§ 21003 Injury Leave Retirement Credit

• •If a state worker gets hurt or sick because of their job, the time they're off work counts toward their retirement benefits.
• •This only applies if the injury or illness is confirmed within one year after they return to work.
• •The time off doesn’t help calculate how much retirement money they get, unless they receive pay (not just disability benefits) during that time.
• •If they do get paid while off, only the time they were paid counts toward their retirement calculation.

A firefighter gets injured while putting out a fire and has to take 6 months off work.

If the injury is confirmed as work-related within a year of returning, those 6 months count toward their retirement eligibility. But if they only got disability pay (not their regular salary), it won’t increase their retirement money. If they got their full pay for 3 of those months, only those 3 months would count toward their retirement calculation.