You, your employer, and the state of Illinois make contributions to TRS to provide for your retirement, disability, and death benefits.

Member contributions

As an active TRS member, you are required to contribute 9 percent of your gross creditable earnings toward retirement each year. Your contribution consists of:

• 7.5 percent for retirement annuities,
• 0.5 percent for automatic annual increases in annuities, and
• 1 percent for death benefits.

You also must contribute a percentage of your gross creditable earnings to help fund the Teachers’ Health Insurance Security (THIS) Fund, which finances the Teachers’ Retirement Insurance Program.

Contributions are withheld from your creditable earnings by payroll deduction or are paid by your employer and are credited to your TRS account. Your contributions accrue interest at the rate of 6 percent per year and are sheltered from federal income taxes. Annually, you will receive a TRS Benefits Report that provides information about your contributions. (See “TRS Benefits Report” in Chapter 17.)

Employer contributions

Employers contribute a percentage of creditable earnings (defined in Chapter 3: “Earnings”). In addition, if any portion of a member’s creditable earnings is paid from a special trust or federal fund, the employer pays TRS an additional contribution on creditable earnings paid from that special trust or federal fund.

Employers also make contributions to the THIS Fund.

State of Illinois contributions

The state of Illinois provides a large source of contributions annually to TRS.

Assignment of contributions and loans

By law, you are protected from creditors placing a lien on, garnishing, or confiscating contributions you have made to TRS. This provision does not extend to federal tax levies. You may not assign your TRS contributions to a creditor or borrow against your account funds.