees named there. (2) That power belongs to: (A) the head of a legislative-branch agency, for that agency's employees; (B) the House Committee on House Oversight, for House employees; and (C) the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, for Senate employees. (3) Anyone using this power must follow written policies the relevant official or committee sets, consistent with this subsection. (4) "Agency in the legislative branch," "employee of the House of Representatives," "employee of the Senate," and "congressional employee" each mean what section 5531 of this title says. (i)(1) For this subsection: (A) "head of an agency" means: the head of an executive agency (except the Defense Department or the Government Accountability Office); the head of the Postal Service; the Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, for judicial-branch employees; or any employing authority listed in (h)(2), except the GAO. (B) "limited time appointee" means a retiree given a temporary appointment of 1 year or less. (2) An agency head may waive subsection (a) for a limited time appointee if the agency head decides hiring that retiree is necessary to: (A) do work critical to the agency's or a component's mission; (B) help carry out or oversee the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or the Troubled Asset Relief Program under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008; (C) help develop, manage, or oversee the agency's procurement; (D) help the agency's Inspector General do that office's work; (E) support training or mentoring programs for employees; (F) help recruit or retain employees; or (G) respond to an emergency directly threatening life or property, or other unusual circumstances. (3) An agency head cannot waive subsection (a) for any one retiree for more than: (A) 520 hours of work during the 6 months after the retiree's annuity starts; (B) 1,040 hours during any 12-month period; or (C) 3,120 hours total. (4)(A) The number of retirees covered by an agency's waivers under this subsection or section 8344(l) can't exceed 2.5% of that agency's full-time employees. (B) If it exceeds 1% of full-time employees, the agency head must send the Senate Homeland Security Committee, the House Oversight Committee, and the Office of Personnel Management: (i) a report justifying the extra waivers; and (ii) within 180 days after that report, a succession plan. (5)(A) The Office's Director may write regulations to run this subsection. (B) Those regulations may: (i) set standards for record-keeping about this employment; (ii) — as far as the law allows — require agencies to share those records with the Office or other agencies to check the limits in (3); (iii) allow other convenient periods roughly equal to 12 months (like 26 pay periods) for checking the limit in (3)(B); (iv) add other administrative rules the Director finds useful for running or enforcing this subsection; and (v) encourage limited time appointees to train and mentor other employees. (6)(A) Hours a limited time appointee spends training or mentoring don't count toward the hour limits in (3) — but those training or mentoring hours can't exceed 520 hours. (B) But if training or mentoring is the appointee's main job, those hours do count toward the (3) limits. (7) An agency head's waiver power under this subsection ends on December 31, 2024. (j)(1) For subsections (f) through (i), "Executive agency" does not include the Government Accountability Office. (2) An employee covered by a waiver under (f), (g), (h), or (i) doesn't count as an "employee" for purposes of this chapter or chapter 83.