General Assembly>Division of Legislative Services>Publications>Session Summaries>2007>Pensions, Benefits and Retirement


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Pensions, Benefits and Retirement

Passed

P HB 1830

Deferred compensation plan for state employees. Changes the participation in the deferred compensation plan for new state employees hired on or after January 1, 2008, to an "opt-out" plan rather than an "opt-in" plan.
Patron - Putney

P HB 2091

Virginia Retirement System; long-term disability health insurance credit. Clarifies that state employees receiving long-term disability benefits are eligible for health insurance credits.
Patron - Tata

P HB 2095

Virginia Retirement System; information to localities. Directs the Virginia Retirement System to provide each participating locality the locality-specific data as may be necessary for each locality to determine the specific assumptions that are driving its VRS-related costs, and to understand the retirement costs of different classes of covered employees. Localities may be charged a fee by VRS for the cost of providing such information.
Patron - Tata

P HB 2096

Virginia Retirement System; accumulated contributions. Clarifies that a member's "accumulated contributions" includes all employer-paid, tax-deferred contributions. The bill also makes a technical change.
Patron - Tata

P HB 2097

Virginia Retirement System. Exempts the purchase of disability determination services by the Virginia Retirement System from the Public Procurement Act.
Patron - Tata

P HB 2370

Health insurance credits; teachers and other local school board employees. Increases the monthly health insurance credit for retired teachers from $2.50 to $4.00 for each full year of the retired member's creditable service. The bill eliminates an overall cap to the credit, and adds retired full-time, salaried employees of local school boards as recipients of the credit. The bill establishes a formula for determining the monthly health insurance credit for teachers whose retirement was for disability. The bill is applicable for current and future retirees from positions as teachers or full-time, salaried employees of local school boards. Pursuant to this bill, a locality would no longer have the option of providing an additional $1 health insurance credit to retired teachers, and the maximum credit that a teacher could receive is $4. This bill is identical to SB 1218.
Patron - Tata

P HB 2557

Work-related short-term and long-term disability; state police officers. Provides that the Commonwealth will continue to pay the employer's share of health insurance coverage for the state police officer and his family or dependents during periods of work-related long-term disability. Currently, the employee is responsible for the full cost of coverage during long-term disability. In addition, the bill requires that a law-enforcement agency provide a totally and permanently disabled employee with information about benefits available under the Line of Duty Act and requires that the agency assist such employee with filing a Line of Duty Act claim. This bill contains an emergency clause.
Patron - Cox

P HB 2880

Commonwealth Health Research Fund. Provides that the investment of moneys in the Commonwealth Health Research Fund would be governed exclusively by the provisions of Article 3.1 (§ 51.1-124.30 et seq.) of Chapter 1 of Title 51.1. This bill is identical to SB 793.
Patron - McEachin

P SB 789

Local trusts for providing postemployment public benefits. Provides that counties, cities, towns, school divisions, and certain political subdivisions may establish local trusts or equivalent arrangements to fund postemployment benefits other than pensions.
Patron - Stosch

P SB 793

Commonwealth Health Research Fund. Provides that the investment of moneys in the Commonwealth Health Research Fund would be governed exclusively by the provisions of Article 3.1 (§ 51.1-124.30 et seq.) of Chapter 1 of Title 51.1. This bill is identical to HB 2880.
Patron - Stosch

P SB 1166

Retirement; benefits for certain state and local public safety officers. Makes several changes to the benefits of state and local public safety officers and the funding of such benefits. All deputy sheriffs would become members of the Law Enforcement Officers' Retirement System (LEOs) beginning July 1, 2008. State police officers would receive a 1.85% average final compensation retirement multiplier, and would continue to receive the additional annual supplement. Beginning July 1, 2007, the Compensation Board would reimburse a portion of the costs incurred by a county or city for the additional benefits, based upon the county's or city's local fiscal stress index. This bill incorporates SB 875.
Patron - Stolle

P SB 1218

Health insurance credits; teachers and other local school board employees. Increases the monthly health insurance credit for retired teachers from $2.50 to $4.00 for each full year of the retired member's creditable service. The bill eliminates an overall cap to the credit, and adds retired full-time, salaried employees of local school boards as recipients of the credit. The bill establishes a formula for determining the monthly health insurance credit for teachers whose retirement was for disability. The bill is applicable for current and future retirees from positions as teachers or full-time, salaried employees of local school boards. Pursuant to this bill, a locality would no longer have the option of providing an additional $1 health insurance credit to retired teachers, and the maximum credit that a teacher could receive is $4. This bill incorporates SB 777, SB 831, SB 860, and SB 1170, and is identical to HB 2370.
Patron - Hanger

Failed

F HB 1637

Virginia Retirement System; average final compensation retirement multiplier for teachers. Increases from 1.7 to 2.0 the average final compensation retirement multiplier for teachers with 10 or more years of creditable service earned as a teacher. The bill applies to teachers first retiring on or after July 1, 2007.
Patron - Shuler

F HB 1731

Virginia Retirement System; retirees hired as nurses. Provides that retired persons who are members of the Virginia Retirement System may be hired as nurses without interrupting their retirement benefits under the following conditions: (i) the person has been receiving such retirement allowance for a minimum period of time as jointly determined by VRS and the Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission; (ii) the person has not retired pursuant to an early retirement incentive; and (iii) the person did not voluntarily resign or voluntarily retire under the Workforce Transition Act of 1995.
Patron - Valentine

F HB 1756

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System; membership. Adds probation and parole officers employed by the Department of Juvenile Justice to membership in the Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System.
Patron - Kilgore

F HB 1766

Health insurance credit for retired teachers. Increases the health insurance credit for retired teachers to $4 per month for each year of creditable service with no monthly cap. Under current law, retired teachers with 15 or more years of service are allowed a health insurance credit of $2.50 per month for each year of creditable service with a cap of $75 per month.
Patron - Shuler

F HB 1828

Virginia Retirement System; investments related to Sudan. Requires the Virginia Retirement System, under certain circumstances, to divest itself of investments in companies meeting certain criteria gauged to be related to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Patron - Valentine

F HB 1833

Health insurance credits for retired state employees. Increases the monthly health insurance credit for retired state employees from $4 for each year of creditable service to $6 for each year of creditable service.
Patron - Putney

F HB 1852

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System; agency heads. Provides that no agency head shall be eligible to be a member of the Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System (VaLORS) during the period that he serves as agency head, except for the Chief of the Capitol Police. However, nothing shall affect any benefits attributable to an agency head's service as a member in VaLORS before or after his service as agency head.
Patron - Wittman

F HB 1870

Virginia Retirement System; purchase of prior service credit. Clarifies that National Guard service is one of the types of prior military service that can be purchased and removes the requirement that military service must be active duty in order to be purchased.
Patron - Lewis

F HB 1881

Health insurance credits for retired teachers. Increases the monthly health insurance credit for retired teachers from $2.50 for each year of creditable service to $4 for each year of creditable service. The bill also removes a monthly cap for such credit and reduces the eligibility requirement from 15 years of creditable service to five years of creditable service.
Patron - Caputo

F HB 1882

Virginia Retirement System; average final compensation retirement multiplier for teachers. Increases from 1.7 to 2.0 the average final compensation retirement multiplier for teachers with five or more years of creditable service earned as a teacher. The bill applies to current and future retirees.
Patron - Caputo

F HB 1915

Virginia Retirement System; average final compensation retirement multiplier for teachers. Increases from 1.7 to 2.0 the average final compensation retirement multiplier for teachers with five or more years of creditable service earned as a teacher. The bill applies to teachers first retiring on or after July 1, 2007.
Patron - Ward

F HB 1926

Retirement benefits for certain state employees; early retirement for the terminally ill. Permits early retirement for state employees who have 20 more years of creditable service and who are terminally ill, even though they are less than 50 years of age.
Patron - Griffith

F HB 1941

Virginia Retirement System; defined contribution retirement plan. Creates a new defined contribution retirement plan for all employees who begin employment on or after July 1, 2008, in lieu of participating in any other retirement plan administered by the Virginia Retirement System. All other employees may elect to participate in the plan in lieu of participating in any other retirement plan administered by the Virginia Retirement System.
Patron - Purkey

F HB 1967

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System; agency heads. Provides that no agency head shall be eligible to be a member of the Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System (VaLORS) during the period that he serves as agency head, except for the Chief of the Capitol Police. However, nothing shall affect any benefits attributable to an agency head's service as a member in VaLORS before or after his service as agency head.
Patron - Lewis

F HB 1972

Retirement; teachers and administrative faculty of institutions of higher education. Provides that teachers and administrative faculty of institutions of higher education who are covered under an optional retirement plan (in lieu of the Virginia Retirement System) and have 10 years of service with the Commonwealth may make a one-time, irrevocable election to transfer into VRS.
Patron - Shuler

F HB 1973

Optional retirement plan; institutions of higher education. Provides that the annual contribution to optional retirement plans covering certain employees at institutions of higher education would not be less than the percentage contribution rate in effect that is generally applicable for state employees who are members of the Virginia Retirement System, including the five percent member contribution rate.
Patron - Shuler

F HB 2094

Retirement benefits for local school superintendents. Permits a retired member of the Virginia Retirement System to return to work as a local school division superintendent and still maintain his monthly retirement payments. Such option currently is available to certain other local school board instructional or administrative employees under certain conditions.
Patron - Tata

F HB 2172

Retirement allowance for teachers; removal of sunset date. Removes the sunset date (July 1, 2007) from the retirement provision that permits certain retired teachers to return to teaching and continue to receive retirement payments.
Patron - BaCote

F HB 2246

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System. Permits early retirement for any member of the Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System who has 20 or more years of creditable service and who has suffered a life-threatening illness or medical condition that renders it hazardous to his health to continue in his employment, even though he is less than 50 years of age.
Patron - Hogan

F HB 2420

Retirement; benefits for certain state and local public safety officers. Makes several changes to the benefits of state and local public safety officers and the funding of such benefits. All deputy sheriffs would become members of the Law Enforcement Officers' Retirement System (LEOs). State police officers would receive a 2.0% average final compensation retirement multiplier and would continue to receive the additional annual supplement. Any member of LEOs would receive a 1.7% average final compensation retirement multiplier and the additional annual supplement. However, the multiplier for sheriffs would be increased from 1.7% to 2.0%, and an employer may elect to increase the multiplier to 2.0% for other classes of covered employees. The employer is responsible for paying the actuarial cost of the increase. Beginning July 1, 2007, the Compensation Board would reimburse 100% of each county's or city's employer contribution to the Virginia Retirement System for state-responsible deputy sheriffs. However, the reimbursement would be based upon the salaries of such state-responsible deputy sheriffs as fixed by the Board.
Patron - Kilgore

F HB 2519

Virginia Retirement System; hiring retirees into covered positions. Provides that any person retired under the Virginia Retirement System may be hired into positions otherwise covered under the Virginia Retirement System without interrupting his retirement benefits for up to five years under the following conditions: (i) the person has been receiving such retirement allowance for a minimum period of time as determined by VRS; (ii) the person retired under the normal retirement provisions of his retirement program; and (iii) the person's service performed and compensation received during the period of time will not count towards his retirement benefits.
Patron - Iaquinto

F HB 2693

Virginia Retirement System; retirees hired as nurses. Provides that retired persons who are members of the Virginia Retirement System may be hired as nurses without interrupting their retirement benefits under the following conditions: (i) the person has been receiving such retirement allowance for a minimum period of time as jointly determined by VRS and the Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission; (ii) the person has not retired pursuant to an early retirement incentive; and (iii) the person did not voluntarily resign or voluntarily retire under the Workforce Transition Act of 1995.
Patron - Cline

F HB 2718

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System. Provides that the supplemental allowance currently paid to certain members upon retirement until age 65 would instead be paid until Social Security retirement age.
Patron - Barlow

F HB 2774

Judges; early retirement. Allows a judge who is at least 50 years old with at least 18 years and six months of actual nonweighted service as a judge of the Commonwealth to retire upon expiration of his current term without any reduction in the retirement allowance, provided that the judge gives notice of his retirement to the relevant committee of the General Assembly at least 180 days before the expiration of the term.
Patron - Hurt

F HB 2848

Retirement; benefits for certain state and local public safety officers. Makes several changes to the benefits of state and local public safety officers and the funding of such benefits. All deputy sheriffs would become members of the Law Enforcement Officers' Retirement System (LEOs). State police officers would receive a 2.2% average final compensation retirement multiplier and would continue to receive the additional annual supplement. Any member of LEOs would receive a 1.7% average final compensation retirement multiplier and the additional annual supplement. However, the multiplier for sheriffs would be increased from 1.7% to 2.2%, and an employer may elect to increase the multiplier to 2.2% for other classes of covered employees. The employer is responsible for paying the actuarial cost of the increase. For any county or city that did not provide LEOs benefits to deputy sheriffs as of January 1, 2007, such county or city would be required to provide such benefits to its deputy sheriffs beginning July 1, 2007. For such counties or cities, the Compensation Board would reimburse 100% of the county's or city's employer contribution to the Virginia Retirement System for state-responsible deputy sheriffs. However, the reimbursement would be based upon the salaries of such state-responsible deputy sheriffs as fixed by the Board.
Patron - Moran

F HB 2866

Health insurance credits for retired school division employees. Expands the recipients of the health insurance credits currently going to retired teachers to all retired employees of local school divisions.
Patron - McEachin

F HB 2869

Virginia Retirement System; investments related to Sudan. Requires the Virginia Retirement System, under certain circumstances, to divest itself of investments in companies meeting certain criteria gauged to be related to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Patron - McEachin

F HB 2871

State and local trusts for providing postemployment public benefits. Creates trusts or equivalent arrangements to fund the costs of providing postemployment benefits other than pensions for the Commonwealth and for counties, cities, towns, school divisions, and other political subdivisions of the Commonwealth.
Patron - McEachin

F HB 2904

Virginia Retirement System; information to localities. Directs the Virginia Retirement System to provide each participating locality the locality-specific data as may be necessary for each locality to determine the specific assumptions that are driving its VRS-related costs, and to understand the retirement costs of different classes of covered employees.
Patron - Spruill

F HB 2956

Virginia Retirement System; defined contribution plan. Creates a new defined contribution plan for all employees who enter on or after July 1, 2007, into any position covered by any retirement plan administered by the Virginia Retirement System. The employee has 90 days after entering into such a position to elect to participate in the defined contribution plan or the retirement plan for which he is otherwise eligible.
Patron - Bell

F HB 2984

Virginia Retirement System; retirement benefits for state and local employees. Provides that (i) state police officers hired on or after July 1, 2007, shall have a retirement multiplier of 2.1% and shall not be eligible for the additional annual allowance now available, and that all other state police officers shall have a retirement multiplier of 1.85% (instead of 1.7%); (ii) all other employees covered under the Virginia Retirement System who currently have a retirement multiplier of 1.7% shall have a retirement multiplier of 1.75%; (iii) employees hired on or after July 1, 2007, into a position covered under the State Police Officers' Retirement System (SPORS), the Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System (VaLORS), or a local law-enforcement position with retirement coverage comparable to that of SPORS, who already were vested under either of the other two of these three retirement programs, may choose to maintain coverage under the vested program; (iv) for employees hired on or after July 1, 2007, into a position covered by the Virginia Retirement System, the age and creditable service requirement for unreduced early retirement allowance is changed from 50 years of age and 25 years of service to 55 years of age and 30 years of service; (v) for local law enforcement employees hired on or after July 1, 2007, localities may provide retirement benefits comparable to that provided under VaLORS (and not that provided under SPORS); and (v) the Compensation Board shall reimburse localities, based on the local fiscal stress index, for a portion of the additional cost to the localities of providing local law-enforcement employees retirement coverage comparable to that provided under the State Police Officers' Retirement System (SPORS), or the Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System (VaLORS).
Patron - Ingram

F HB 3009

Local juvenile detention employees; retirement system. States that localities may provide benefits to local employees of juvenile detention facilities who provide direct care or supervision to detainees equivalent to those provided under the State Police Officers' Retirement System.
Patron - Marsden

F HB 3014

Health insurance credits; retired teachers. Increases the monthly health insurance credit for retired teachers to $4 for each full year of service, with no maximum. Also reduces the amount of service time to be eligible for this credit from 15 years to five years.
Patron - Ward

F HB 3027

Health insurance credits; certain retired public officers and employees. Increases the monthly health insurance credit from $1.50 to $2.50 for each full year of creditable service for retired constitutional officers, employees of constitutional officers, general registrars, employees of general registrars, and local social service employees.
Patron - Ingram

F SB 777

Health insurance; credits for retired teachers. Increases the amount of the monthly health insurance credit for retired teachers from $2.50 to $4 per year of service. The maximum monthly credit would not exceed $120. This bill was incorporated into SB 1218.
Patron - Potts

F SB 802

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System. Provides that the supplemental allowance currently paid to certain members upon retirement until age 65 would instead be paid until Social Security retirement age. This bill was incorporated into SB 1156.
Patron - Ruff

F SB 813

Retirement benefits for local school superintendents. Permits a retired member of the Virginia Retirement System to return to work as a local school division superintendent and still maintain his monthly retirement payments. Such option currently is available to certain other local school board instructional or administrative employees under certain conditions.
Patron - Ruff

F SB 831

Health insurance credits; retired teachers. Increases the monthly health insurance credit for retired teachers to $4 for each full year of service, with no maximum. Also reduces the amount of service time to be eligible for this credit from 15 years to five years. This bill was incorporated into SB 1218.
Patron - Devolites Davis

F SB 850

Virginia Retirement System; optional retirement benefits. Provides that local public school boards and political subdivisions of counties, cities, and towns may not offer or provide any optional retirement benefit under the Virginia Retirement System unless authorization for the same is provided by the respective governing body of the county, city, or town.
Patron - Lambert

F SB 851

Virginia Retirement System; elected members of local governing bodies. Adds as members of VRS citizen-elected members of the governing bodies of counties, cities, and towns.
Patron - Lambert

F SB 860

Health insurance credits; teachers and other local school board employees. Increases the monthly health insurance credit for retired teachers from $2.50 to $4.00 for each full year of the retired member's creditable service. The bill also eliminates an overall cap to the credit, and adds retired full-time, salaried employees of local school boards as recipients of the credit. The bill is applicable for current and future retirees from positions as teachers or full-time, salaried employees of local school boards. As is the case under current law, retired local government employees, other than teachers and employees of local school boards, with at least 15 years of creditable service may, at the option of the locality, receive a monthly health insurance credit equal to $1.50 for each full year of the retired member's creditable service. This bill was incorporated into SB 1218.
Patron - Reynolds

F SB 875

Retirement multiplier for public safety officers. Increases the retirement multiplier for hazardous duty service performed by public safety officers by 0.025% for each full year over age 50 at the time of the member's retirement and by an additional 0.025% for each full year of creditable service in excess of 25 years at the time of the member's retirement. The retirement multiplier would be capped at 2.2%. This bill was incorporated into SB 1166.
Patron - McDougle

F SB 889

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System (VALORS). Adds as members of VALORS, Department of Corrections maintenance workers whose normal duties require them regularly to be in the presence of inmate populations.
Patron - Deeds

F SB 895

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System (VALORS). Adds conservation officers of the Department of Conservation and Recreation as members of VALORS.
Patron - Deeds

F SB 962

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System (VALORS). Adds juvenile probation and parole officers as members of VALORS.
Patron - Quayle

F SB 975

Retirement; teachers and administrative faculty of institutions of higher education. Provides that teachers and administrative faculty of institutions of higher education who are covered under an optional retirement plan (in lieu of the Virginia Retirement System) and have 10 years of service with the Commonwealth may make a one-time, irrevocable election to transfer into VRS.
Patron - Edwards

F SB 976

Optional retirement plan; institutions of higher education. Provides that the annual contribution to optional retirement plans covering certain employees at institutions of higher education would not be less than the percentage contribution rate in effect that is generally applicable for state employees who are members of the Virginia Retirement System, including the five percent member contribution rate.
Patron - Edwards

F SB 977

Mandatory retirement for judges. Increases the mandatory retirement age for judges from age 70 to age 75.
Patron - Edwards

F SB 1087

Virginia Retirement System; creditable compensation of teachers. Provides that the creditable compensation of teachers for retirement purposes under the Virginia Retirement System shall include all compensation payable to teachers by their public school boards, including compensation that is not pursuant to a contract for teaching.
Patron - Puckett

F SB 1156

Virginia Law Officers' Retirement System. Provides that the supplemental allowance currently paid to certain members upon retirement until age 65 would instead be paid until Social Security retirement age. This bill incorporates SB 802.
Patron - Quayle

F SB 1170

Health insurance credit for retired teachers. Increases the monthly cap for health insurance credits provided to retired teachers by eliminating the cap on the number of years of service used to compute the credit. This bill was incorporated into SB 1218.
Patron - Stolle

F SB 1311

Judges; early retirement. Allows a judge who is at least 50 years old with at least 15 years of creditable service to retire upon expiration of his current term without any reduction in the retirement allowance, provided that the judge gives notice of his retirement to the relevant committee of the General Assembly at least 180 days before the expiration of the term.
Patron - Hawkins

F SB 1331

Virginia Retirement System; investments related to Sudan. Requires the Virginia Retirement System, under certain circumstances, to divest itself of investments in companies meeting certain criteria gauged to be related to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Patron - Cuccinelli

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