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.