PERS retirement counseling

September 21, 2011

Marmian Grimes

Pamela Couzin, regional retirement counselor with the State of Alaska Division of Retirement and Benefits, will be on campus Monday – Friday, Nov. 7 – 11. She will be providing individual retirement counseling appointments and two evening sessions on the retirement process.

Retirement counseling sessions are beneficial for many reasons.


  • Employees can meet and discuss how retirement benefits are calculated and when the employee can and should retire.

  •  Employees can learn more about the medical options available as a retiree and how Medicare and social security will play a part in their retirement.

  • Employees can find out about claiming outside service, military service credit and/or purchasing temporary service to potentially increase their retirement benefit. If employees have indebtedness to the retirement system they could discuss the benefits of buying back service time or paying back the indebtedness. It’s possible that there are employees who have outside service who would be eligible to claim that service which could benefit them monetarily at retirement.


Both new and veteran employees are strongly encouraged to schedule meetings to discuss their current benefits and future retirement.

It is recommended that employees contact the Division of Retirement and Benefits to request retirement projections prior to their counseling appointments.  The contact number for the State of Alaska Division of Retirement and Benefits is 1-800-821-2251.

Individual sessions will be scheduled by appointment only. Contact HR at 474-7700 to schedule your individual appointment.  Appointments fill up VERY quickly, so call as soon as possible to secure your session.

Two evening retirement processing seminars will also be presented. One seminar will cover the Public Employee Retirement System and one the Teachers Retirement System. Employees must register on-line to enroll in the session. Links are provided below to directly access online registration.