1937 County Employees Retirement Act

Donna Rae

My employer, Superior Court of Mendocino County (California) started paying the employees portion of retirement January 1, 2002. Prior to that employees made a contribution to the retirement system and when they broke service (not retired) were allowed to take the portion they contributed. Now when an employee terminates, the county retirement system keeps the contribution, does not give it to the employee, nor return it to the Court. Does anyone have any information regarding a topic like this? I know the Court paid portion would stay, as a standard practice, but the portion paid on behalf of the employee too? I did ask the Retirement Specialist at the County, but so far have not received a resonse to my question. I have sent a broadcast to the other Superior Courts in CA who are in the 1937 system looking for answers, but so far their employees pay their own contribution. Thanks for any help you may be able to offer.

Hatchetman

I work for Los Angeles County. As far as I know, the contribution paid by the County is not recoverable by the employee if the employee quits. Only the portion paid by the emplyee is recoverable. If the emplyee is in a plan in which he or she makes no contributions, then nothing would be recoverable if the employee quits.

Los Angeles County 20 years ago developed an all County-paid retirement plan. Employees who were then employed and members of one the County/Employee-paid contribution plans in existence at that time, could opt out and transfer into the all-County paid plan. Of course, the retirement benefits would be far less substantial...lower pension benefits; no cost of living adjustments; more years of service to full retirement; no disablity retirement; etc. The upside of course was that the employee was regaining some earnings which he or she could then use toward 401(k) and 457b plans, if so desired. All new employees would be placed in the all-County paid plan or a low benefit County-Employee paid plan.

It sounds as if Mendocino County did the same thing at some time or other. This non-recoverability should have all ben explained when Mendocino County developed its non-employee contribution retirement plan.

I believe within the past two or three years, State law changed again that now allows emplyees who opted out of a county or city's employee-contributed retirement plan, to opt back into one without having to pay the back contributions.

The 1937 Act, as modified over the years, can be found in Califonria's Gvernment Code, Section 31450 and following. Take a look specifically at Section 31484, which establishes the ability of the County jurisdiciton to have a different retirement plan and allows members to opt out of the Plan originally established under the Act to the new plan and 31484.8 which talks about a break in service and the applicable retirement plan for the returning employee.


The link below is the Act as it now exists in the Government Code

[url]http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=gov&group=31001-32000&file=31450-31485.8[/url].

I'm not a retirement analyst or specialist. I strongly suggest you obtain some summary information from your Retirement Association about the plan you are now in.

Donna Rae

Thank you for the wealth of information. I am trying to contact the County's retirement specialist, but my calls have not been returned. I will continue looking thru the Act for further clarification.