Please note that terms and conditions vary given laws and requirements per country and state.

The Employees’ Retirement System was created by the Retirement and Social Security Law. This system provides a clearly defined benefit plan based on your credited years of service and your salary throughout that period. When you retire you will receive a monthly allowance based on the determination of the factors mentioned as well as the electives of the particular plan to which you fall under.

Your retirement benefits are assigned to you only. They cannot be distributed to a spouse current or former. But, as marital property it is often divided between husband and wife. Upon divorce, the sum of the retirement fund would be seen as equitable property and be divided according to the appropriated agreement between both parties, their lawyers, and the court.

At times the court asks that the Retirement System provide documentation of how much a person’s retirement plan is worth. This can be very difficult to achieve. Other times, it’s impossible. Eligibility for most benefits depends on you reaching a certain age and/or receiving a certain amount of service credit. Your benefit determination is based on your entire career in public service. It is never portioned and an estimate of future benefits could not possibly be determined. Therefore, it is impossible to provide a calculation before one actually retires.

However, a calculation may be made based on the date which such a request was made. Using the latest employer report on record a determination can be made based on service credit, salary, and retirement plan which you would fall under at that particular time. The unfortunate difficulty with this is that it takes several weeks to make such a determination and often provides additional stress in the court process.

Upon completion, required documentation would need to be provided to the Retirement System in order for the process of distribution to be carried out. This most often would come in the form of a Domestic Relations Order provided by the court. When all documentation is provided and the client under the retirement plan has met with the requirements of the system payment will be provided to the spouse (former).

In the circumstance of ordinary death, benefits are provided for the beneficiary of the retiree. Often, it is asked that the retiree provide the spouse (former or current) as the beneficiary to protect his or her financial interest.