Senate Bill No. 134
(By Senators Foster and Plymale)
____________
[Introduced January 18, 2007; referred to the Committee on
Pensions; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
____________
A BILL to amend and reenact §18-7A-13a, §18-7A-14, §18-7A-23 and
§18-7A-24 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, all
relating to the State Teachers Retirement System; requiring
employers to provide information for contributions to the
State Teachers Retirement System; and clarifying terms in the
State Teachers Retirement System.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §18-7A-13a, §18-7A-14, §18-7A-23 and §18-7A-24 of the
Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended and reenacted,
all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 7A. STATE TEACHERS RETIREMENT SYSTEM.
§18-7A-13a. Resumption of service by retired teachers.
(a) For the purpose of this section, reemployment of a former
or retired teacher as a teacher shall in no way impair
such the
teacher's eligibility for a prior service pension or any other
benefit provided by this article.
(b) Retired teachers, who qualified for an annuity because of
age or service, may not receive prior service allowance from the
retirement board when employed as a teacher and when regularly
employed by the State of West Virginia. The payment of
such the
allowance shall be discontinued on the first day of the month
within which
such employment begins and shall be resumed on the
first day of the month succeeding the month within which
such
employment ceases. The annuity paid
any such the teacher on first
retirement resulting from the Teachers' Accumulation Fund and the
Employers' Accumulation Fund shall continue throughout the
governmental service and thereafter according to the option
selected by the teacher upon first retirement.
(c) Retired teachers, who qualified for an annuity because of
disability, shall receive no further retirement payments if the
retirement board finds that the disability of the teacher no longer
exists; payment shall be discontinued on the first day of the month
within which
such the finding is made. If
such the retired teacher
returns to service as a teacher, he
or she shall contribute to the
Teachers' Accumulation Fund as a member of the system.
His Prior
service eligibility, if any, shall not be impaired because of
his
disability retirement.
His The teacher's accumulated contributions
and interest which were transferred to the benefit fund upon his
or
her retirement shall be returned to
his the teacher's individual
account in the Teachers' Accumulation Fund, minus retirement
payments received which were not supported by
such the contributions and interest. Upon subsequent retirement,
he the
teacher shall receive credit for all of his
or her contributory
experience, anything to the contrary in this article
notwithstanding.
(d) Notwithstanding any provision of this code to the
contrary, a person who retires under the system provided by this
article may subsequently become employed on either a full-time,
part-time
basis or contract basis by any institution of higher
education without any loss of retirement annuity or retirement
benefits if the person's retirement commences between the effective
date of the enactment of this section in two thousand two and the
thirty-first day of December, two thousand two:
Provided, That
such the person shall not be eligible to participate in any other
state retirement system provided by this code.
(e) The retirement board is herewith authorized to require of
the retired teachers and their employers such reports as it deems
necessary to effectuate the provisions of this section.
§18-7A-14. Contributions by members; contributions by employers.
(a) At the end of each month every member of the retirement
system shall contribute six percent of that member's monthly gross
salary to the retirement board:
Provided, That any member employed
by the West Virginia Board of Directors of the State College System
or the Board of Trustees of the University System at an institution
of higher education under its control shall contribute on the
member's full earnable compensation, unless otherwise provided in section fourteen-a of this article.
The sums are due the Teachers
Retirement System at the end of each calendar month in arrears and
shall be paid not later than fifteen days following the end of the
calendar month. Each remittance shall be accompanied by a detailed
summary of the sums withheld from the compensation of each member
for that month on forms, either paper or electronic, provided by
the Teachers Retirement System for that purpose.
(b) Annually, the contributions of each member shall be
credited to the member's account in the Teachers Retirement System
Fund. The contributions shall be deducted from the salaries of the
members as prescribed in this section and every member shall be
considered to have given consent to the deductions. No deductions,
however, shall be made from the earnable compensation of any member
who retired because of age or service and then resumed service
unless as provided in section thirteen-a of this article.
(c) The aggregate of employer contributions, due and payable
under this article, shall equal annually the total deductions from
the gross salary of members required by this section. Beginning the
first day of July, one thousand nine hundred ninety-four, the rate
shall be seven and one-half percent; beginning on the first day of
July, one thousand nine hundred ninety-five, the rate shall be nine
percent; beginning on the first day of July, one thousand nine
hundred ninety-six, the rate shall be ten and one-half percent;
beginning on the first day of July, one thousand nine hundred
ninety-seven, the rate shall be twelve percent; beginning on the first day of July, one thousand nine hundred ninety-eight, the rate
shall be thirteen and one-half percent; and beginning on the first
day of July, one thousand nine hundred ninety-nine and thereafter,
the rate shall be fifteen percent:
Provided, That the rate shall
be seven and one-half percent for any individual who becomes a
member of the Teachers Retirement System for the first time on or
after the first day of July, two thousand five, or any individual
who becomes a member of the Teachers Retirement System as a result
of the merger contemplated in article seven-c of this chapter.
(d) Payment by an employer to a member of the sum specified in
the employment contract minus the amount of the employee's
deductions shall be considered to be a full discharge of the
employer's contractual obligation as to earnable compensation.
(e) Each contributor shall file with the retirement board or
with the employer to be forwarded to the retirement board an
enrollment form showing the contributor's date of birth and other
data needed by the retirement board.
§18-7A-23. Withdrawal and death benefits.
(a) Benefits upon withdrawal from service prior to retirement
under the provisions of this article shall be as follows:
(a) (1) A contributor who withdraws from service for any cause
other than death or retirement shall, upon application, be paid his
or her accumulated contributions
plus refund interest up to the end
of the fiscal year preceding the year in which application is made,
but in no event shall interest be paid beyond the end of five years following the year in which the last contribution was made:
Provided, That such contributor, at the time of application, is
then no longer under contract, verbal or otherwise, to serve as a
teacher; or
(b) (2) If such contributor has completed twenty years of
total service, he or she may elect to receive at retirement age an
annuity which shall be computed as provided in this article:
Provided, That if such contributor has completed at least five, but
fewer than twenty, years of total service in this state, he or she
may elect to receive at age sixty-two an annuity which shall be
computed as provided in this article. The contributor must notify
the retirement board in writing concerning
such the election. If
such the contributor has completed fewer than five years of service
in this state, he or she shall be subject to the provisions as
outlined in
subsection (a) above subdivision (1) of this
subsection.
(b) Benefits upon the death of a contributor prior to
retirement under the provisions of this article shall be paid as
follows:
(1) If the contributor was at least fifty years old and if his
or her total service as a teacher was at least twenty-five years at
the time of his or her death, then the surviving spouse of the
deceased, provided the spouse is designated as the sole refund
beneficiary, is eligible for an annuity computed as though the
deceased were actually a retired teacher at the time of death and had selected a survivorship option which pays the spouse the same
monthly amount which would have been received by the deceased; or
(2) If the facts do not permit payment under subdivision (1)
of this subsection, then the following sum shall be paid to the
refund beneficiary of the contributor: The contributor's
accumulated contributions
with refund interest up to the year of
his or her death plus
the amount of an amount equal to his or her
accumulated employee contributions. The latter sum shall emanate
from the Employer's Accumulation Fund.
§18-7A-24. Disposition of accumulated contributions upon cessation
of membership.
When a contributor with fewer than five years of service
ceases to be a member because of absence from service as a teacher,
his or her accumulated contributions
with refund interest up to and
including the fiscal year in which his or her membership ceased
shall be returned to him or her, or to his or her legal
representative. Five years after cessation of membership, if
such
the contributor or his or her legal representative cannot be found,
his
or her accumulated contributions with refund interest shall be
forfeited to the retirement system and credited to the reserve fund.
_______
(NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to require employers to
submit member contributions and a summary of member contributions
to the Teachers' Retirement System within fifteen days following
the end of the calendar month and to make technical corrections so
that the definition of "accumulated contribution" reflects the
definition stated in §18-7A-3 of the code, as amended.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.)
Email
Webmaster | © 2024 West Virginia Legislature **
