Blended Membership

If you move from one California public agency to another whose pension benefits are administered by a different retirement system (e.g., from the County to the City), then you may establish reciprocity, as explained in the Reciprocity Fact Sheet. However, if you move between two agencies whose pension benefits are administered by SDCERS, you would not establish reciprocity – instead, you would maintain SDCERS membership and begin accruing something termed “blended benefits.”

You become a “blended member” at SDCERS if any of the following apply:

• You were employed in a position eligible for membership with one SDCERS plan sponsor (the City, Port, or Airport), and subsequently become employed in a position eligible for membership with one of the other two plan sponsors; or
• You change job types under the same plan sponsor, such that you move to a different membership classification governed by the same plan document – e.g., you were initially a City General Member and subsequently become a City Safety Member, or vice versa.

Blended membership is a complex subject and there are many caveats and exceptions that may apply in specific scenarios. Therefore, we urge you to contact SDCERS for more information about your particular circumstances after you review this fact sheet.

• As a blended member, your total service credit earned during all periods of employment with any SDCERS plan sponsor can be used to satisfy your service credit vesting requirement, as long as you retire simultaneously from all plans.

• You must meet both the age and service credit eligibility requirements combining all SDCERS plan sponsors service credit in order to retire simultaneously. (See the applicable retirement plan summaries for more information about eligibility requirements.)
• If you meet the service credit vesting requirement for Plan A, using only the service credit earned from Plan A, but do not meet the service credit requirement for Plan B using your combined service credit earned at both plans, then you may still be able to retire from Plan A (using only Plan A’s service credit) and receive a refund of contributions from Plan B.
• If your blended membership is due to participation in multiple plan tiers under the same plan sponsor (e.g., City Safety and City General), then your eligibility requirements are based on your current or most recent plan tier you are active in.

Unlike reciprocity, with blended benefits there is not a requirement to move between jobs within six months. That being said, if you were hired by the City or Port prior to 2013 and subsequently begin employment with the Airport within 6 months of terminating your City or Port employment, you may be eligible to join the Airport’s most recent non-PEPRA plan tier (applicable to Airport employees initially hired between January 1, 2003 and January 1, 2013), which may offer higher pension benefits than the PEPRA plan tier. If there is more than a 6-month break between employments, then you would join the Airport’s PEPRA plan tier instead.

The same idea generally applies if you move from the City or Airport to the Port, or if you move to a position under a different category of membership within the Port (e.g., General to Safety, or vice versa). As long as your initial hire date was before 2013 and you begin your Port employment within 6 months of leaving the City or Airport, you may be eligible to join the Port’s most recent non-PEPRA plan tier according to your category of membership. However, this concept only applies if you are moving to the Port or the Airport – it does not apply if you move from the Airport or Port to the City, because the City is not governed by PEPRA; so, regardless of whether or not there is a break in service between your Port or Airport employment and your City employment, your City Member plan tier would be determined according to your category of membership and initial hire date with the City, as discussed below.

Unless the exception described above applies, your plan tier with a subsequent plan sponsor will be based on your initial hire date with the new plan sponsor – not your hire date with the first SDCERS plan sponsor:

• Example #1: If you became an Airport Member in 2000 and subsequently became a City General Member in 2010, you would belong to the City’s most recent General Member plan tier that applies to all City General Members initially hired on or after July 1, 2009.
• Example #2: If you became a Port Member in 2015, you would join the Port’s PEPRA plan tier applicable to your category of membership; if you later begin employment at the Airport, you would belong to the Airport’s most recent PEPRA plan tier.

However, if you become a blended member by virtue of moving to a position in a different category of membership under the same plan sponsor (e.g., you go from a City General Member to a City Safety Member or vice versa), then the plan tier you join when you move to the new category of membership will be determined based on your initial hire date in the first membership classification.

• Example #1: If you became a City Safety Member in 2008 and subsequently become a City General Member in 2022, you would join the City’s second General Member plan tier applicable to employees initially hired between July 1, 2002 and July 1, 2009.
• Example #2: If you became a Port General Member in 2005 and then moved to a Port Safety Member position in 2015 without a break in service, you would belong to the first Port Safety Member plan tier, applicable to Port Safety Members hired before 2010.

Although a break in service does not affect your ability to become a blended member, you must have left your contributions on deposit with SDCERS, if you withdraw your contributions at any point, you will lose the service credit you earned during your initial employment period and blended benefits will not apply. 

Upon becoming a blended member, your contribution rate applicable during your employment with the subsequent plan sponsor will be according to your new plan tier’s contribution rates, but based on your nearest whole age when you initially became an SDCERS Member (adjusted for any breaks in membership), not your age when you are hired by the subsequent plan sponsor or move to a position in a different category of membership. This is the same concept applicable to reciprocity. For example, if you become an Airport Member at age 30, work for 5 years, and then become a City Member at age 35 (without a break in between), your City Member contribution rate will be based on an entry age of 30. However, if you took a year off in between the two jobs, your City Member contribution rate would be based on an adjusted entry age of 31.

As a blended member, your combined service credit earned during all periods of employment with an SDCERS plan sponsor will generally count towards your service credit vesting requirement. However, like with reciprocity, you must retire simultaneously from all of your plan tiers in order to use your combined service credit for vesting purposes.

If your blended membership is due to employment in different plan tiers within the same plan sponsor (e.g., City General to City Safety), then your most recent period of employment will determine your retirement eligibility requirements. For example, City General Members can retire as early as age 55 if they have at least 20 years of service credit, or age 62 if they have at least 10 years. City Safety Members have lower age requirements – they can retire as early as age 50 with 20 years of service, or 55 with 10 years. If you begin City employment in a General Member position and subsequently become a Safety Member, you can retire according to the earlier age requirements applicable to Safety Members, assuming you meet the corresponding service credit requirements. If the situation is reversed – you begin as a Safety Member and end as a General Member – then you cannot retire earlier than age 55, or age 62 if you have less than 20 years of combined service credit.

On the other hand, if your blended membership is due to employment with multiple SDCERS plan sponsors, then you must satisfy the eligibility requirements for both plan sponsors in order to receive a pension benefit from each. This can be complicated if your two plan sponsors have different eligibility requirements.

• Example #1: If you work for the most recent Airport PEPRA plan tier for 5 years and then work for the City as a General Member for 3 years, you will have 8 years of total service credit. The most recent Airport plan tier allows you to retire at age 52 or older with at least 5 years of service credit. However, the City requires you to have at least 10 years of service credit in order to retire at age 62 at the earliest. In this example, you are eligible to retire from the Airport at age 52, but you do not meet the minimum eligibility requirements to retire from the City. Therefore, your only options are (a) retire from the Airport based on your 5 years of Airport service, at which time you can take a refund of your City contributions, or (b) to continue working for the City (or another SDCERS plan sponsor) for another 2 years, so that you have 10 years of total service credit between the two plan sponsors and can retire simultaneously from both plans at age 62 or older.
  
• Example #2: You earn 3 years of service credit at the Port under the Port’s General 2024 plan tier, and then move to the City and earn 5 years of City service credit. Your Port plan tier allows you to retire at age 52 with 5 years of service credit, but the City requires you to have at least 10 years of service credit in order to retire at age 62 at the earliest. However, in order to use your combined service credit for vesting purposes, you must retire from both plan sponsors simultaneously. In this example, you are not eligible to retire from the City because you don’t have 10 years of total service credit, and since you can’t retire from both plan sponsors simultaneously, your City service credit can’t be used to meet your Port plan tier’s 5-year vesting requirement, so you are therefore not eligible to retire from the Port either. Your only option here is to either take a refund of your Port and City contributions, or accrue at least 2 more years of service credit in order to be eligible to retire from both plans simultaneously at age 62 or older.
  
• Example #3: You work for the Airport’s PEPRA plan tier for 5 years and then you work for the City for 5 years. Now, you have 10 years of service credit total between the two plan sponsors. Therefore, you can retire from both plan sponsors simultaneously at age 62 or older, using your combined credit. Alternatively, you could retire just from the Airport at age 52 or older, based on your 5 years of Airport service credit, and then take a refund of your City contributions.

*IMPORTANT: Please note that you generally cannot continue to work for one SDCERS sponsor while actively receiving an SDCERS pension benefit from another plan sponsor – so, in Example #1, if you choose to retire from the Airport before becoming eligible to retire from the City, you may not be able to continue working for the City after your Airport retirement date.

When you retire as a blended member, a portion of your pension benefit will be calculated according to the plan document of your initial plan tier, while the rest of your benefit will be calculated according to your most recent plan tier. In Example #3 of the previous section, where you worked for the Airport for 5 years and then worked for the City for 5 years, half of your benefit (based on the 5 years of Airport service credit) will be determined according to your Airport plan tier’s retirement factors and final compensation calculation, and half will be determined using your City plan tier’s retirement factors and final compensation calculation.

Similarly, in the example where you started as a City General Member and later became a City Safety Member, your benefit would be calculated as follows: The service credit you earned as a General Member will be multiplied by your General Member plan tier’s retirement factors and final compensation calculation, and your Safety Member service credit would be multiplied by your Safety Member plan tier’s retirement factors and final compensation calculation. The combined amounts give you your initial base pension benefit.

Note that some plan tiers calculate your final compensation (as used in your pension benefit formula) differently than others – generally, it is calculated as your highest pensionable compensation averaged over either one or three years, depending on your plan tier. If your blended benefit is due to employment with multiple plan sponsors, SDCERS will calculate your final compensation for each plan sponsor according to your pensionable pay and final compensation calculations, respectively; the final compensation calculation that yields the highest amount is what will be used to calculate your blended benefit for all periods of employment. For example, if you were hired by the Airport in 2007 and then became a City General Member in 2011, your Airport plan tier’s final compensation calculation is based on your highest pensionable salary averaged over one year, while your City final compensation calculation would be averaged over three years. SDCERS will calculate your highest one-year pensionable salary that you received at the Airport between 2007 and 2011, and then compare it to your highest pensionable salary that you received as a City employee averaged over three years. Whichever number is higher is what will be used to calculate both your Airport and City pension benefits.

Don’t forget that just like with reciprocity, you must retire simultaneously from all categories of membership. If you are considering moving between SDCERS plan sponsors or between categories of membership within the same SDCERS plan sponsor, be sure to review the retirement plan summary for the retirement plan tier that you are currently in, and note the differences compared to the plan tier you would join under your subsequent employment. You should review the contribution rates, the eligibility requirements, the retirement factors, benefit cap (if applicable), and the final compensation calculation in order to fully understand how your job change may affect your future pension benefit.