The Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) provides retirement, disability, and survivor benefits for many civilian employees of the United States government – some 2,774,000 federal civilian employees.

Organized in 1920, CSRS was supplanted by the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) in 1987. CSRS continues to provide retirement benefits to those eligible to receive them, however newly hired federal employees do not participate in CSRS but rather are covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), which is a three tiered retirement system with a less robust defined benefit plan (pension), Social Security, and a 401(k)-style routine called the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).

CSRS is a defined benefit plan, like a pension. The defined benefits of both the CSRS and the FERS systems are paid out of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund.

The chief distinction between the CSRS and FERS is that CSRS pensioners do not receive any Social Security as a result of their earnings history and they are unlikely to receive any spousal Social Security as a result of the Government Pension Offset (GPO), while FERS participants receive both a FERS pension and Social Security.

Court Orders for Acceptable Processing (COAPs) are the standard instrument for the equitable distribution of a CSRS or FERS pension. CSRS and FERS pensions are subject to distribution based on a coverture share. Model COAPs under the CSRS and the FERS for active plan participants use a traditional coverture approach, which creates a coverture fraction, a tool used by a pension appraiser to separate marital benefits (those earned during the marriage, and subject to distribution) from those benefits which were earned outside the marriage (and generally separate property and not subject to distribution). The coverture fraction shows the portion of the value of the benefits attributable to the marriage. The numerator of the fraction represents the amount of time the worker participated in the plan during the marriage, and the denominator is the amount of time total that he or she participated in the plan as of the cut-off date.

Properly written, a COAP may include what is called “a former spouse annuity” provision, which protects the nonparticipant spouse in event that the participant dies. Securing survivorship, especially preretirement coverage for a former spouse, is what one pension expert called “precarious”. The plans permit “former spouse annuity coverage” in the COAP, but only for “post-retirement” purposes in the event the participant dies after his or her retirement date but before the former spouse. Moreover, a former spouse loses survivor coverage if he or she remarries before 55.

However, a loophole in the COAP dividing Civil Service pensions may result in what is called “lost survivorship.” The loophole becomes a trap for a nonparticipant former spouse when the participant leaves government service, then dies before he or she begins to collect pension benefits. At the time of his or her death, the former government employee is no longer an active worker nor a retiree. Because the worker left his or her government position before retirement and then died before starting a pension, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which manages government pensions, “will not honor a court order that includes former spouse annuity protection.”

With all [the] COAPs, there remains a chance that the former spouse will not receive his or her share, if the employee spouse quits federal service and dies before commencing his or her pension benefits. I is recommended to include a “stand-alone short-term life insurance policy” provision in the judgment entry. This helps to protect the former spouse’s ownership of the pension benefits.

CSRS employees who terminate employment and are later rehired retain their CSRS coverage if they meet certain service rules. Rehired employees who have 5 years of civilian service as of December 31, 1986 retain CSRS coverage. However if the break in service is greater than 365 days, the employee is also covered under Social Security and is considered a CSRS Offset. Overall benefits paid to CSRS or CSRS Offset employees remain equitable based on the number of years of creditable service and the CSRS formula upon retirement. CSRS and CSRS Offset employees with a break in service more than three days are also eligible to elect coverage under FERS within the first six months of rehire.

Employees who were previously covered under CSRS and do not meet the five-year retirement coverage rule are automatically covered under the FERS upon rehire.

Employees under CSRS (and CSRS Offset) may contribute to a Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) as well, but participate as a supplement to their designated pension benefit. Contributions to the TSP are not matched.