Awarding of Credit

To have your unused sick leave credited toward your retirement you must complete the member section of the Sick Leave Certification Form during the online retirement application process. Once you have submitted your retirement application the Sick Leave Certification form will be sent to each Georgia employer at which you have worked and contributed to TRS for verification of any unused sick leave that may be used for service credit toward retirement.

TRS will calculate sick leave credit after receiving all Sick Leave Certification forms from your employers. Your last employer will submit its form after your last day of work.

You may receive a monthly benefit prior to the application of sick leave credit to your account. In this instance, your benefit will be adjusted retroactively to your retirement date after all sick leave forms have been received by TRS and the appropriate calculations have been completed.

Unused sick leave credit is awarded on the basis of 1 month of service for every twenty days of unused sick leave. Nine months of sick leave credit equals 1 year of service.

NOTE:
A member who will be using sick leave credit to reach a penalty free retirement status, (i.e. a member with 29 years of service and 1 year of unused sick leave credit to obtain 30 years of service,) is encouraged to contact TRS for an estimate of his or her unused sick leave credit prior to retirement. In order to provide an estimate of unused sick leave a Sick Leave Certification for will be required from all Georgia employers. In this case, the current employer would submit an estimated balance of unused sick leave for the calculation and then submit a final balance after the retirement date.