Accelerated Payments

What is an Accelerated Payment?

Certain increases in reported earnings during a member's Final Rate of Earnings (FRE) period result in additional pension costs. Employers are required to pay this additional cost immediately upon the member’s retirement. This payment is called an Accelerated Payment.

IMRF Will Send You an Accelerated Payment Invoice

If a member retires from your employer with an end-of-career increase in reported earnings of 6% or higher, IMRF will send you an Accelerated Payment Invoice that details the amount your employer must pay to IMRF.

Accelerated Payment Exemption Request

Certain increases in reported earnings are eligible for an exemption from the Accelerated Payment. Your Accelerated Payment Invoice will include an Accelerated Payment exemption request form. If your Accelerated Payment qualifies and you want to apply for an exemption, you must return the completed form along with the required supporting documentation. The following increases in reported earnings may be considered for an exemption:

• Overtime or overload hours
• Increase in required hours
• Workers' compensation
• Standard promotion
• Vacation time payout
• Certain personnel policies or collective bargaining agreements

These possible exemptions must meet specific requirements that are detailed on the Accelerated Payment exemption request form.

An Exemption Does Not Eliminate Liability 

Receiving an Accelerated Payment exemption does not mean your employer doesn’t have to pay this cost. Receiving an exemption means the cost will be paid over a longer period of time, through your employer’s contribution rates.

Estimate Your Future Accelerated Payment

To help you estimate your future cost of an increase in reported earnings, we have created Excel spreadsheets for Tier 1 and 2.

If you are planning to provide a member with an increase in reported earnings of more than 6% (or 1.5 times the increase in the CPI-Urban as of the previous September, whichever is greater), you can use these spreadsheets to estimate future cost (payable when the member retires).

Note: Due to inflation, IMRF will be using the “1.5 times the increase in the CPI-Urban” calculation starting January 1, 2023.

Accelerated Payment Estimator Spreadsheets 

IMRF updates these spreadsheets occasionally. We recommend that you create a shortcut to this page instead of making a copy of the spreadsheets. This ensures you will always use the most current versions. 

You can download the Excel spreadsheets from the Quick Links menu above (updated September 2022) to estimate the amount of any  Accelerated Payment:

• Your actual  Accelerated Payment may be different, either higher or lower than the estimate provided by the spreadsheet
• The spreadsheets can be used only for members within 10 years of retirement

To calculate the  Accelerated Payment you will need to enter the member's:

• Date of birth
• Estimated termination date
• Gender
• Marital status
• Total IMRF service at retirement
• IMRF plan
• Monthly wages for each month up to the member's termination date

Additional instructions and important details on the spreadsheets' limitations are included in the "Instructions" tab of the spreadsheet. 

Questions? Send IMRF a secure message.