Accrual
The percentage of your average salary each year of service earns.
Article 12 (2024)
The FY2025 budget changes: 3-year average salary, full COLA for pre-July 2012 retirees, a 75% funding test, and a $25,000 state-college work limit.
Article 7
The 2009 budget law that set a minimum retirement age of 62, scaled back by your service on Sept. 30, 2009.
COLA
The yearly cost-of-living adjustment.
Contributory service
Service you earned while working and paying in. It counts for vesting; most purchased service doesn't.
Deferred retirement
A pension you start later after leaving vested with your contributions left in.
Highest average salary
The average of your highest 3 consecutive years of pay (retirements on or after July 1, 2024).
MERS
The Municipal Employees' Retirement System, for city and town workers.
OAP
Optional Annuity Protection, which lets a beneficiary take a monthly annuity instead of a refund if a vested member dies before retiring.
RIRSA
The Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011, in effect July 1, 2012. It created the SSNRA retirement age, the 1% accrual and the defined contribution plan.
Rule of 95
A full pension when your age plus service reach 95, at 62 or older.
Schedule
ERSRI's group for you (A, ABE, ABNE, B, B1E, B1NE, B2 or B3), set by your hire date and service at key dates. 'E' means eligible to retire by June 30, 2012; 'NE' means not eligible.
SRA Plan
The Service Retirement Allowance, your full benefit with nothing paid to a survivor except the death benefit.
SRA PLUS
The Social Security supplemental option, more before 62 and less after.
SSNRA
Social Security Normal Retirement Age, your full retirement age under Social Security. ERSRI uses it (never more than 67) as your retirement age.
Transition Rule 1
Retiring up to 5 years early with 20+ years of service, with a permanent cut.
Transition Rule 2
Retiring at your June 30, 2012-law date with a pension frozen at that date's service and pay (10+ years then).
TSB
The Teachers' Survivors Benefit plan, for districts without Social Security.
Vested
Able to collect a pension once you meet the retirement rules. Takes 5 years of contributory service.
No terms match. Try a shorter word.
Plain English, not the official wordingThese definitions put the ERSRI Member Handbook and the 2024 law changes into everyday words. They aren't ERSRI's official definitions, and they aren't legal or financial advice. ERSRI decides your benefit. Start with which schedule am I? or the benefit formula.
Source: ERSRI Membership and Retirement Handbook, 10th edition, June 2020 (with the 2024 Article 12 changes from the Treasurer's guide, July 1, 2024), pp. 6, 9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 33, 34, 35, 40. Also: Treasurer's guide to the 2024 pension changes (Article 12), July 1, 2024. Last reviewed .