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Members

Voluntary Additional Contributions

If you are a WRS participant who is currently employed with a WRS employer you can make voluntary additional contributions to your WRS account. There are two types of additional contributions to the WRS; regular (after-tax) and tax-deferred. The tax-deferred program is limited to employees of educational institutions whose employers enrolled in this program before May of 1982. However, all active WRS employees are eligible to make voluntary after-tax contributions to the WRS. If you have made voluntary after-tax additional contributions you can use your additional account to buy any creditable service that you are eligible to purchase.

All voluntary additional contributions earn the effective interest rates. If you participate in the variable program, 50% of your additional contributions will be allocated to your variable account. If you do not participate in the variable program, your additional contributions will earn the annual fixed effective rates.

The amount of additional contributions you can make each year is limited by Federal tax laws. The total contributions in any calendar year that apply to your annual limit cannot exceed 100% of your total gross compensation from your WRS employer for that calendar year or $45,000, whichever is less. This amount normally increases annually; the $45,000 limit applies to contributions made in 2007. The other WRS contributions that apply toward the annual limit are:

  • Employee required contributions to the WRS plus a matching amount of employer required contributions;
  • All Benefit Adjustment Contributions actually paid by you;
  • Voluntary after-tax employee contributions and employer additional contributions;

A worksheet is available on which you can calculate your maximum additional contributions. For more detailed information: