Authorizes members of the police and fire retirement system in a 20 year plan, with prior employees' retirement system credit, to transfer credit and membership

1 Co-sponsor

• Antoine M. Thompson

Title of bill

An act to amend the retirement and social security law, in relation to authorizing the transfer of service credit and membership of members of the New York state and local police and fire retirement system, who are in a 20 year retirement plan, to the New York state and local employees' retirement system

Purpose

To permit police officers and firefighters to transfer certain service retirement credit from the New York State Police and Fire Retirement System to the New York State Employees Retirement system and reactivate their membership. The allowable credit will be the portion of credit that was originally earned in the Employees Retirement System and was later transferred into the Police and Fire Retirement System.

Summary of provisions

The retirement and social security is amended by adding a new section z to §384-d and adding a new section g to §381-b, to permit the transfer of service credits out of the Police and Fire Retirement System into the Employees Retirement System.

Justification

Certain members of the New York State Police and Fire Retirement System earned credit in the Employees' Retirement System while they were employed in prior public service. In some cases, members were actually vested in the Employees' Retirement System and inadvertently transferred this credit into a special 20 year Police and Fire Retirement System plan only to discover that it is not creditable service for pension purposes. This bill allows such members to transfer that service back into the Employees' Retirement System and reinstate their membership. Members who did not transfer this type of credit remained a member in the Employees' Retirement System, allowing them to retain credit for their prior public service. The members who transferred time should be entitled to the same.

Legislative history

New bill.

Fiscal implications

This bill will allow any member of the New York State and Local Police and Fire Retirement System, who is covered by Sections 384-d or 381-b of the Retirement and Social Security Law, and who transferred service credit from the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System to the New York State and Local Police and Fire Retirement System, to transfer that service credit back to the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System. If such member had been in a contributory plan in the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System, and had withdrawn those contributions when they transferred, then by reinstating their membership in the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System, they would be required to replace any member contributions, with interest.

Insofar as this will affect the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System, if this bill is enacted, we anticipate that there will be negligible costs to the State of New York and all of the participating employers of the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System, since this will generally match the release of liabilities from the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System at the time of the original transfer from the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System. However there would be costs to members who had transferred from a contributory plan, to replace those contributions. This cost to the members would depend on their salaries and years of service in the New York State and Local Employees' Retirement System.

Effective date

Immediately.