On your QPP retirement application, you must decide how your TDA funds will be distributed. You may receive your TDA funds as an annuity separate from your QPP retirement allowance. You may instead elect TDA Deferral status, and thereby defer distribution of your TDA funds past the initial payability date of your QPP retirement allowance. A third choice is to make a Direct Withdrawal, Direct Rollover, or Direct Transfer of all or part of your TDA funds; if you make a partial withdrawal, you may annuitize or defer your balance. For more information, please see the TDA Options at Retirement brochure.

You should not make a decision without first discussing these options with a UFT pension consultant. 

If you have several questions or are planning a career change, resignation or retirement, you should make an appointment for a preliminary pension consultation at one of the UFT's borough offices. At this private consultation, you will receive an estimate of your retirement allowance and answers to your questions about retirement benefits. We advise that everyone have a minimum of one preliminary borough consultation before your final consultation. You may have more than one preliminary consultation during your career. To make a preliminary appointment, call 212-331-6311 between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., Monday through Friday.

You are entitled to only one final consultation during your career, so most members complete them in the final months of work.

To make an appointment, call 212-331-6311 between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Meetings are scheduled in the borough office most convenient to you.  If you are a BERS member, call 929-305-3800 to schedule an appointment with a BERS representative.

During the final pension consultation you will be able to: 

• Estimate your retirement allowance;
• Discuss using the Teachers' Retirement System or the Board of Education Retirement System as a means for protecting heirs and beneficiaries;
• Discuss removing contributions, where permissible, from the system at retirement;
• Aid you in completing the retirement application;
• Learn about health and welfare fund benefits;
• Answer all of your other retirement questions.

See our page listing all current pension clinics being offered with a link to register: https://www.uft.org/your-benefits/pension/pension-clinics.

You have our condolences. There are a number of steps you need to take. You can find out what to do when a retiree passes away on the UFT website. If you have further questions, please contact the UFT-RTC Pension Department at 212-598-9536.

Your pension is governed by state law and protected by the State Constitution. Whenever the State Legislature made substantial changes in public employee pensions, it passed a new law creating a new plan for people hired after the law’s effective date. So public employees fall into different pension plans depending on when they began their service.

The plans may have different costs and benefits, so to find out about your pension plan, you need to know what tier you are in. In some cases, people are permitted to change tiers or to transfer their tier membership from another eligible retirement system.

In addition to the defined benefit Qualified Pension Plan, the Teachers’ Retirement System and the Board of Education Retirement System offer a voluntary program, the Tax-Deferred Annuity (TDA) that allows you to save additional money for your retirement. Taxes are deferred on your contributions to the TDA and on any investment earnings from those contributions until you withdraw the money as income. How much your contributions earn depends on your investment choices. Upon retiring, you may receive your TDA funds in various ways, including as an annuity that is separate from and in addition to your pension allowance.

In some cases, Tiers III, IV and VI members can purchase service credit for certain employment they had before joining TRS. For your service to be eligible, the work had to have been rendered while you were in public employment in New York City or New York State. Generally, any New York City or New York State service rendered prior to your membership date may count as pensionable service.

It is very important to choose a beneficiary or beneficiaries so you can be sure that if you die while you are still working for the New York City public schools the person(s) you choose receives your death benefit, instead of leaving it up to the courts. You need to designate beneficiaries for both your pension and your Tax Deferred Annuity, and remember to keep your designations up to date if circumstances change. You can view or change your current beneficiaries for your Qualified Pension Plan (QPP) and TDA accounts by logging in to the TRS website at www.trsnyc.org. BERS members may call 929-305-3800.

First, your contributions are deducted from your paycheck before taxes are taken out; as a result, your current taxes are lower. (For New York residents, this includes federal, state and local taxes. Please check with your accountant about state taxes if you are not a resident of New York State.) Furthermore, taxes are deferred on both your contributions and your investment return; therefore, more of your money remains invested, and your money grows faster than it would in a comparable investment that isn’t tax-deferred. Finally, taxes are payable at the rate charged when you withdraw the funds, a rate that may be lower than your tax rate during your peak earnings years. Another important benefit is that your contributions are made through payroll deductions; this makes saving for your retirement automatic and convenient.