ENGROSSED
Senate Bill No. 547
(By Senators Helmick, Chafin, Love, Bailey, Unger, Dempsey,
Minear, Facemyer and Guills)
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[Originating in the Committee on Finance;
reported February 14, 2003.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section one, article two, chapter
fifty-one of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended; and to amend and reenact
section four, article nine of said chapter, all relating to
judges and justices generally; providing for a second judge in
the thirtieth judicial circuit; providing for a fifth judge in
the twenty-third judicial circuit; providing that a judge
becoming eligible for retirement is not required to contribute
to the retirement system; and clarifying that, for judicial
retirement purposes, prosecuting time includes certain time
served as an elected or appointed prosecuting attorney or
assistant prosecuting attorney.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section one, article two, chapter fifty-one of the code
of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended,
be amended and reenacted; and that section four, article nine of said chapter be amended and reenacted, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 2. CIRCUIT COURTS; CIRCUIT JUDGES.
§51-2-1. Judicial circuits; terms of office; legislative findings
and declarations; elections; terms of court.
(a) The state shall be divided into the following judicial
circuits with the following number of judges:
The counties of Brooke, Hancock and Ohio shall constitute the
first circuit and shall have four judges; the counties of Marshall,
Tyler and Wetzel shall constitute the second circuit and shall have
two judges; the counties of Doddridge, Pleasants and Ritchie shall
constitute the third circuit and shall have one judge; the counties
of Wood and Wirt shall constitute the fourth circuit and shall have
three judges; the counties of Calhoun, Jackson, Mason and Roane
shall constitute the fifth circuit and shall have two judges; the
county of Cabell shall constitute the sixth circuit and shall have
four judges; the county of Logan shall constitute the seventh
circuit and shall have two judges; the county of McDowell shall
constitute the eighth circuit and shall have two judges; the county
of Mercer shall constitute the ninth circuit and shall have two
judges; the county of Raleigh shall constitute the tenth circuit
and shall have three judges; the counties of Greenbrier and
Pocahontas shall constitute the eleventh circuit and shall have two
judges; the county of Fayette shall constitute the twelfth circuit
and shall have two judges; the county of Kanawha shall constitute the thirteenth circuit and shall have seven judges; the counties of
Braxton, Clay, Gilmer and Webster shall constitute the fourteenth
circuit and shall have two judges; the county of Harrison shall
constitute the fifteenth circuit and shall have three judges; the
county of Marion shall constitute the sixteenth circuit and shall
have two judges; the county of Monongalia shall constitute the
seventeenth circuit and shall have two judges; the county of
Preston shall constitute the eighteenth circuit and shall have one
judge; the counties of Barbour and Taylor shall constitute the
nineteenth circuit and shall have one judge; the county of Randolph
shall constitute the twentieth circuit and shall have one judge;
the counties of Grant, Mineral and Tucker shall constitute the
twenty-first circuit and shall have two judges; the counties of
Hampshire, Hardy and Pendleton shall constitute the twenty-second
circuit and shall have one judge; the counties of Berkeley,
Jefferson and Morgan shall constitute the twenty-third circuit and
shall have
four five judges; the county of Wayne shall constitute
the twenty-fourth circuit and shall have one judge; the counties of
Lincoln and Boone shall constitute the twenty-fifth circuit and
shall have two judges; the counties of Lewis and Upshur shall
constitute the twenty-sixth circuit and shall have one judge; the
county of Wyoming shall constitute the twenty-seventh circuit and
shall have one judge; the county of Nicholas shall constitute the
twenty-eighth circuit and shall have one judge; the county of Putnam shall constitute the twenty-ninth circuit and shall have two
judges; the county of Mingo shall constitute the thirtieth circuit
and shall have
one judge two judges; and the counties of Monroe and
Summers shall constitute the thirty-first circuit and shall have
one judge:
Provided, That the Kanawha County circuit court shall
be a court of concurrent jurisdiction with each single judge
circuit where the sitting judge in such single judge circuit is
unavailable by reason of sickness, vacation or other reason.
(b) Any judge in office on the effective date of the
reenactment of this section shall continue as a judge of the
circuit as constituted under prior enactments of this section,
unless sooner removed or retired as provided by law, until the
thirty-first day of December, two thousand.
(c) The term of office of all circuit court judges shall be
for eight years. The term of office for all circuit court judges
elected during the general election conducted in the year two
thousand shall commence on the first day of January, two thousand
one, and end on the thirty-first day of December, two thousand
eight.
(d) Beginning with the primary and general elections to be
conducted in the year one thousand nine hundred ninety-two, in all
judicial circuits having two or more judges there shall be, for
election purposes, numbered divisions corresponding to the number
of circuit judges in each circuit. Each judge shall be elected at large from the entire circuit. In each numbered division of a
judicial circuit the candidates for nomination or election shall be
voted upon and the votes cast for the candidates in each division
shall be tallied separately from the votes cast for candidates in
other numbered divisions within the circuit. The candidate
receiving the highest number of the votes cast within a numbered
division shall be nominated or elected, as the case may be:
Provided, That beginning with the primary and general elections to
be conducted in the year two thousand, judges serving a judicial
circuit comprised of four or more counties with two or more judges
shall not be residents of the same county.
(e) The supreme court shall, by rule, establish the terms of
court of circuit judges.
ARTICLE 9. RETIREMENT SYSTEM FOR JUDGES OF COURTS OF RECORD.
§51-9-4. Required percentage contributions from salaries; any
termination of required contributions prior to actual
eligibility for retirement disallowed; leased employees;
military service credit; maximum allowable and qualified
military service; qualifiable prosecutorial service.
(a) Every person who is now serving or shall hereafter serve
as a judge of any court of record of this state shall pay into the
judges' retirement fund six percent of the salary received by such
person out of the state treasury:
Provided, That when a judge
becomes eligible to receive benefits from such trust fund,
by actual retirement no further payment by him or her shall be
required:
since such employee contribution, in an equal treatment
sense, ceases to be required in the other retirement systems of the
state, also, only after actual retirement Provided, however, That
on and after the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred
ninety-five, every person who is then serving or shall thereafter
serve as a judge of any court of record in this state shall pay
into the judges' retirement fund nine percent of the salary
received by that person. Any prior occurrence or practice to the
contrary, in any way allowing discontinuance of required employee
contributions prior to actual
eligibility for retirement under this
retirement system, is rejected as erroneous and contrary to
legislative intent and as violative of required equal treatment and
is hereby nullified and discontinued fully, with the state auditor
to require such contribution in every instance hereafter, except
where no contributions are required to be made under any of the
provisions of this article.
Notwithstanding any other provision of
this chapter, a judge or justice holding office on the thirty-first
day of December, one thousand nine hundred eighty-six, and who has
served less than twelve full years as judge or justice and who
subsequently becomes eligible to receive benefits from the trust
fund because of accumulation of twenty-four years of credited
service, which service includes twelve full years of actual service
as a judge or justice, properly accredited military time as defined in this section and prosecutors' time as defined in this section,
then that judge or justice may not be required to make further
contributions to the trust fund.
(b) An individual who is a leased employee shall not be
eligible to participate in the system. For purposes of this
system, a "leased employee" means any individual who performs
services as an independent contractor or pursuant to an agreement
with an employee leasing organization or other similar
organization. If a question arises regarding the status of an
individual as a leased employee, the board has the final power to
decide the question.
(c) In drawing warrants for the salary checks of judges, the
state auditor shall deduct from the amount of each such salary
check six percent thereof, which amount so deducted shall be
credited by the consolidated public retirement board to the trust
fund:
Provided, That on or after the first day of January, one
thousand nine hundred ninety-five, the amount so deducted and
credited shall be nine percent of each such salary check.
(d) Any judge seeking to qualify military service to be
claimed as credited service, in allowable aggregate maximum amount
up to five years, shall be entitled to be awarded the same without
any required payment in respect thereof to the judges' retirement
fund.
(e) Notwithstanding the preceding provisions of this section, contributions, benefits and service credit with respect to
qualified military service shall be provided in accordance with
Section 414(u) of the Internal Revenue Code. For purposes of this
section, "qualified military service" has the same meaning as in
Section 414(u) of the Internal Revenue Code. The retirement board
is authorized to determine all questions and make all decisions
relating to this section and may promulgate rules relating to
contributions, benefits and service credit pursuant to the
authority granted to the retirement board in section one, article
ten-d, chapter five of this code to comply with Section 414(u) of
the Internal Revenue Code.
(f) Any judge holding office as such on the effective date of
the amendments to this article adopted by the Legislature at its
regular session in the year one thousand nine hundred eighty-seven
who seeks to qualify service as a prosecuting attorney as credited
service, which service credit must have been earned prior to the
year one thousand nine hundred eighty-seven, shall be required to
pay into the judges' retirement fund nine percent of the annual
salary which was actually received by such person as prosecuting
attorney during the time such prosecutorial service was rendered
prior to the year one thousand nine hundred eighty-seven and for
which credited service is being sought, together with applicable
interest:
Provided, That for the purposes of this section,
prosecuting time includes time served as an elected or appointed prosecuting attorney and not more than six years as an assistant
prosecuting attorney. No judge whose term of office shall commence
after the effective date of such amendments to this article shall
be eligible to claim any credit for service rendered as a
prosecuting attorney as eligible service for retirement benefits
under this article, nor shall any time served as a prosecutor after
the year one thousand nine hundred eighty-eight be considered as
eligible service for any purposes of this article.
(g) The Legislature finds that any increase in salary for
judges of courts of record directly affects the actuarial soundness
of the retirement system for judges of courts of record and,
therefore, an increase in the required percentage contributions of
members of that retirement system is the same subject for purposes
of determining the single object of this bill.
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