Senate Bill No. 544
(By Senator Burnette)
____________
[Introduced March 21, 2001; referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
____________
A BILL to amend and reenact section forty-eight, article ten,
chapter five of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to limiting state
retirees receiving state retirement annuities from earning
more than ten thousand dollars in the event they are appointed
or elected to public office.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section forty-eight, article ten, chapter five of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 10. WEST VIRGINIA PUBLIC EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT ACT.
§5-10-48. Reemployment, appointment or election after retirement.
(a) In the event a retirant becomes employed by a participating public employer, or is elected or appointed to public
office, payment of his or her annuity shall be suspended during the
period of his or her reemployment and he or she shall become a
contributing member to the retirement system. If his or her
reemployment is for a period of one year or longer, his or her
annuity shall be recalculated and he or she shall be granted an
increased annuity due to such additional employment, said annuity
to be computed according to in accordance with section twenty-two
of this article. A retirant may accept temporary employment from
a participating employer so long as he or she does not receive
annual compensation in excess of ten thousand dollars.
(b) In the event a retirant is elected to a public office or
appointed to hold an elected public office, he or she has the
option, notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, to either:
(1) Continue to receive payment of his or her annuity while
holding such public office, in addition to the salary he or she may
be entitled to as such office holder; or
(2) Suspend the payment of his or her annuity and become a
contributing member of the retirement system as provided in
subsection (a) of this section.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to
limit state retirees
receiving state retirement annuities from earning more than ten
thousand dollars in the event they are appointed or elected to
public office.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.