You are eligible to become a member of SDCERA when you are appointed to a permanent position and work at least half time or 20 hours weekly. Membership is mandatory for eligible employees and begins with the first biweekly payroll period in the month following your appointment. Membership is optional for elected officials. Employees ineligible for membership include part-time workers scheduled to work less than half time, as well as emergency, temporary, hourly, provisional and seasonal employees.

SDCERA has two membership classifications. Your benefit formula is based on your membership classification:

General members are those employees not in active law enforcement positions, hired after January 1, 1958, who are covered by both SDCERA and Social Security. Effective March 8, 2002, General members who are hired or re-hired are classified as General, Tier A members*. SDCERA is an integrated retirement plan for General members, which means General members contribute to Social Security as well as to SDCERA from their County wages.

*Employees who opted out of (or were not eligible for) Tier A membership in March, 2002 remained in Tier I. The large majority of members, however, elected to move to Tier A membership. If you are uncertain as to your membership classification, SDCERA can verify this for you.

Note: The 3% at 60 formula is an approximation and does not take into account the Social Security Integration Factor that is factored into your final benefit estimate.

Safety members are employees in positions of active law enforcement or who otherwise qualify for Safety membership. Safety members have a non-integrated plan, which means Safety members do not contribute to Social Security from their County wages. Probation officers entered Safety membership effective January 1, 1999. Note: Those probation officers who left employment prior to January 1, 1999, and have been re-employed as probation officers on or after March 8, 2002, should contact SDCERA to obtain the cost to convert their General member service credit (as a probation officer) to Safety member service credit.

Click the Retirement Benefit Calculator to estimate what your retirement benefit will be.