What Is the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS)?

The Kansas Public Employees Retirement System, known as KPERS, is the mandatory retirement, disability, and death-benefit program covering most state, county, city, and school district employees in Kansas. If your position qualifies, you don’t choose to join. Enrollment happens automatically, 6% of your gross salary is deducted pretax each payday, and your employer contributes a separate percentage on top of that.¹ What you eventually collect depends on when you were hired, how long you work, and the age at which you retire.

Who Is Covered

Membership is tied to your position, not a decision you make. If you hold a qualifying job with a participating employer, enrollment is automatic.²

Non-school employees qualify when the position requires at least 1,000 hours of paid work per year. School employees qualify at 630 hours per year.³ In either case the position must be covered by Social Security, must be continuously and consistently employed rather than temporary or seasonal, and the work must be performed directly for the participating employer.⁴

Elected officials follow a separate rule. They qualify by earning at least $5,000 in annual compensation or by working at least 1,000 hours, and they have 90 days from taking the oath of office to elect membership.⁴

The Three Tiers

Your hire date puts you in one of three tiers, and the tier determines almost everything else about your benefit.

KPERS 1 covers members hired before July 1, 2009. It is the traditional defined benefit plan with the most flexible retirement provisions, including the Rule of 85.
KPERS 2 covers members hired between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2014. It is also a defined benefit plan, but with a higher retirement age requirement and a different method for calculating final average salary.
KPERS 3 covers members hired on or after January 1, 2015. It is a cash balance plan, a hybrid that combines features of a pension with features of an individual account.

All three tiers use the same 6% employee contribution and are administered by the same KPERS board.⁵ How your benefit is calculated and when you can collect it diverge from there.⁶

How Your Benefit Is Calculated

KPERS 1 and KPERS 2

For both defined benefit tiers the formula is: final average salary × statutory multiplier × years of service = annual benefit. The multiplier for KPERS 2 is 1.85% per year of service. For KPERS 1 it is 1.75% for service before January 2014 and 1.85% for service from January 2014 forward.⁷

The two tiers calculate final average salary differently. KPERS 1 uses an average of your 12 or 16 highest annualized quarters of compensation, depending on start date. KPERS 2 uses your highest five years of salary and excludes lump-sum payments for unused sick and annual leave.⁷ That difference matters in practice. A KPERS 1 member with a few exceptional earning quarters can finish with a higher final average salary than a KPERS 2 member with the same lifetime earnings, because five full years smooths the peaks away.

A worked example: a KPERS 2 member retiring with 30 years of service and a final average salary of $60,000 would receive $33,300 per year (1.85% × $60,000 × 30).

KPERS 3

KPERS 3 works differently. It has two moving parts: your contribution account and your retirement credits. Your 6% contributions go into the account and earn a guaranteed 4% annual interest, credited quarterly, with the possibility of additional interest tied to KPERS investment returns.⁸ Each quarter you also accumulate retirement credits based on your years of service and a percentage of pay. Those credits are only available at retirement, when KPERS combines your account balance and your credit value into a guaranteed monthly benefit paid for life.⁹ The guaranteed interest floor makes KPERS 3 less volatile than a pure defined contribution plan, but it generally produces a smaller benefit than KPERS 1 or 2 for an equivalent career.

What You and Your Employer Pay In

Every KPERS member in every tier contributes 6% of gross salary, deducted automatically on a pretax basis.¹⁰ That rate has been uniform across all members since January 2015.⁵

Employer contributions are set each year by the KPERS Board of Trustees based on actuarial evaluation and vary by employer group. For fiscal year 2026, state employers contribute 11.32%, school employers contribute 11.32%, and local non-school employers contribute 9.59%.¹

When You Become Vested

You vest in KPERS after five years of credited service. Vesting means you have earned the right to a retirement benefit even if you leave Kansas public employment before reaching retirement age.¹¹ Leave before vesting and you can withdraw your own contributions plus interest, but you forfeit the employer-funded portion of the benefit.

When You Can Retire

KPERS 1

KPERS 1 has the most flexible rules. You qualify for full, unreduced benefits at any of these points:

Age 65 with at least one year of service
Age 62 with at least 10 years of service
Any age when your age plus years of service equals 85 (the Rule of 85)

Early retirement is available at age 55 with 10 years of service, but benefits are permanently reduced. Retiring at 55 cuts the benefit to roughly 59% of the full amount; retiring at 60 leaves you at about 95%.¹²

KPERS 2 and KPERS 3

KPERS 2 and KPERS 3 use the same retirement eligibility rules. Full benefits are available at:

Age 65 with at least five years of service
Age 60 with at least 30 years of service

There is no Rule of 85 in these tiers. Early retirement is available at age 55 with 10 years of service, but the reductions are much steeper than in KPERS 1. Retiring at 55 reduces the benefit to about 40% of the full amount, and retiring at 60 brings you to roughly 61%.¹² That 40% figure is not a typo. For KPERS 2 and KPERS 3 members, retiring at 55 means permanently losing roughly 60% of the benefit.⁶

Correctional Employees

Correctional employees retire on earlier schedules. KPERS 1 Group A correctional members can retire with full benefits at age 55, Group B at age 60, and both have access to the Rule of 85. KPERS 2 correctional members can retire with full benefits at age 55 (Group A) or 60 (Group B) with the required years of service.¹²

Choosing a Payout at Retirement

When you retire from KPERS 1 or KPERS 2, you choose how your monthly benefit is structured, and the choice is permanent.

The Maximum Monthly Option pays the largest possible benefit for your lifetime. Monthly payments stop at your death; any remaining contributions in your account are paid to your beneficiary as a lump sum.¹³

Joint-survivor options at 50%, 75%, or 100% reduce your monthly benefit during your lifetime in exchange for continuing a percentage of that benefit to a designated survivor for the rest of their life. The higher the survivor percentage, the larger the reduction while you are alive. You cannot change your designated survivor after retirement, but if your survivor dies before you, your benefit automatically increases to the maximum monthly amount.¹³ The size of the reduction depends on both the survivor percentage you pick and your survivor’s age.

No Automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustments

KPERS benefits do not include an automatic cost-of-living adjustment. Once you retire, your monthly benefit stays flat unless the Kansas Legislature approves an ad hoc increase.¹⁴ In 2025 the Legislature considered HB 2380, which would have provided a permanent $150 per month increase for KPERS retirees who reached age 85 by July 1, 2025.¹⁵ Targeted, one-time bumps like that are historically the most retirees have been able to expect.

Over a long retirement the absence of automatic adjustments is one of the system’s biggest risks. A benefit that feels adequate at 62 can feel tight at 75. Building supplemental savings through a 457(b) deferred compensation plan or similar vehicle is worth serious consideration if KPERS will be your primary retirement income.

Disability Coverage

KPERS provides long-term disability coverage to all active members. For the first 24 months of disability, you qualify if you cannot perform the essential duties of your own occupation. After that, you must be unable to perform the duties of any gainful occupation.¹⁶

The benefit equals 60% of your annual compensation at the time of disability, paid monthly, with a $100 minimum and a $5,000 maximum. Benefits begin after a 180-day waiting period during which you must be under a physician’s care, and you are required to apply for Social Security disability and exhaust administrative remedies with the Social Security Administration.¹⁶ If your disability began before age 60, benefits can continue until your 65th birthday or your retirement date, whichever comes first. If it began at 60 or later, benefits last up to five years or until retirement.

If You Die Before Retiring

If you die while actively employed as a KPERS member, your beneficiaries receive life insurance equal to 150% of your annual salary. If you were vested, your spouse may be eligible for a monthly survivor benefit similar to a reduced pension payment. If your beneficiary is not your spouse, or if you were not vested, the payout is a refund of your accumulated contributions plus interest.

A limitation worth knowing: even with decades of service, if you die before electing your retirement benefit and your primary beneficiary is not your spouse, KPERS does not pay out the lifetime value of the pension. The payout is capped at your contributions plus interest. That makes beneficiary designations worth reviewing whenever your family situation changes.

Going Back to Work After Retirement

Kansas law lets KPERS retirees return to work for KPERS-covered employers, but with rules. You must complete a 60-day waiting period after your retirement date before starting work with a KPERS employer. If you retired before age 62, the waiting period is 180 days.¹⁷

You cannot have a prearranged agreement to return, either before you retire or during the waiting period. If KPERS determines there was a prearrangement, your retirement benefit is suspended starting the month you return and stays suspended for six months after you stop working.¹⁷

Once past the waiting period, there is no earnings limit. You keep your full retirement benefit regardless of how much you earn. You will not contribute to KPERS or earn additional service credit, though your employer will still make working-after-retirement contributions on your behalf.¹⁷

How KPERS Interacts with Social Security

Most KPERS members are also covered by Social Security, because KPERS eligibility requires the position to be covered by Social Security in the first place. You pay Social Security tax alongside your 6% KPERS contribution and can collect both a KPERS pension and a Social Security benefit in retirement.

Two federal provisions used to reduce Social Security benefits for some public employees with pensions. The Windfall Elimination Provision reduced Social Security retirement benefits for workers who had both Social Security and a pension from non-Social Security-covered work, and the Government Pension Offset reduced spousal and survivor Social Security benefits. Both were eliminated by the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, signed into law on January 5, 2025. The repeal is retroactive to January 2024, so benefits payable from that month forward are no longer subject to either reduction.¹⁸¹⁹

If You Are a Police Officer or Firefighter

Law enforcement officers and firefighters are not in regular KPERS. They are covered by the Kansas Police and Firemen’s Retirement System (KP&F), which KPERS also administers but which runs on different rules. KP&F members contribute 7.15% of pay instead of 6%. Full retirement is available at age 50 with 25 years of service, age 55 with 20 years, or age 60 with 15 years, and early reduced retirement is available at age 50 with 20 years. Vesting takes 20 years for KP&F Tier I and 15 years for Tier II, and the disability and survivor benefits for service-connected causes are more generous than regular KPERS.¹⁴ If you are a public safety employee, the retirement rules in this article do not apply to you.

1
Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. Contribution Rates – KPERS Employer Manual
2
Justia. Kansas Statutes 74-4902 – Definitions
3
KPERS Employer Manual. Working After Retirement – KPERS Employer Manual
4
KPERS Employer Manual. Membership – Non-School
5
Kansas Division of the Budget. KPERS Budget Narrative FY 2026
6
KPERS. Know When You Can Go
7
KPERS. How Much Will I Get
8
KPERS. Retirement Benefits for KPERS 3 Members
9
Douglas County Government. Benefits at a Glance for KPERS 3
10
Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. Benefits at a Glance KPERS 1
11
KPERS. Leaving Employment and Your Retirement System Benefits
12
KPERS. KPERS Membership Guide
13
KPERS. Retirement Options KPERS 1
14
KPERS. KPF Benefits
15
KPERS. HB 2380 Bill Summary
16
KPERS. Long-Term Disability Benefits Summary Plan Description
17
KPERS. Working After Retirement
18
Social Security Administration. Windfall Elimination Provision
19
Social Security Administration. Will Social Security Reduce My Spouse’s Benefits if I Get a Government Pension