The Civil Service Retirement Spouse Equity Act of 1984
| Publication year | 1985 |
| Pages | 1413 |
1985, August, Pg. 1413. The Civil Service Retirement Spouse Equity Act of 1984
On October 10, 1984, Congress passed the Civil Service Retirement Spouse Equity Act of 1984 ("Act").(fn1) Approved by President Reagan on November 8, 1984, the Act is designed to extend certain retirement-related benefits to present and former spouses of federal civil service employees. Attorneys should be familiar with the Act when representing clients in dissolution proceedings where one of the spouses is a current or retired federal civil service employee.
Prior to 1978, payments under the civil service retirement system were not assignable.(fn2) The Civil Service Commission therefore refused to pay any portion of a retired civil service employee's annuity to the employee's former spouse, even if the terms of the parties' divorce decree provided for such payment.
Congress recognized that this system failed to provide necessary economic protection to the former spouses of federal employees. As the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee noted:
Such a failure, in many cases, leaves the dependent spouse with no direct retirement benefits, despite many years of working without compensation, managing a home, raising children, and contributing time and effort to the joint marital enterprise.(fn3)
Accordingly, Congress amended the civil service retirement statutes in 1978 to provide that all or a designated portion of a retiree's monthly annuity payments may be paid to a former spouse, provided such payment is ordered pursuant to a court decree of divorce, annulment or legal separation. In order to receive the payment or partial payment, the former spouse must notify the government of the decree and submit an application.(fn4)
The Act is designed to address two areas left unresolved by the 1978 amendments. First, the Act provides that a civil service retiree's monthly annuity may be reduced in order to fund a survivor annuity for a present or former spouse. The survivor annuity is a monthly payment made to the present or former spouse in the event he or she survives the retiree. Second, the Act extends the availability of federal group health care coverage to certain former spouses of civil service employees.
The civil service retirement program is currently administered by the Office of Personnel Management ("OPM"). The 1978 amendments require the OPM to pay all or a portion of a retired employee's basic monthly annuity to a former spouse if ordered to do so under the terms of a divorce decree. However, those amendments do not provide for payment of a survivor annuity to the former spouse if the retiree predeceases the former spouse. Former spouses receiving a portion of the retiree's annuity pursuant to the 1978 amendments simply lose those benefits when the retiree dies.
The dilemma created by this situation was summarized by one former spouse in recent testimony before Congress. She stated: "Women who are receiving alimony, or a share of the annuity under a divorce decree, live with the constant fear of what will happen to them when their former husbands die."(fn5)
The Act addresses this problem by providing that the OPM must honor court orders requiring an employee to provide a survivor annuity to a former spouse.(fn6) The Act also allows an employee voluntarily to elect to provide a survivor annuity.(fn7) A voluntary election must be made at the time of retirement or, if later, within two years of the date on which the marriage is dissolved. Whether the employee is ordered to provide a survivor annuity or voluntarily elects to do so, the employee's own monthly annuity is reduced in...
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