Senate Bill No. 296

Introduced By jergeson, hagener



A Bill for an Act entitled: An Act allowing members of the teachers' retirement system to qualify Montana university system extension service by paying the full actuarial cost of the service; clarifying that members of the teachers' retirement system may not receive duplicate credit for the same period of service; amending sections 19-20-405, 19-20-407, and 19-20-410, MCA; and providing an effective date.



Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Montana:



Section 1.  Section 19-20-405, MCA, is amended to read:

"19-20-405.   Limit on creditable service that may be awarded. The total creditable service for service purchased under 19-20-402, 19-20-403, through 19-20-404, 19-20-408, 19-20-410(1), and 19-20-412 may not exceed 5 years."



Section 2.  Section 19-20-407, MCA, is amended to read:

"19-20-407.   No duplication of benefits when there is more than one credit for same period of service. There A member may not be any duplication of benefits to a member or beneficiary due to there being more than one receive duplicate credit for the same period of service of the member."



Section 3.  Section 19-20-410, MCA, is amended to read:

"19-20-410.   Creditable service for extension service employment. (1) (a) At any time before retirement, a member with 5 years or more of creditable service in the retirement system may make a written election with the retirement board to qualify up to 5 years of his employment service with the Montana cooperative extension service, subject to the limitation contained in 19-20-405, if:

(a)(i)  the member became a member of the retirement system before July 1, 1989;

(b)(ii)  the service involved instructional service at a unit of the Montana university system; and

(c)(iii)  the member received a refund of his membership contributions under the civil service retirement system or the federal employees' retirement system for the service to be qualified.

(2)(b)  To qualify service under this section subsection (1)(a), the member shall contribute to the retirement system an amount equal to the combined employer and employee contribution for his the member's first full year's teaching salary earned after becoming a member of the retirement system for each year of creditable service plus interest at the rate that the contribution would have earned had the contribution been in his the member's account upon the completion of 5 years of membership service. The contribution rate must be that rate in effect at the time that he the member is eligible for the service.

(2) In addition to service purchased under subsection (1) and subject to 19-20-407, a member with 5 years or more of qualified service in the retirement system may qualify any cooperative extension service by contributing to the system the full actuarial cost of the service.

(3) Contributions to qualify service under this section may be made in a lump-sum payment or in installments as agreed upon by the member and the retirement board."



Section 4.  Effective date. [This act] is effective July 1, 1997.

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