Senate Bill No. 557
(By Senator Anderson)
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[Introduced February 17, 1999; referred to the Committee on
Pensions; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact sections seventeen and twenty-five,
article seven-a, chapter eighteen of the code of West
Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended,
all relating to removing restriction on member using
purchased out-of-state service toward eligibility for
retirement; modifying eligibility for retirement annuity;
and permitting approved leaves of absence to be applied
toward eligibility upon payment into the fund.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That sections seventeen and twenty-five, article seven-a,
chapter eighteen of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted, all to
read as follows:
ARTICLE 7A. ESTABLISHMENT OF RETIREMENT SYSTEM.
§18-7A-17. Statement and computation of teachers' service.
(a) Under rules adopted by the retirement board, each
teacher shall file a detailed statement of his or her length of
service as a teacher for which he or she claims credit. The
retirement board shall determine what part of a year is the
equivalent of a year of service. In computing the service,
however, it shall credit no period of more than a month's
duration during which a member was absent without pay
without
leave of absence from the school system, nor shall it credit for
more than one year of service performed in any calendar year.
(b) For the purpose of this article, the retirement board
shall grant prior service credit to new entrants and other
members of the retirement system for service in any of the armed
forces of the United States in any period of national emergency
within which a federal Selective Service Act was in effect. For
purposes of this section, "armed forces" includes women's army
corps, women's appointed volunteers for emergency service, army
nurse corps, spars, women's reserve and other similar units
officially parts of the military service of the United States.
The military service is considered equivalent to public school
teaching, and the salary equivalent for each year of that service
is the actual salary of the member as a teacher for his or her
first year of teaching after discharge from military service. Prior service credit for military service shall not exceed ten
years for any one member, nor shall it exceed twenty-five percent
of total service at the time of retirement.
(c) For service as a teacher in the employment of the
federal government, or a state or territory of the United States,
or a governmental subdivision of that state or territory, the
retirement board shall grant credit to the member:
Provided,
That the member shall pay to the system double the amount he or
she contributed during the first full year of current employment,
times the number of years for which credit is granted, plus
interest at a rate to be determined by the retirement board. The
interest shall be deposited in the reserve fund and service
credit granted at the time of retirement shall not exceed the
lesser of ten years or fifty percent of the member's total
service as a teacher in West Virginia. Any transfer of out-of- state service
in excess of five years, as provided in this
article, shall not be used to establish eligibility for a
retirement allowance and,
for any out-of-state service in excess
of five years, the retirement board shall grant credit for the
transferred service as additional service only:
Provided,
however, That a transfer of out-of-state service is prohibited if
the service is used to obtain a retirement benefit from another
retirement system:
Provided further, That salaries paid to members for service prior to entrance into the retirement system
shall not be used to compute the average final salary of the
member under the retirement system.
(d) Service credit for members or retired members shall not
be denied on the basis of minimum income rules promulgated by the
teachers retirement board:
Provided, That the member or retired
member shall pay to the system the amount he or she would have
contributed during the year or years of public school service for
which credit was denied as a result of the minimum income rules
of the teachers retirement board.
(e) No members shall be considered absent from service while
serving as a member or employee of the Legislature of the state
of West Virginia during any duly constituted session of that body
or while serving as an elected member of a county commission
during any duly constituted session of that body.
(f) No member shall be considered absent from service as a
teacher while
on leave of absence from the school system for
educational or other purposes or while serving as an officer with
a statewide professional teaching association, or who has served
in that capacity, and no retired teacher, who served in that
capacity while a member, shall be considered to have been absent
from service as a teacher by reason of that service:
Provided,
That the period of service credit granted for that service shall not exceed ten years:
Provided, however, That a member or
retired teacher who
is or has been on leave of absence from the
school system or is serving or has served as an officer of a
statewide professional teaching association shall make deposits
to the teachers retirement board, for the time of any absence, in
an amount double the amount which he or she would have
contributed in his or her regular assignment for a like period of
time.
The teachers retirement board shall grant service credit to
any former or present member of the West Virginia public
employees retirement system who has been a contributing member
for more than three years, for service previously credited by the
public employees retirement system and: (1) Shall require the
transfer of the member's contributions to the teachers retirement
system; or (2) shall require a repayment of the amount withdrawn
any time prior to the member's retirement:
Provided, That there
shall be added by the member to the amounts transferred or repaid
under this subsection an amount which shall be sufficient to
equal the contributions he or she would have made had the member
been under the teachers retirement system during the period of
his or her membership in the public employees retirement system
plus interest at a rate of six percent compounded annually from
the date of withdrawal to the date of payment. The interest paid shall be deposited in the reserve fund.
(g) For service as a teacher in an elementary or secondary
parochial school, located within this state and fully accredited
by the West Virginia department of education, the retirement
board shall grant credit to the member:
Provided, That the
member shall pay to the system double the amount contributed
during the first full year of current employment, times the
number of years for which credit is granted, plus interest at a
rate to be determined by the retirement board. The interest
shall be deposited in the reserve fund and service granted at
the time of retirement shall not exceed the lesser of ten years
or fifty percent of the member's total service as a teacher in
the West Virginia public school system. Any transfer of
parochial school service, as provided in this section, may not be
used to establish eligibility for a retirement allowance and the
board shall grant credit for the transfer as additional service
only:
Provided, however, That a transfer of parochial school
service is prohibited if the service is used to obtain a
retirement benefit from another retirement system.
(h) If a member is not eligible for prior service credit or
pension as provided in this article, then his or her prior
service shall not be considered a part of his or her total
service.
(i) A member who withdrew from membership may regain his or
her former membership rights as specified in section thirteen of
this article only in case he or she has served two years since
his or her last withdrawal.
(j) Subject to the provisions of subsection (a) through (i)
of this section, the board shall verify as soon as practicable
the statements of service submitted. The retirement board shall
issue prior service certificates to all persons eligible for the
certificates under the provisions of this article. The
certificates shall state the length of the prior service credit,
but in no case shall the prior service credit exceed forty years.
Notwithstanding any provision of this article to the
contrary, when a member is or has been elected to serve as a
member of the Legislature, and the proper discharge of his or her
duties of public office require that member to be absent from his
or her teaching or administrative duties, the time served in
discharge of his or her duties of the legislative office are
credited as time served for purposes of computing service credit:
Provided, That the board may not require any additional
contributions from that member in order for the board to credit
him or her with the contributing service credit earned while
discharging official legislative duties.
§18-7A-25. Eligibility for retirement allowance.
Any member who has attained the age of sixty years or who
has had thirty-five years of total service as a teacher in West
Virginia, regardless of age, shall be eligible for an annuity. No
new entrant nor present member shall be eligible for an annuity,
however, if either has less than five years of service to his or
her credit.
Any member who has attained the age of fifty-five years and
who has served thirty years as a teacher in West Virginia shall
be eligible for an annuity. Any member who has at least twenty-
five years of service as a teacher in West Virginia and whose age
plus years of service meets or exceeds eighty-five shall be
eligible for an annuity.
Any member who has served at least thirty but less than
thirty-five years as a teacher in West Virginia and is less than
fifty-five years of age shall be eligible for an annuity, but the
same shall be the reduced actuarial equivalent of the annuity the
member would have received if such member were age fifty-five at
the time such annuity was applied for.
The request for any annuity shall be made by the member in
writing to the retirement board, but in case of retirement for
disability, the written request may be made by either the member
or the employer.
A member shall be eligible for annuity for disability if he
or she satisfies the conditions in either subdivision (a) or subdivision (b) and meets the conditions of subdivision (c) as
follows:
(a) His or her service as a teacher in West Virginia must
total at least ten years, and service as a teacher must have been
terminated because of disability, which disability must have
caused absence from service for at least six months before his or
her application for disability annuity is approved.
(b) His or her service as a teacher in West Virginia must
total at least five years, and service as a teacher must have
been terminated because of disability, which disability must have
caused absence from service for at least six months before his or
her application for disability annuity is approved and said
disability is a direct and total result of an act of student
violence directed toward the member.
(c) An examination by a physician or physicians selected by
the retirement board must show that the member is at the time
mentally or physically incapacitated for service as a teacher,
that for such service the disability is total and likely to be
permanent, and that he or she should be retired in consequence
thereof.
Continuance of the disability of the retired teacher shall
be established by medical examination, as prescribed in the
preceding paragraph, annually for five years after retirement,
and thereafter at such times as the retirement board may require. Effective the first day of July, one thousand nine hundred
ninety-eight, a member who has retired because of a disability
may select an option of payment under the provisions of section
twenty-eight of this article:
Provided, That any option selected
under the provisions of section twenty-eight of this article
shall be in all respects the actuarial equivalent of the straight
life annuity benefit the disability retiree receives or would
receive if the options under section twenty-eight of this article
were not available and that no beneficiary or beneficiaries of
the disability annuitant may receive a greater benefit, nor
receive any benefit for a greater length of time, than such
beneficiary or beneficiaries would have received had the
disability retiree not made any election of the options available
under said section twenty-eight. In determining the actuarial
equivalence, the board shall take into account the life
expectancies of the member and the beneficiary:
Provided,
however, That the life expectancies may at the discretion of the
board be established by an underwriting medical director of a
competent insurance company offering annuities. Payment of the
disability annuity provided in this article shall cease
immediately if the retirement board finds that the disability of
the retired teacher no longer exists, or if the retired teacher
refuses to submit to medical examination as required by this section.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to permit teachers to use
up to five years of out-of-state service, upon certain
conditions, for credit toward retirement eligibility; to permit
teachers to retire with full benefits who have at least 25 years
service and whose service plus age meets or exceeds 85; and to
allow teachers credit toward retirement eligibility, upon certain
conditions, for leaves of absence for educational and other
purposes.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.
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