(a) An eligible member may purchase one year of service credit in the Teacher Retirement System of Texas ("TRS") for accumulated state personal or sick leave in accordance with Government Code §823.403 and subject to approval of TRS.
(b) A member is eligible to purchase one year of service credit if the member has at least ten years of TRS service credit for actual service with one or more employers defined by Government Code §821.001(7), retires from such an employer, and has at least 50 days or 400 hours of accumulated state personal or sick leave on the last day of employment before retirement. Not more than an aggregate of five days of unused state personal or sick leave may be accumulated per year. State personal and sick leave may be combined, if needed, for the purpose of calculating the necessary 50 days or 400 hours. No more than one year of service credit may be purchased even if more time has been accumulated.
(c) Credit purchased under this section may be used only for the purpose of calculating the amount of a retirement plan benefits but may not be used to determine eligibility for retirement plan benefits.
(d) To establish service credit under this section, an eligible member must submit an employer certification in the form and manner prescribed by TRS. Additionally, the eligible member must deposit with TRS, in the manner prescribed by TRS, the actuarial present value of the additional standard retirement annuity benefits that would be attributable to the conversion of the unused state personal or sick leave into the service credit, as described in subsection (e) of this section.
(e) To compute these amounts, TRS will use the State Personal or Sick Leave Conversion Factor Tables furnished by the TRS actuary of record. Specifically, TRS will select the applicable conversion factor from the table based on the age of the member in full years and months at the effective date of retirement. To obtain the cost of the service credit, the conversion factor will be multiplied by the increase in the monthly standard retirement annuity resulting from the conversion of state personal or sick leave to an additional one year of service credit. The increase in the annuity will be determined using the standard retirement annuity without an adjustment for an optional service retirement annuity plan selected by the member because any optional plan selected by the member is required by Government Code §824.204(b) to be the actuarial equivalent of the member's standard retirement annuity.
Source Note: The provisions of this §25.162 adopted to be effective February 4, 2000, 25 TexReg 598; amended to be effective January 30, 2002, 27 TexReg 272; amended to be effective March 12, 2003, 28 TexReg 2100; amended to be effective April 1, 2011, 36 TexReg 1838; amended to be effective September 1, 2019, 44 TexReg 4185; amended to be effective September 1, 2023, 48 TexReg 4519