PENSION BENEFITS REPORT
Your personal benefit statement
All NJ State PBA members should know that you have a personal benefit statement that is accessible online through your New Jersey Division of Pensions Member Benefits Online Service( MBOS) account.
The Division of Pensions has discontinued the delivery of the paper statements. If you have not registered for MBOS, you should do so immediately. MBOS is the way a member can apply online for a pension loan, check your enrollment date and find out information regarding your pension account.
When you register for the first time on MBOS, you will need to go to the Division of Pensions and Benefits website and look for the links to register. You will need your Social Security number, along with your PFRS number. If you don’ t know how to get your PFRS number, you can ask your payroll clerk or certifying officer or whoever is designated as the pension person at your employer’ s town hall.
When considering or planning your retirement, start your research by looking at your personal benefit statement. The
16 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ JUNE 2017 personal benefit statement is a snapshot of your estimated retirement benefit, not your actual calculation of your retirement benefit. In other words, your personal benefit statement helps you get an idea or a ballpark figure of what you could expect into retirement. Because the Division of Pensions operates several retirement plans, sometimes the calculation to determine PFRS retirements will be different. This is because the Division of Pensions does a quick calculation of salary for the personal benefit statement, instead of searching your salary within their computer system. It takes a snapshot of the three months of salary before the statement date and converts it into an annual salary.
However, the Division of Pensions doesn’ t take into consideration that we in the PFRS generally retire under a“ special retirement.” When they are providing a retirement estimate on your personal benefits page, they usually will have in red at the top that they are making retirement calculations based on a“ service retirement,” which is only 50 percent of your final compensation, not the 65 percent of final compensation for the“ special retirement.”
When you are preparing for retirement and need an accurate estimate, the Division of Pensions will use the actual salary that is reported to them by your employers, rather than the methods they utilize for the estimate on your personal benefits page.
Just before you retire, the Division of Pensions will require a document to prove your age. They must have proof of your age before they can pay you a retirement benefit. They always ask for your birth certificate but will also accept other forms to verify your age. In addition to your birth certificate, they will accept a copy of your passport, U. S Passport Card, current NJ digital driver’ s license and, if applicable, your naturalization or immigration documents. The Division of Pensions will not accept military records, expired documentation, out-of-state driver’ s licenses, marriage certificates, census records, baptismal records or affidavits from other family members as proof-of-age documents.
If you log in to your MBOS account and do not see the tab button for the personal benefit statement, generally they can’ t provide your personal benefit statement. This occurs because you may have changed employers or because you didn’ t contribute for any period of time in the three months before the statement date. If you determine that you have been making your contributions and still can’ t access your personal benefits page, then your employer did not submit the quarterly report of contributions in time, and the Division of Pensions has eliminated all the employees from that town to access the personal benefit statements for that quarter of the year. If this is the case, you will need to contact the Division of Pensions at 609-292- 7524 and request a statement account letter.
If you have any questions, don’ t hesitate to contact me at the NJSPBA office. d