Retiring from the MTRS: Regular and RetirementPlus
Other types of creditable service

Regular service
Credit for an authorized leave of absence or sabbatical
Leave of absence for active military service
Pre-1975 maternity leave credit

Regular service

This is earned by all teachers and administrators who are employed on at least a half-time basis and who are contributing members of the MTRS. If you are employed on a full-time basis, you will earn one year of creditable service for each contract year you complete. Members employed on less than a full-time basis will earn an amount of regular service credit which equals their percentage of full-time employment. For example, a teacher who is employed on a 50 percent basis will receive half a year of credit after completing a full school year. There are, however, two exceptions. One is in the case of a member who is employed on a part-time basis (at least 50 percent) throughout his or her entire career; the other is when a member has had no employment status change since November 9, 1990, meaning that the member’s position has not gone from full-time to part-time or part-time to full-time. In both of these cases, the member will receive a year of creditable service for each year worked on a half-time basis or more.

Credit for an authorized leave of absence or sabbatical (automatically granted based on documentation; you do not need to purchase this service)

You will receive creditable service depending on how you were compensated during your leave. If you received:

• full compensation, you will receive full service credit.
• partial compensation, you will receive partial service credit.
• no compensation (an unpaid leave), you will receive either the exact number of days of your leave if it was for one month or less, or one month of service if it was for longer than one month.

Please note:

• Paid sabbaticals, regardless of when they were rendered, will always be prorated to reflect the percentage at which they were paid. For example, a sabbatical at 75 percent pay will be credited as 0.75 year of service.
• Two or more consecutive leaves of absence will be treated as one leave. For example, school districts often allow leaves of absence in one-year increments and require educators who wish to take two-year leaves to reapply after the first year of the leave. In these cases, the two-year or more leave is counted as one leave of absence, and credited as noted above.

Leave of absence for active military service (automatically granted based
on documentation; you do not need to purchase this service)

If you rendered active military service in the middle of your Massachusetts public service career, generally you may be eligible to receive credit for a maximum of four years of your time in the military. Please note that if you qualify, the cost of this service is borne by the school district or municipality; you do not have to pay for this time. To qualify, you must have been an active member of a Massachusetts contributory retirement system immediately prior to entering military service and you must have returned to a position subject to membership in a Massachusetts contributory retirement system within two years of your discharge. While you were in the military, your local school district or municipality should have been making contributions to the retirement system you belonged to prior to your military service. If such contributions were not made, we will bill the municipality on your behalf for the contributions that should have been made to the retirement system.

Note: The combination of credit for a leave of absence for military service and
credit for active military service generally cannot exceed four years.

Pre-1975 maternity leave credit

You may be eligible to purchase creditable service for your pre-1975 maternity leave if you meet all of the following requirements:

• you did not have at least ten years of creditable service on December 31, 2001, but you have now accrued at least ten years of creditable service AND, at this time, it is within 18 months of the date that you have accrued ten years of service;
• you took a leave, or resigned, for maternity or adoption purposes prior to January 1, 1975;
• you were either a member in service of the MTRS or a member in service with the Boston Retirement System as a teacher, within the nine months immediately before the birth or adoption of your child; and
• you will be an active member of the MTRS, or on an authorized leave of absence, on the date that you apply to purchase this credit.

If you believe that you meet all four of these requirements, please contact us and request that we send you our Pre-1975 Maternity Leave Purchase application form for you to complete and return to our office. Once we have confirmed that your maternity leave is eligible for purchase, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws c. 32, section 4(g 1/2), we will send you an invoice detailing the amount of credit you may purchase, its cost and your payment options.