ENROLLED
Senate Bill No. 134
(By Senators Foster and Plymale)
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[Passed March 6, 2007; in effect ninety days from passage.]
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AN ACT to amend and reenact §18-7A-13a, §18-7A-14 and §18-7A-23 of
the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, all relating to
the State Teachers Retirement System; establishing deadline
for remittance of contributions due the State Teachers
Retirement System; requiring that a summary of amounts of
contributions withheld accompany the remittance; and
clarifying certain terms used in the language of the statute.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §18-7A-13a, §18-7A-14 and §18-7A-23 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 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 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 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 the finding is made. If 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 or her
prior service eligibility, if any, shall not be impaired because of
his or her disability retirement. His or her accumulated
contributions which were transferred to the benefit fund upon his
or her retirement shall be returned to his or her individual account in the Teachers' Accumulation Fund, minus retirement
payments received which were not supported by such contributions
and interest. Upon subsequent retirement, he or she 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
basis, 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 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 a state institution of higher education 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:
(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 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
(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 the election. If 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
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 up to the year of his or her death plus
an amount equal to his or her employee contributions. The latter
sum shall emanate from the Employer's Accumulation Fund.
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